Hump Yard
This is a much better layout for an almost-three-year-old. It doesn’t use all the pieces of the set: instead I just watched how Robin played with the track and arranged it in the way that seemed most suitable. We ended up with only a small piece of elevation (the bridge is on a little hill) and a long straight stretch of track after, so that Robin can send the trains hurtling down the hill until they gradually roll to a stop. Also there’s enough room between that arm of the layout and the loop on the other side that Robin can crawl into the gap, making it much easier for him to reach all the sections of track without knocking anything down.
When Sam came in to check my work, he said, “Hey, you’ve made a hump yard!” So this layout gets bonus points for gesturing towards realism, I guess.
