Fabulous old train. Nothing wrong with using a compact camera I use one too -- nice shots.
What software do you use to process your photos? Hope you don't mind, here's your first train with some adjustments. I assumed the train was black and you took the photo under a normal midday blue sky. So I shifted the color to get the sky and the train less cyan. I desaturated your green leaves and raised the contrast of the whole photo. As a finishing touch I burned down the foreground lower right.
Your edit looks very nice. Maybe im being nit-picky but theres only a couple things I don't like too much. One thing is the front of the train looks a little too dark. And the other thing is the burning down of the foreground gives the cement an odd orangeish tint and really highlights the water stains. But other than that, I do like the rich, deep colors.
As for how black the train is, id have to say its kind of a gunmetal black. (shortened Google image search URL for comparison: locomotive park kingman az - Google Search )
I don't say you progressed from the play table set to this... because that potential was already there; again these images might have taken before the other set ... or not. but these images are really lovely; i specially liked the selection of that wheel and the tone in the last