This was only my second cake I've made - Cake was a layered chocolate devil's food cake with oreo cream. I covered it in a chocolate glaze and let it set firm to hold the shape of the mountain. Everything else was handmade from fondant. For the train, I used a block of fondant that had dried really hard over a few weeks and carved it to make the shape of Thomas, and then covered it with fondant as you would a cake and decorated him from there. My youngest son is a mad Thomas fan!