Here is one of my finest 'toy' projects. It is not designed for hard play but rather as a keepsake.
My four year old son loves his. He does play with it, ever so kindly, on occasion
but mostly leaves it on display atop his bookshelf.
It is my own design taken from a picture of an old toy. This project is only for experienced woodcrafters.
I did not give a lot of detail on this page as you should be quite capable of building from the drawings
if you are skilled enough to complete this project. It requires great precision and skill to end up with a fine project.

Head-on elevation drawing of the engine. Here comes a powerful steam engine down the tracks!! Bring a touch of nostalgia from the days when steam engines thundered across this young country and united the East Coast with the West coast. You can almost hear the steam whistle blowing when you look over the details of this steam giant. (Check out my steam whistle plans too and you CAN hear them.) This six axle beauty will get many wonderful comments from your child's friends and the parents too. A variety of good hardwoods will lend good lines to the unit. Use a dark wood, such as Black Walnut, for the wheels and the boiler.Use a light wood, such as Maple or Birch, for the bases and use a redish wood, such as BlackCherry or Rosewood, for the engine cab and tender sides. The train is designed to a scale of about 1/16th. The overal sizes of the completed item are as follows: Display base : Engine : Tender : 24" long x 4" wide x 1" tall. 24" long x 4" wide x 1" tall. 24" long x 4" wide x 1" tall. Make the boiler from a dark wood. Turn the first two 'steps' on the front of the boiler as part of the turned boiler. The third step (G) should be turned seperately and from a medium color wood. To best locate the center of your starting stock, always draw lines from corner to corner. To minimize the amount of wood to be cut away, cut a small bevel off each edge too but be craeful that you do not cut off too much and reduce the size of the final rounded stock. Locate center of your turning stock The 'cow pusher' for the engine front is no doubt the hardest part to cut as it invloves multiple angle-compound cuts. I used a straight bit in my router to cut the steps in the front of the engine Marking the cuts for the cow pusher. base then carefully squared up the cuts with an Exacto knife. Drill a small pilot hole all the way through the center of you turning stock before shaping the wheels so the axle holes will stay centered later. There's a lot of detail in the tender trucks (wheels) but notginh too cimplicaed or tricky.

Right click on any drawing, above, for the full size drawings as an Adobe Acrobat (pdf) file..