Best wooden train set?

[MSWR0319]

DS will be 2 next month and I think I am going to get him some trains for Christmas. I'm thinking about just getting a rug right now with the train tracks on it instead of getting the actual tracks because he has a lot of larger toys in his toy room right now and thought the rug would be easy for clean up. What are the best wooden trains? I know there's Thomas but wasn't sure if there were any other sets that are better. Ideally I would like to be able to buy them individually or as a set, that way if someone needs a Christmas or birthday idea they could just get a new train. Thanks!

[scriptkitten]

all of the wooden rainway stuff is compatible.

we have thomas, brio and some japanese brand all living nicely together.

next time we spend money on trains we are going to buy a big bucket of used stuff on craigslist. people sell big piles of trains for like $50

[katydid1971]

This isn't what you asked but I wished I got geo trax instead of the wooden trains I got Ds. He (and all of his friends) has no interest in the wooden stuff any more but love playing with the geo trax at a friends house. Just another way to go you might want to consider.

[hillview]

We have the Melissa and Doug set and it works well with other sets and you cannot beat the price. I agree with pp that a geotrax can get a lot more play (ours are in 2 different rooms and both are played with some). But magnatiles rule the house
/hillary

[scriptkitten]

i wish i wasn't such a toy snob because i irritate even myself with it (lol), but since the trains are arranged on a low level of our built-ins in our living room i insist that the trains and tracks are wooden

i try to avoid plastic and noisy when at all possible.

[Katigre]

I wouldn't recommend skipping the wooden track b/c the best aspect of trains is the building and changing of the track - it's great for their problem solving skills, thinking proccesses, and creativity. I wouldn't buy the Thomas trains with faces unless/until your DS specifically requests them b/c the Thomas marketing is insane and once your DS steps on that it's harder to get off - I wouldn't intentionally bring him into it. Just use the trains with the sets at first and see if he asks for specific Thomas ones as he gets more into it (it seems like age 3-4 is peak time for train loving with little boys).

If you want to go cheap to start get the IKEA sets - they come with basic trains and tracks. They're interchangeable with the other wooden sets but aren't my favorite (except their hills - love how those are made!)

Here are essential pieces IMO:
1-2 bridges
2-4 'hill' tracks (so you can make elevated bridges and ramps to race the trains down)
1 engine house - can be small or large, but it's nice to have a place he can put a train to 'sleep' or hide when playing
25 pieces of individual track of differing sizes/shapes

I would highly advise looking on craigslist for someone selling their train set. DS's initial train set was from freecycle and we've built on it every since. There are some great websites that sell individual track components (like the engine house we got him for Christmas last year).

[hellokitty]

I agree with katigre, start with the ikea set. For a 2 yr old it's completely appropriate. Being a mom of 3 boys, I will tell you that you shouldn't write off geotrax so quickly. I much prefer them to the wooden trains. They, "grow" with your child. They can just push the trains around when they are little, and when they are older, they can build very elaborate tracks AND have fun playing engineer by using the remotes too. I usually detest plastic toys, but the geotrax are on my short list of, "good" plastic toys. IMO they are much more fun to build with than the wooden tracks and also less frustrating, b/c the tracks stay together better than the wooden tracks, which were forever coming apart and I basically was a slave to the stupid wooden track and constantly having to put it back together again before the kids were old enough to do it on their own. We lucked out and bought a HUGE collection of wooden tracks off of one of DH's co-workers whose son had outgrown wooden tracks and had moved onto electric trains for a very good price. There is no way in hell I would pay retail price for the brio/thomas stuff that we got, b/c IMO it's a complete rip off. Also, not to burst your bubble, but you do realize that not all wooden toys are, "safe." There was a HUGE thomas/brio recall of wooden trains just a couple of yrs ago, so you still need to be aware of wooden toys too. A lot of ppl were pretty outraged by that and I think it made a lot of us here realize that even wooden toys are not immune to safety issues.

[GraceH]

Originally Posted by Katigre

I wouldn't recommend skipping the wooden track b/c the best aspect of trains is the building and changing of the track - it's great for their problem solving skills, thinking proccesses, and creativity.

Originally Posted by Katigre

I wouldn't buy the Thomas trains with faces unless/until your DS specifically requests them b/c the Thomas marketing is insane and once your DS steps on that it's harder to get off - I wouldn't intentionally bring him into it. Just use the trains with the sets at first and see if he asks for specific Thomas ones as he gets more into it ...

Disagree... sort of -- here's the thing, we have 3 brands of stuff (Circo, Melissa & Doug, and Thomas & Friends) - hands down, the Thomas trains roll significantly better; I don't know why, but the 'generic' ones get derailed, disconnected, or hungup on things much much more often.

Originally Posted by Katigre

I would highly advise looking on craigslist for someone selling their train set. DS's initial train set was from freecycle and we've built on it every since. There are some great websites that sell individual track components (like the engine house we got him for Christmas last year).

Agree, but be sure to check the codes on any Thomas stuff for recalls.

Originally Posted by hillview

We have the Melissa and Doug set and it works well with other sets and you cannot beat the price...

We really like the bridge from the Melissa & Doug Figure8 set - instead of the 'uphill' tracks like Thomas (which little inexperienced hands knock down), it's a solid wedge design, making a much studier layout -- now that DS is older, he is getting the hang of the 'uphill' style pieces.

My position - get generic wooden track sets (Circo, IKEA, Melissa&Doug, whatnot...I even saw some at Walmart the other day), but splurge on getting the actual Thomas engines and cars (or Brio, which also rolls nicely)

[alirebco]

We like the Ikea train set especially for a 2 year old. I also like Plan Toys too. I despise Thomas myself but I hate character marketing to kids.