Hi everyone, I really appreciated all of the help. I especially want to thank the folks at
La Grange Hobby Center
They set me up with some $5 manual switches and $2 straights (per the suggestions here). The only thing I was missing was my pink foam that I was going to place underneath and use the nail-rubberband bumpers as suggested here. It would have fit into a 2 x 8 cut into 4 foot sections for transport. I swear someone in the house ate it because it was just here! I used cardboard instead. The boys spent an hour at the train rotating through 3 times (including some siblings not in the photo). We discussed class 1 railroads, stop-look-listen, train breaking distances, and types and uses of freight. In all I would say a successful meeting.
