Train sets, where to start?

[southernbelle_amy]

I have a 20 mo old boy and we're planning on getting him a train set for Christmas. I'm torn between plastic vs wood railways. Thomas, chugginton, Lego duplos? What brand do u like? Are most compatible with each other or not. Any suggestions.

 

[SaraJayne]

I bought DS14 a wooden train when he was 3 at a craft fair and it's gorgeous. It still looks brand new, 11 years later.

It's now put away for (maybe) grandchildren.

Each car is hand carved and about 6 inches high, so it's pretty good sized.

On the other hand, my DD LOVES Thomas and has almost all of the trains/pieces/tracks to go with that.

Does he gravitate towards playing with wood or plastic, when he has a choice?

 

[crashbb]

My nephew LOVES his train set from IKEA (he turned two in July and has had the set for a while).

This is the base model -

http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/30064359#

We've added extra kits that include tunnels, extra bridges, supports for raised tracks, etc.

He has trains that aren't from the set that also fit on the tracks.

 

[ClarabelleCowFan]

Wooden holds up so much better and has a higher resale value in the end. We have a Brio train table and a ton of Thomas the tank engine wooden railway pieces. All 3 boys love playing with it so you will get years of use out of your investment.

I bought most of the pieces off of Craigslist or ebay and then stock up when Toys R Us puts the engines or accessories on sale buy 1 get 1 half off.

We also have some of the Lego train sets but those never get played with. They are hard to keep together on carpet and take up tons of room on the floor.

 

[southernbelle_amy]

Thanks so far I'm gravitating toward wood rails, but he played with the motorized Thomas engines and liked those. Do these fit on wood rails?

 

[SaraJayne]

Thanks so far I'm gravitating toward wood rails, but he played with the motorized Thomas engines and liked those. Do these fit on wood rails?

The motorized Thomas ones we have fit on wood rails.

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

GeoTrax is fun with tons of options for both battery-powered and hand-powered play and cheaper than most of the Thomas/wooden stuff ... it's got *tough* plastic rails easy for little hands to work with.

They even make Cars-themed set pieces and "trains." The Cars characters are faster than the trains so it's more like a 'race set' than a 'train set', but you can still run the slower trains on the same tracks/roads.

 

[SaraJayne]

GeoTrax is fun with tons of options for both battery-powered and hand-powered play and cheaper than most of the Thomas/wooden stuff ... it's got *tough* plastic rails easy for little hands to work with.

They even make Cars-themed set pieces and "trains." The Cars characters are faster than the trains so it's more like a 'race set' than a 'train set', but you can still run the slower trains on the same tracks/roads.

I don't know if they are still sold, but we have a few bags of plastic Thomas tracks (along with lots of wooden ones).

 

[roliepolieoliefan]

When DS was younger , we bought him the wooden Thomas train sets. We bought the train table from Sams (I haven't seen them sell these in years) to save a little money.

They are definetly pricey $15-$20 per car and the track definetly wasn't cheap either. We started out with a small starter set and he progressed to getting more and more things over the years for birthdays, Christmas's etc....

When he was about 10yo we sold the majority of it in the Pennysaver. I got no lie at least 100 phone calls. We kept some things for DD to play with and for DS to pass onto his kids.

"Thomas" was a big part of our lives for many many years. Clothes, bedroom bedding, Halloween costumes, you name it. Check out the "day out with Thomas " events also. We used to visit the one in Strasburg PA every year. Loads and loads of fun.

 

[HelenePA]

The motorized Thomas ones we have fit on wood rails.

They also fit on the plastic ones We have some of both... we have some take along thomas to take out with us in the van, We have a wooden train table and my ds2 got this from santa last year http://www.amazon.com/Step2-Deluxe-...97XK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317410899&sr=8-2 but at almost a 1/3 of the price its listed at now.

 

[SaraJayne]

They also fit on the plastic ones We have some of both... we have some take along thomas to take out with us in the van, We have a wooden train table and my ds2 got this from santa last year http://www.amazon.com/Step2-Deluxe-...97XK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1317410899&sr=8-2 but at almost a 1/3 of the price its listed at now.

