I am making a Thomas the Train cake (using ideas I saw here on CC!) that will need to travel 1 1/2 hours. I will be meeting the mom halfway and she will take it home and then to the party the next day. The plan is to have 2 10" round cakes frosted with buttercream (fondant decorations), and a 3D decorated Percy train cake perched on top. I've never doweled a cake before, but I've read several posts and I think I can handle it. My question is should I: A) run a longer dowel or two through all cakes along with the shorter dowels for support (will this be too heavy or too unstable?) or B) Bring the cakes separately and let the mom set Percy on top at the party (He will be iced in buttercream stars probably- I wouldn't be able to decorate the seam where he sits on the cake since I won't be there)-Thanks!

I refuse to have anyone else but myself assemble my cakes. so option "B" would be an absolute no for me. You never know how it's going to look if someone else just "plops" it on top. I always put a dowel rod down thru the middle of all tiered cakes. This makes it much more stable for transporting.

Thank you so much for your advice. I am very new at cake decorating, but am eager to try new things and don't want to limit my ideas because I don't know how to do something. I will probably take your advice and drive VERY carefully! I think I read to put some tacky shelf liner under the cake board in the box to keep it from sliding and hitting sides of the box. Do you think one 1/4" dia. dowel rod through the train should hold it up, or would you use more than one? I don't want Percy to break in half either!

Well, Step one of baking my cakes hasn't gone very well. I followed the baking instructions on the pan exactly and was even being extra cautious after reading some other posts on the topic, however the middle of the train was runny even though I cooked it for the longest recommended time on the pan. I used the tester hole and my cake tester came out clean. The runny part was on another part of the train. This was discovered after the cake had cooled 15 minutes on one side and was turned over with the bottom/back removed. UGH! I quickly put the pan back together and put it back in the oven. I ended up cooking it another 15-20 minutes! It is now cooked through (and even may be overcooked in some places I guess!) Is my oven not hot enough? I think we are going to get an oven thermometer. I'm now waiting for the recommended 4 hours for complete cooling before I try standing it up. In the meantime I'm baking my two 10" rounds. I hope they come out right!