In case you are like me and didn't know this until recently, I will inform you that there are traveling toy-train conventions. We checked one out the other day.
This is a set that spanned a 5 square yards. Everyone stood around watching the train circle the miniature rural town. It doesn't look that exciting in the photograph, but it was Benjamin's favorite attraction, and we almost could not get him to leave with us to look at anything else. (Good thing we're bigger than he is.)
There were about 20 kiosks set up too, each with an entire miniature scene set up, with incredible detail. There was a Lego city, a metro area with bullet trains, a prairie scene with a coal train that rode through the plain and then into the dusty little town. My favorite was a train kiosk that had a little U.S. town scene that looked like the old west, but as the train went around the circle, each town scene seemed to progress in time about two decades. So the train traveled from about 1830 or so to about 1990 (I think). It was pretty neat. I am kicking myself for not getting more pictures of it now, but a small part of it is in the two pictures below.
Adele's favorite attraction, and Benjamin's second favorite, was the ride-on Thomas the Train. The policy was that the cutest kids had to sit in the caboose.