We have both the plastic and wood. Sadly, DD rarely plays with it anymore. She's more into her American Dolls now.

So I'm thinking it will all be sold in the next year.

 

[luvflorida]

I have a 20 mo old boy and we're planning on getting him a train set for Christmas. I'm torn between plastic vs wood railways. Thomas, chugginton, Lego duplos? What brand do u like? Are most compatible with each other or not. Any suggestions.

I asked this same question on here several years ago, because I was so confused with all the variety of trains on the market! At the time, our grandson was about a year and a half and was a huge fan of Thomas. He just turned three last month, and is still in love with trains.

I think between our house and his own house, he must have at least one of every type of train available for sale. He has wood, plastic, metal, motorized, non-motorized, wood track, plastic track. And the funny thing is, he loves them all. He'll go through spells where he plays with the wooden trains, then days where he'll happily set up track and run the motorized ones.

I do think, overall, he plays more with the wooden, magnetic Thomas trains. He has a train table at our house that he really loves, also. It's not the "official" Thomas table, but one that we got at Toys R Us. It was a decent price and came with wooden trains, track and buildings that are all compatible with Thomas trains.

Our grandson also is a huge fan of the Chuggington trains and has about ten of those. They have a slightly narrower wheel base than the Thomas trains and are made of metal. The Chuggington track pieces are plastic and a bit wider than Thomas track. The Chuggington trains don't fit on the wooden or plastic Thomas tracks, but the Thomas trains (wooden, metal, motorized or non-motorized) fit on the Chuggington track. Personally, I think the Chuggington trains are cuter than the Thomas trains!

Then you have the Take n Play versions of Thomas trains. They look just like the wooden railway Thomas trains, only they're slightly smaller and less expensive. Our grandson loves these as well, and has several of the Take n Play train sets (foldable, portable track with attached buildings).

Just a word of caution about the motorized trains. They can drive you crazy sometimes! When our grandson was younger, he used to love to set several of the engines on the floor, turn them on, and let them run amuck. The trains would run into a wall or piece of furniture and just keep clacking. They can be very loud!

Another poster mentioned the Day Out With Thomas event. We took our grandson last year (he was two and a few months) and he LOVED it! The look on his little face when he first saw the "real" Thomas train chugging toward him was priceless!

 

[diamondpixienc]

Well, my DD now 2 as of yesterday has been playing with the massive Geo Trax set that my DS has had since he was 1.5. They had been boxed up until about 5 months ago for my little one to play with and she loves them. Now, I have not really seen GeoTrax stuff in stores lately but we are getting her a Chuggington set for Christmas because she loves the show and when she plays with the Geo Trax she actually use the character names from the show. So, my vote for a train set to buy a toddler in 2011 would be Chuggington

 

[21hearts]

My 3 y/o son loves Thomas. He started with his Thomas obsession at 18 months and its still going strong. We started the "Track Master" series since the trains were big and most will go on their own with batteries perfect for a toddler. He would sit and watch them go in circles all day long.

Now he has the Track Master trains, wooden rail system trains & the Take & Play trains. So many Thomas trains. He also loves Chugginton and Dinosaur Train. In fact I think that 85% of all of his toys are trains.

The Chugginton trains are the same size as the Thomas wooden trains so they work on the wooden rail track.

 

[spacemountainmom]

My dd16 had a BRIO train set that she played with quite a bit. Then ds12 came along and was completely into Thomas. We have an obscene amount of trains, tracks and accessories. He spent years playing with it. He's 12 and will still get out the stuff and make really elaborate layouts. He still loves the challenge of building more difficult and crazy set ups.

The wooded train parts have held up wonderfully and all will be boxed up and kept for my future grandchildren. I wouldn't sell them for anything.

I will add that if your child likes Thomas, the "Day Out with Thomas" is a fabulous event. I took ds when he was three and it was the greatest day of his life. He was literally speechless getting to see Thomas and meeting Sir Topham Hatt. I will treasure that day for the rest of my life. We've been to a couple more "Days" and they were fun, but the first one was the best.

 

[scrapquitler]

We have all of them Wooden Thomas, Wooden Brio, Cheap Wood knock offs, Geotrax, Plastic Thomas Track with metal trains. He is 8 1/2 and still plays with ALL of them, continually.

