Good morning, friends! Here's my situation... I'm doing a boy's first birthday cake (nut free) for my friend's son. The theme is trains. I would rather not buy the 3D train cake pan from Wilton, because I doubt I'd ever use it, again (plus, I've heard it's a pain to decorate). I've tried to do my research on here and find out how to "assemble" a train out of cake slices (*any advice on that would be appreciated!!!), but am needing to know what TYPE of cake to do?!? The mom hasn't specified a prefernce of tiered or 3D, even though I'm leaning more towards a 3D train with cars pulling behind (like so many of the AWESOME cakes here on CC). However, the guest list consists of 17 kids, and 28 adults. If 1/2 to 1/3 of that guest list show up (because not everyone will make it), will that train caravan feed everyone? Then, for the smash cake, I was planning on using one of the train cars!?! ANY advice would be GREATLY, GREATLY appreciated!!! Thanks a million! 
I would suggest a 9x13 or a 12x18 with a small 3D-train cake on top. I don't think you would get near enough servings from just a train cake for all the people you have to serve. The 3D cake does not have to be huge, just small rectangles, maybe 2x3, with Life Saver wheels, on an licorice whip track. The engine could be bigger with a mini muffin for the smokestack and a square for the engine cab. You could make ice cream cone trees. I would use all sorts of candies to decorate it. Fill the cars with red hots and gum drops and jelly beans. Does that make sense?
Good Luck! 
I saw a cute cake once that was a small stacked cake and they made the top tier look like it had a tunnel entrance and exit to it and they put a small train on tracks on the part of the bottom tier that was showing.....it was adorable. (they used a purchased small train for it)
The Thomas cake that I have in my photos would feed that many with some to spare. You could just make the train any color you wanted so it wasn't a "Thomas". I used a 10" square one layer cake for the base and two 10" square layers cut up for the train (I cut each layer in half and only used three of the halves. I think I trimmed a bit off the end too so it didn't hang off the base cake too much). I know there are no train cars but you could do the same thing with a smaller square pan (6" or 8") and add cars to it.
HTH,
Heather
Oh, thank you SO much, ladies! I'm VERY new to cake making, and this will be my first "client", even though I'm just doing this for experience (not expecting payment). Still, I want it to do my best! I will be sure and post pictures, if I'm not too ashamed. If I am, then look for it in the "WORST cakes" forum! Now I'm off to look at your galleries! Thanks, again! Blessings!
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