Rail Fan

I knew bringing Layth to the Sandown Railway Expo would be an awesome day out for him! The Expo is on during this long Labour Day weekend at Sandown Racecourse near Springvale.

When we got there the line at the entrance was sooooo long. It was so crowded inside full of screaming excited kids and similarly excited adults too hehehe. There were many booths with different miniature railways. They ranged from large miniature (that we could ride on it) to the miniature ones that could fit in the palm of our hand.

It was one thing seeing the model train owners reprimanding the kids to not touch the trains but seeing full grown adults get slapped on the wrist for touching the small trains was so amusing!

Layth was so excited!!!! He was shouting "Choo choo train" here and there. Sometimes he'd look at them with real concentration as if studying the engineering aspects of it. Hahah!

We learnt a lot of new train jargon like hopper cars, caboose, boom gates and "steamie". Layth knows now which carriages are freight, passenger or mining products. Erm, I'm not surprised since we hung around the place for a full 4 hours!

Can't be a railway expo without trusty Thomas! Most of the kids there had Thomas tshirts, pants, hats, shoes, bags, water bottles and the lot! Lots of Thomas hardcore fans there. Too bad Layth didn't wear his Thomas tshirt and hat! Hehehehe. They had miniature trains on sale there too. I'm assumming they're for adults since $700 is way too expensive for a child's toy!

Didn't have anyone to take my photo so had to do the basic "arm lengthening" technique. I was bored and had an aching back by this time because we had stood at this spot for an hour. Layth didn't want to leave this spot because he had found this...

A realistic train crossing with flashing lights, sounds and boom gates that went down everytime a train passed by. He spent an hour just watching this!!

Tried my hand at railway photography...

And after 4 hours and a promise to paint some trains at home, I managed to pry this little boy away (without tears yeay!) and went home with a free railway enthusiast magazine; a suitable end to a perfect choo choo day.