You can buy the cheap train table (we got one from TRY for like $89) it helps contain the mess somewhat. The one thing I will say is this: The Wooden tracks generally all play together EXCEPT for the cheapo ones, they don't play nicely with the Thomas and Brio ones, and the only track pieces we have that the connector things broke were all the cheapo ones.

I think that my son probably actually likes the plastic Thomas Tracks that use the metal trains the best (Take A Long Thomas, I think). The other plastic Thomas ones with the bigger plastic trains are the only ones we don't have pieces of.

He also loves the Geotrax. I don't think there's as much variety of those available for sale now as there were when we bought them. Your choices in this range might be much more limited than with the others.


We've spent $$$ on trains, but considering the amount of use they've had and how well they've held up, it was definitely worthwhile. I expect that most of them will be around for grandchildren to play with in the future. Those grandchildren just better like trains!

 

[southernbelle_amy]

Thanks for all the replys. So since some of you have mentioned it, what train/activity table do you recommend. Thanks.

By the way thank you luvflorida for your response, and your grandkids are too cute.

 

[shinysparklybubbles]

We have the older (um yeah a year older lol!) version of this.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11766021

It went on sale and DH got if for $99 but be warned the box weight 75 lbs! No joke! So be prepared.

DS got it when he was 23 months and now almost a year later still loves it. It makes noise and has some lights so that's a bonus for him. DS has some Thomas stuff and it fits on their fine. A.C. Moore sells Thomas stuff so I wait until they have a coupon to buy more. I like that it has drawers to put stuff in (like the track layout map because if the track gets messed up I'm hopeless without the map to put it together.

and another vote for Day out with Thomas if it comes anywhere near you (and I mean like within a 3 hour drive) totally worth it and great!

 

[luvflorida]

The Chugginton trains are the same size as the Thomas wooden trains so they work on the wooden rail track.

The Chuggington trains that my grandson has do not fit on his Thomas wooden tracks. Chuggington trains have a narrower wheel base, causing them to wobble between the ridges on the wooden tracks. Maybe you have a different size in the Chuggington trains?

Thanks for all the replys. So since some of you have mentioned it, what train/activity table do you recommend. Thanks.

By the way thank you luvflorida for your response, and your grandkids are too cute.

Thank you! As far as the train table, we bought the same one that another poster linked too, from Toys R Us. I bought it last year and it has slightly different buildings with it, but the table is exactly the same. It's much less expensive than the Thomas table and, as an added bonus, comes with trains, buildings, track and wooden people. Our grandson loves the fact that a few sections of the track make train sounds when rolling a train over them, and the bridge has lights that light up when a train passes through.

The table is very well made and the drawers on both sides are great for storing extra train pieces.

I like that it has drawers to put stuff in (like the track layout map because if the track gets messed up I'm hopeless without the map to put it together.

So true! If I hadn't kept the map with the train track diagram, I never would have been able to put it back together the right way. My grandson enjoys taking the track apart every time he plays with the table.

Trying to be a good grandma, I didn't want to infringe on his "creativity" so I let him dismantle the track on every visit to our house. As soon as he left for the day, I'd get the map out and carefully reconstruct the track layout, only to have him take it apart on his next visit. After several weeks of this, I got the brilliant idea to actually glue each piece of track to the table.

Somehow, despite the fact that I tried and couldn't seem to move any of the pieces, my grandson managed to loosen all the track and easily remove them. I've given up and now I only fix the track when he asks for help. And, I keep the map in a safe place!

 

[21hearts]

The Chuggington trains that my grandson has do not fit on his Thomas wooden tracks. Chuggington trains have a narrower wheel base, causing them to wobble between the ridges on the wooden tracks. Maybe you have a different size in the Chuggington trains?

I asked my husband when he got home he said the Chuggington trains fit on the Toys R Us brand track not the Thomas wooden ones. They both look the same to me but he showed me the TRU brand track is narrower then the Thomas wooden track..

I knew they worked on one of the wooden track because that's our son's current track of choice & he was playing with them next to me in the living room.