Looking for a cheap, simple, fold-away table for your children’s wooden train set? Here’s a quick and easy solution.
If your child loves his or her wooden trains but you don’t have a lot of space, don’t want to spend a lot of money on it and don’t have the time or tools to make your own wooden train set table there’s another option.
Click over to Amazon and get one of these decorating tables. They’re available for approximately £10 and £40 depending on material and size.
While decorating tables aren’t wide enough for a circular railway they’re more than adequate for a three sets of parallel track which can be linked with a turntable or points (see the above picture) and they’re long enough for bridges, tunnels and buildings and so can still keep your son or daughter entertained. Just perfect for Thomas and his friends to roll up and down on!
And, best of all, they fold away when not in use and so eat up space when not use.
For young children, you might want to chop a bit off the legs to make it lower and I’d tack a couple of support batons under the surface of the wooden* ones to give better support in the middle but this isn’t needed.
To make it look better, a quick covering of green spray paint will make it look more friendly and the railway on it look a lot better.
* A tiny warning, if you go for the wooden ones there is a risk of splinters so you might want to also smooth them down and paint the exposed wooden legs etc.
If you enjoy this article you might also enjoy my other posts on wooden train sets and railways.
Andy is a lifelong modeler, writer, and founder of modelrailwayengineer.com. He has been building model railways, dioramas, and miniatures for over 20 years. His passion for model making and railways began when he was a child, building his first layout at the age of seven.
Andy’s particular passion is making scenery and structures in 4mm scale, which he sells commercially. He is particularly interested in modelling the railways of South West England during the late Victorian/early Edwardian era, although he also enjoys making sci-fi and fantasy figures and dioramas. His website has won several awards, and he is a member of MERG (Model Railway Electronics Group) and the 009 Society.
When not making models, Andy lives in Surrey with his wife and teenage son. Other interests include history, science fiction, photography, and programming. Read more about Andy.