Wow! Overnight, the community blooms with friendly and complete, high-quality suggestions. I note too that there is a Thomas product or add-on, which may be better suited for the three-year-old while I get up to speed with the big hogs. When I was in college (back in the Pleistoscene era), I belonged for too short a time to a major railroad modeling club in Springfield, MA that met in the basement of an old school and had some 60-100 sf of track and systems. The area I had focused on was realistic detailing of basic boxcars etc. The club sat at the base (theoretically and historically, as well as operationally) for a major B&M sub-system that ran up the Westfield River and across the lower Berkshires into New York State. I lived thereafter on the northern B&M east-west link between Albany and Boston this side of the Hoosac Tunnel and used to visit an accommodating small-to-middling marshaling yard just south of Greenfield. A brief stay had my bedroom next to the line in a Northern Middlesex community where the rhythms of freights and commuters was better than a grandfather clock. I have also had the meditative experience of hearing train whistles afar on long coal shipments up and down the Kanawha River in West Virginia whose scenery is matchless. My own rail travel includes a few trips down the mainline along the East Coast courtesy of Amtrak. The rest is in my mind, and now in my iMac. Thanks for the leads to the glossaries; they will help me brush up quickly.
While the trains are way off in the horizon, my own experience with simulation games is a bit tighter. I am convinced this was a good buy in the long run for enjoyment by several newbies and an old er, um, fellow.
