B1836 – Tracktown Railway Sets the Standard

Tracktown Railway Gets GeoTrax on Track

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Tracktown Railway appears to be the first GeoTrax set produced by Fisher Price in 2003. It has the lowest product ID, B1836, of any set available.

Tracktown Railway is naturally a good starter set. It contains several buildings, lots of track and signs, a push train with three cars, and a remote controller.

The buildings shown above are a Coal Mine (blue), Pipe Works (red and white), Depot (green and white), and Gantry (yellow).

The Coal Mine lifts the black (coal) boulders up to the top and then dumps them into your coal car as it waits beneath. So you naturally want to run some of your track under that coal drop area.

The Pipe Works “creates” the yellow pipes. You want to have your track layout go over the gray area in front of this building. When you make the Pipe Works function, the smokestack will bob up and down and a pipe will slide down the chute into your pipe car. Sadly, these three pipes are often missing from second-hand sets.

The Depot is a place to insert your remote controllers that have electrical connections – three of them – at the lower front edge. After inserting your controller and pushing it forward, not only will your train move forward down the track, but you will also hear sounds coming from the controller through the Depot’s speakers. The sounds are appropriate to whichever engine you are running.

In later GeoTrax sets, Fisher Price would incorporate sounds into their remote controllers without the use of a Depot.

The Gantry straddles the track wherever you need to lift and move cargo. GeoTrax cargo is normally in the shape of a cube. These cubes fit nicely into the crane that slides along the top of the Gantry.

Even though this set was discontinued in 2005, it is still fairly readily available. Occasionally you may find that the set is not quite complete, but usually only one or two small pieces are missing – often one or more of the pipes, as mentioned earlier.

A complete Tracktown Railway set consists of the following items.

• Remote Controller (Requires 3 AAA batteries)
• Train Engine (Requires 3 AAA batteries)
• Pipe Car
• Coal Car
• Caboose
• Depot
• Pipe Works
• Coal Mine
• Gantry
• 3 Pipes
• 2 Crates
• 2 Crossing Gates
• 2 Railroad Crossing Signs
• 2 Stop Signs
• 2 Yield Signs
• 2 Black Boulders
• 2 Large Ramps with Tunnels
• Gray Bridge (for connecting the Ramps)
• 6 Curved Rail Tracks
• 2 Y-Tracks (Rail style)
• 5 Straight Rail Tracks
• 2 Cross Tracks
• 2 On/Off Ramps (Road style)

From the outset, Fisher-Price included a vehicle with a remote controller. The Tracktown Railway train also includes a Pipe Car, Coal Car, and Caboose.

Watch a video of this set in action.

The sticker on top of a remote controller always shows which vehicle (usually a train engine) it is associated with.

You will find pipes in GeoTrax sets with the Pipe Works. Three pipes make a complete set, but one or more of these is often missing from a used set. You can stack them in the Pipe Car.

An unusual feature I have discovered in these big, green ramp/tunnels is that they are not completely interchangeable. Some of them have two small nodules protruding from the circle at the top end of the ramp. Gray bridges (below) that came in the same set have corresponding openings so the bridge can sit properly atop the ramps and make the connection.

This is normally not a problem unless you come across a set with mismatched ramps and bridge. In such a case, you can’t snap the bridge snugly into place. It may still work okay and your train may still make it safely across, but this is something you’ll want to check if you’re having problems.

I think this variation comes from one or more later releases of the Tracktown Railway – the Deluxe, Super Deluxe, and Bonus editions.

The gray bridge is mainly used to connect the 2 ramps-with-tunnels shown above.