Train Table

The pictures are backing up on me and we still have a pre-Thanksgiving Day weekend with Brian and Alexa to post about along with the actual T-Day holiday with Grammy and Grandpa in just a few days! Here is Alton playing with his train table, a fantastic toy from the playroom of *E and *O, who were so generous to pass this on to their younger "cousin." (First cousin once removed? We have to look it up every time.) The table is just at the right height for Alton, with bins on the long sides to store all of the trains and track pieces. The surface of the tabletop is white laminate on one side for play or coloring, and country scenic on the other side for meandering locomotives. We received this table from the Groeners several months ago and Alton was happily using the table itself for other toys, but we thought maybe the train/track stuff was too advanced? Pieces too small? We went over to a few friends' houses recently who have train tables and he was hooked! So we got out his tracks and trains and he went to town on them. He will happily spend hours hooking up the magnetic trains together, zooming them along the track, taking the track apart (I don't think we've yet mastered the concept of putting the track together), and driving the little trains through his Little People barns and Zoo.
The pictures below are the usual representation of train table play--Andy the Civil Engineer hard at work, Alton going "BBBBbbbbRRRRrrrrrr."