Which Train Set should we start with?

[maavernon]

MY DS is about to be 2 and my mom bought him the Geotrax grand station for his bday - do you think that will be a good starter? He loves playing with the trains when we go to toy stores, but they always have the wood ones/Thomas on display - will he love playing with geotrax? Do you think the trains stay on the geotrax betterthan the wooden train sets? I am also debating the train table - looked on my Craigs List but didn't see any that I was really interested in for the price. Then I start thinking maybe we should just get the Imaginarium from toysrus because it's a table and train set that seems to get decent reviews for the cost. Then I also think maybe I should buy my friend's Thomas set - she has tons of stuff and the table and her 6year old doesn't play with it. What would you do in my situation?

[maavernon]

Great thanks for the feedback!!! Good to know about the table/track compatibility. I actually have 1 special track pkg here that I tried to set up on a small childs folding table and it was too big for that, so I can definitly see that it would be too big with a few other pieces on a regular train table.

[KrisM]

We have both Geotrax and wooden Thomas trains. Both are great and have their pluses and minuses. My personal favorite are the wooden trains as it is easier to do complex layouts, IMO. The wood has more wiggle room in the joints and the plastic has to be more exact. But DS played with both until about 4.5 years when he moved onto other things.

[fortato]

For Thomas or Brio train sets, a table is good because it's a solid surface and the pieces stay together better. GeoTrax are perfect for the carpet, because they click together.

If you are thinking of getting a table though, look into a Nilo Multi-activity table. It comes with a train mat that you can take off to use the table for other things, like Legos or blocks or anything. AND- you can get leg extensions so that the table will grow with the kids...

ETA- My 7 year old nephew still plays with the trains when he comes to my house...so it's not something they will outgrow any time soon. Also- the Grand Central Station- all put together with the tracks- just barely fits on our Nilo Table. And, we have the Airport too- that won't fit at all...

[arivecchi]

Don't buy the Imaginariun train & table set! It was a complete PITA to assemble and my table was defective to boot. No one answers at customer service so I am stuck with a defective table. After wasting about 5-6 hrs assembling it and then realizing it was defective, I wanted to just toss the whole thing in the garbage.

[maavernon]

Thanks for the info! Definitely not buying it!

[maavernon]

Thanks for replying. I'm now thinking to just get one of the mats rather than a table

[maydaymommy]

I dont know a thing about GeoTrax, but I can tell you something about toddlers and wooden train sets. DS is really good with the trains, and quite coordinated when it comes to hooking pieces of track together and putting trains together and "driving" them around. He's been playing with trains, at least one, probably every day since he was 18 months old, and now he is a few days away from being 2.

Although he's really adept at maneuvering train and tracks, he is not at all capable of using any type of raised up track - like the sets that come with the imaginarium table. At home, it's not like at the book store, where the tracks are all solidly held together. Tunnels or sheds or other things that are on level ground are good for the little guys, but the raised up destinations are really difficult.

If GeoTrax makes it easier for things like that to stick together, I would say go for it. I think it will be good to add on more "complex" parts to our wooden trains as DS gets older, and hopefully that will help keep his interest, too.

Good luck. I can't get over how ingrained his obsession with trains is! Now he is into trucks, too, and I never would have imagined that I'd raise this kids who loves such stereotypical "boy" stuff!

[mommy111]

We *love* the Sevi village train and car set. It comes with a mat that you can use on any surface. Non toxic, European brand. :love-retry:

[hellokitty]

Geotrax are great! They grow with your kids very well. I like them more than our wooden Thomas set. I would avoid getting a train table. It is the #1 most disappointing large toy item we have bought. My kids like to sprawl out their train tracks, and basically you cannot have a very big train track on a train table. IMO, it's a waste of $. If you REALLY want one, buy one used. We still have ours. Mostly, it is where the kids collect other toy junk. I'll probably sell ours off within the next yr or two, b/c I'd rather have the floor space for my kids to play on.

Oh, and avoid the plastic Thomas sets, they are a piece of JUNK (and so are the trains, they break very easily)! We have so many train sets and by far the plastic Thomas ones are the worst ones.

[JTsMom]

So much of this is just a personal taste thing. I have no experience with GeoTrax, but if you go with the wooden stuff, I'd think about buying your friend's, depending on what she has, and how much she wants for it.

I've looked at the Imaginarium stuff, and the quality doesn't look great to me. We went with the Kidkraft set Costco sells at Christmastime, and it's been pretty good. I like the look of the table too, and it came with the trundle drawers which I also really like. It had 100-something pieces, so DS had a good amnt of stuff to start with. Over the years, I've added pieces I've found on sale, or bought with coupons from Michael's. We have a lot of trains- all Thomas, except for the ones the set came with.

Quality varies by brand and by piece. With some pieces, the brand doesn't matter much. With others, it does. A lot of people say most of it's the same, but I feel that a lot (but not all) of the Thomas stuff is better quality. Of course it's pricier too.

We bought an off brand roundhouse, which is great, (I paid $10 for it, the Thomas one is closer to $50 or $60 IIRC). I bought a Brio turntable, and I don't like it much at all. You just have to compare, and really check out the stuff. Start slow, figure out what you need as you go along, and add on a little at a time.

[elephantmeg]

love geotrax!