My son is a lover of trains, especially the Polar Express. We had talked about a change in his room toward a "train theme" for quite some time, and after looking at several pictures of the Polar Express Train, I decided to transform his bed into one. I've also been working on my basement, so I've been to the local Home Depot quite a few times. After deciding to use a few pieces of plywood, leftover electrical switches and leftover bead board, also a large PVC pipe for the funnel, I got to work making up plans to build the train. Plywood made most of the project easy, in large part thanks to my jigsaw and table saw. After getting the wood completed (and breaking a window by accident!), the big funnel and cattle guard were the next big step - I wasn't sure how to mount either to the front of the train. Eventually, I decided on Gorilla caulking and securing the funnel (PVC pipe) to the frame by using a pipe clamp. To make the cattle guard, I used several smaller PVC pipes and secured them in a similar fashion. After completing the build, I added ambient rope lights and several LED lights to the train all fashioned to a small switchboard in the front that my son can control any time, all of which was fashioned to a plug-in to the wall. Lastly, I added for fun a small soundbox that plays train noises (the "choo choo" sound - specifically the Polar Express' sound). Once finished, it was put up in his room while he was out with his Grandpa for awhile. He came home to a pretty awesome treat. The rest of the day he was the engineer for the Polar Express and told the whole family what to do, pretty much acting out the entire movie for us! His birthday was the next day - everybody came up to see the train, and my son made sure everyone had the whole tour! I will definitely remember a few tips and tricks for future projects - namely that it's pretty important to be able to disassemble the bed (one heck of a move to an upstairs bedroom) when it's bigger than the door space! Thankfully, it only took a little bit of tinkering to get it all through!
My son is a lover of trains, especially the Polar Express. We had talked about a change in his room toward a "train theme" for quite some time, and after looking at several pictures of the Polar Express Train, I decided to transform his bed into one. I've also been working on my basement, so I've been to the local Home Depot quite a few times. After deciding to use a few pieces of plywood, leftover electrical switches and leftover bead board, also a large PVC pipe for the funnel, I got to work making up plans to build the train. Plywood made most of the project easy, in large part thanks to my jigsaw and table saw. After getting the wood completed (and breaking a window by accident!), the big funnel and cattle guard were the next big step - I wasn't sure how to mount either to the front of the train. Eventually, I decided on Gorilla caulking and securing the funnel (PVC pipe) to the frame by using a pipe clamp. To make the cattle guard, I used several smaller PVC pipes and secured them in a similar fashion. After completing the build, I added ambient rope lights and several LED lights to the train all fashioned to a small switchboard in the front that my son can control any time, all of which was fashioned to a plug-in to the wall. Lastly, I added for fun a small soundbox that plays train noises (the "choo choo" sound - specifically the Polar Express' sound). Once finished, it was put up in his room while he was out with his Grandpa for awhile. He came home to a pretty awesome treat. The rest of the day he was the engineer for the Polar Express and told the whole family what to do, pretty much acting out the entire movie for us! His birthday was the next day - everybody came up to see the train, and my son made sure everyone had the whole tour! I will definitely remember a few tips and tricks for future projects - namely that it's pretty important to be able to disassemble the bed (one heck of a move to an upstairs bedroom) when it's bigger than the door space! Thankfully, it only took a little bit of tinkering to get it all through!
