I made a Thomas the train party for my 3 year old son's birthday. I started two weeks before the party.  I made railroad crossing arms (4) with PVC pipes and left over cardboard from an appliance box. I made them look exactly like crossing arms and I made "RR" signs to attach to the crossing arms and several round reflectors and placed them in our front yard on the day of the party.  As the guest approached the home they heard the sounds of the "ding, ding..." from a real crossing guard and an approaching train. These sounds were from a sound track cd that my husband recorded onto a black cd for the party.  The nosies were mixed with other train sounds and looped to play continuously.   I used black and silver duct tape on my driveway up to my front door (silver duct tape for the rails, black for the ties).  I had a switching track that led away from where the guests would walk that had several "troublesome trucks" on it. I made these from rubbermade containers--I just drew wheels and faces on posterpaper and attached them with tape to the containers w/ out lids. Then I used black trash bags filled with crumbled newspapers to make it appear that the rail cars had coal in them.  I placed a small sign that read "troublesome trucks" so guests knew the cars names.  I also made three different drawings of James, Gordan and Henry (about 3 ft high by 2 ft wide) and attached them to cardboard and fastened a picture frame type "kick stand" to the backs of the pictures and placed them out front on different tracks that I made from the silver and black duct tape.   As the guests came to the door, I would place a neckless that I made that stated the arrival time (time of party), 1st stop (1st event of party) etc.. until the last entry "Departure time". For my party we had to wrap things up to visit a local corn maze and pumpkin patch...so that was the departure destination for us.    The neckless' were a game that only I (host) knew about. On the back of each "arrival" neckless was a train name from Thomas the Train..(Henry, James, Toby....etc). Even Sir Topham Hat was used. Before the cake, I would draw a name from the hat and whom ever had the name on their neckless won a train prize.  Prizes were Thomas the train books, pencil sets etc...     I also made a Thomas the Train (face cut out) on an old piece of drywall.  I drew a picture of Thomas on his track with a mountain background. On the top of the picture (in the clouds) I wrote my son's name, "3rd birthday" and "2004". As guest arrived I took pictures of their family as they put their faces into the hole that would have had Thomas' face.  That was a hit because I mailed the pictures back to the guests along with the Thank you cards as a reminder of the fun party.  I made a "pin the whistle on Thomas" game.  I also recycled the Thomas the train drywall (above) and used that for a ball toss game for the little ones.  We had a "sun" pinata and a cake that I placed real Thomas the trains  (that were new to my son)on the cake so he got an extra surprise as he blew out the candles. At the end of the party, as parting gifts, I passed out wooden train whistles, red bandandas, and railroad hats to all the kids and got a group picture of every one.   Everyone was amazed and had a great time.  It was a lot of work for me but well worth it when I got to see those guests faces light up as they approached our Thomas the Train home!