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DIY Wooden Toy Castles for Trains — Thomas & Friends King of the Railway

September 17, 2013 By Jessica Petersen 8 Comments

These DIY wooden toy castles look fantastic with our wooden train tracks, but they were so easy — and inexpensive! — to make. This is a fun project to do with a child, teaching them about measurement along the way, or to give as a gift to round out a train collection with a unique piece. And they’re perfect for celebrating the release of Thomas & Friends’ new movie, King of the Railway.

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

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We’ve been waiting for King of the Railway to be released for months, and today it’s finally available! (You can get the movie on DVD or Blu-ray, or rent or buy it today on Amazon Instant Video.) Between reading King of the Railway books and watching the trailer (and fan videos) on YouTube, we can’t wait to have time to sit down and watch the whole movie.

As always, we like to be able to play out our favorite videos and books with our wooden trains. So when I spotted these wooden birdhouses made to look like castles at Michael’s, I couldn’t leave the store without one. And because I had a $5 off coupon — the price of one castle — we ended up taking home two. I don’t want to give away the ending of the story too much, but I knew it would be fitting to have a castle for each of two different engines to “sleep” in.

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

I enlisted my husband’s help to add a hole for the wooden tracks to connect to the castle and widen the entrance so a wooden train could fit through it. It was so fun to watch him teach the Little Engineer how to measure trains, castle, and tracks, and how to make decisions about how big to make the holes and openings. My husband wanted me to point out that my son’s toy caliper is accurate enough to use for the job. I think they both enjoyed using one of the Little Engineer’s tools on a real project.

Note: if you have a child helping with this project, make sure they stand back while power tools are in use. Safety goggles are a good idea, too.

Directions:

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

For the track connection:

1. The castles are built from pine, which is very soft and prone to splintering. We found it was necessary to drill a smaller pilot hole first to avoid some of that. Make sure to center it in front of the opening to the castle after using a piece of track to figure out how far back the hole will need to be.

2. This is the step where I admit to being human and numbering my steps out of order. But this is exactly the kind of hole you want to have after step 3!

3. Following the pilot hole, drill a hole wide enough to accommodate the peg connector on the wooden track. I think my husband said he used a 1/2 inch drill bit, but double check that.

4. With a small handsaw, cut in toward the hole to fit the shape of the peg-end of the track. You’ll want to use a more finely-toothed saw than the one pictured; we switched blades to minimize splintering soon after this picture was taken.

5. Pull away any splinters, sand the edges, and test a piece of wooden track.

6. The Little Engineer thought it was also a good idea to test a train on the track, just in case.

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

For widening the entrance to the castle:

7. Measure how high and wide the entrance needs to be, based on the size of the largest train. Use a hole saw to cut out the top of the new, larger entrance.

8. With the handsaw, saw straight down the sides of the new entrance.

9. When we broke away the thin strips on the sides, there was a small bit of wood stuck with glue to the base of the castle. Use the handsaw to remove it.

10. Sand the edges and test again…and again!

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

The final step is painting and decorating the castle. I checked the color of the castle in a King of the Railway book and tried to match its sandstone-like color by mixing yellow and a reddish brown into white craft paint. I layered lighter and darker tones as well as some gray to give it a natural appearance. I had been planning to make the blue, yellow, and white banners from felt and glue them on, but the Little Engineer really wanted to paint his, so that’s what we did. I’ll probably go back and make mine look more like the ones in the movie later (the paint took a long time to dry), or maybe I’ll fight my perfectionist tendencies.

Here’s my castle, with the wooden version of Stephen, the new major character in the movie:

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

And here’s the Little Engineer’s castle with the wooden version of Millie, another new character (a new favorite at our house, along with Stephen):

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

I think his looks way cooler than mine! Seriously…that’s not just a mother’s bias talking. In person, his looks more interesting. Instead of fixing the banners, I may just paint over them and ask him to do it for me.

When we were working on our Floating Word Discovery Bottles, I also laminated some stickers to play with, including two Sir Topham Hatt and the Earl of Sodor stickers from The Secret of the Mine, a coloring book based on the movie that comes with several glow-in-the-dark stickers. They fit the size of the castle nicely.

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

I’m really pleased with the way these turned out. The engines fit perfectly inside the castles, and they look really nice with the wooden track. I think we’re going to be playing with these for a long time to come!

DIY Castle for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! http://play-trains.com An inexpensive craft perfect for playing out the new Thomas & Friends movie, King of the Railway!

If you’re interested in more DIY train set projects, check out some of ours:

DIY Zoo Set for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains! Our train twist on the Jungle Diorama from Jo-ann's Cape Discovery summer crafting challenge. #summerofjoann

DIY Wooden Train Zoo

Add excitement and realism to your child's wooden train layouts with this Recycled Cardboard Box Platform for Wooden Trains @ Play Trains!

Upcycled Wooden Train Track Platform

Pipe Cleaner Trees for Wooden Train Layouts @ Play Trains! Another DIY element we've come up with to add to our toy train set.

Pipe Cleaner Trees for Small Worlds

Kids' Crafts for Train Sets: Dryer Sheet Box Engine Shed @ Play Trains!

Dryer Sheet Box Wooden Train Shed

Filed Under: Preschoolers, School-age Kids, Train Crafts for Kids, Train Obsessed, Train Set Accessories, Uncategorized, Wooden Train Play Tagged With: DIY, King of the Railway, Thomas & Friends, train set scenery, wooden trains

« Outdoor Fall Train Play — Fall Invitations to Play
Learning Sprout Toys — Tacoma Toy Store Train Tables »

Comments

  1. sara says

    September 19, 2013 at 12:58 am

    Love your idea!! I got a castle birdhouse at michaels today. My little man helped me paint it and daddy cut the opening as you suggested. He added another opening to the other side to make it more of a castle tunnel…such a great idea. Thanks for sharing!! 🙂

    Reply
    • Jessica Petersen says

      September 23, 2013 at 3:21 pm

      How wonderful! Thanks for telling me!! I thought of the tunnel idea, too, but we thought the trains might derail a bit too often for my son without rail grooves going through the castle. And he wanted them to be places for the trains to sleep. 🙂 But I’m really happy to hear it worked!

      Reply
  2. Ann @ My Nearest and Dearest says

    September 23, 2013 at 1:56 am

    Wow, such a great idea! You’ve got me thinking about what I can do with the two little birdhouses we painted a little while ago, but which are no longer seeing much action…hmmm. 🙂

    Reply
  3. Carolyn @ The Pleasantest Thing says

    September 23, 2013 at 2:36 am

    This is so creative!! It would never have occurred to me in a million years, but I love it!

    Reply
  4. Sarah @ How Wee Learn says

    September 24, 2013 at 11:48 pm

    Such a creative idea! My goodness! And I love those pipe cleaner trees – so cute!!! I just used them in my Small World Play for my wee one —- thank you for sharing!

    Reply
  5. OneMommy says

    October 8, 2013 at 2:19 am

    How adorable! We just read our first book about Stephen and his adventures… I think this one may become one of our favorite Thomas stories very quickly!

    Reply
  6. John says

    February 24, 2014 at 6:21 am

    Love this! I wonder if I could put a router through the base of the bird house and give it track to keep it from derailing somehow to make a tunnel. Hmmm.
    Food for thought. Excellent.

    Reply
  7. Dan says

    January 3, 2015 at 5:52 pm

    Lay a long straight track on the underside, trace, and cutout. Use Gorilla glue to attach the straight track to the house base. Now you have a track through the castle.

    Reply

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