Trains that are compatible with wooden Thomas?

[american_mama]

The combination of me looking at the recent spate of Christmas toy catalogs today and my son nagging me to play trains every 5 minutes leads me to ask this question. What wooden trains are compatible with Thomas Wooden Railway trains? My son loves to carry the trains around with him, meaning they sometimes get lost, so the high price of the Thomas trains is kind of a turn-off. If I could get a couple plain, cheaper wooden trains that attach to the Thomas and run on the Thomas tracks, it would be helpful.

Years ago, I bought a Target set with some plain enginers and cars that fit. But I don't think that's available anymore, plus I really want just the trains, not more tracks.

[sariana]

Brio, Circo, Imaginarium (at TRU) all are compatible with the Thomas wooden sets (but not some of the other Thomas sets). We have found that sometimes the fit isn't great between brands, but for the most part they all work together. Just have some sand paper ready in case one company's pegs are slightly larger than another companies holes.

We mix and match sets because some are better than others with the specialty items. Santa brought a basic set (from Costco, can't remember the actual brand) to begin with. We have added a few Thomas and a few Brio because we wanted bridges or double-peg and double-hole specialty sets that were available from those companies.

Right now Costco has another train set that Santa may bring as a joint gift to DS and DD.

I have found that most brands will say "compatible with XYZ Company." Ususally Brio is the standard; sometimes it is Thomas.

[brittone2]

Pretty much all of the wooden stuff is compatible with other wooden items. The Ikea set has tunnels, etc. that are too low for some thomas trains to fit under, but the Thomas trains would fit on the Ikea track and the trains could all hook together. Sometimes two different brands of wooden track can be a little tricky to fit together (for example, our Ikea pieces don't always fit smoothly with the Thomas track pieces, but this is mostly the really curvy stuff I think). In general though, all of the wooden products are pretty compatible with the other wooden trains. The Ikea, Brio, etc. wooden trains will fit on the Thomas track.

eta: whoops, cross posted w/ the PP!

back to add: I think there is Imaginarium, Melissa and Doug, etc. as well. Maplelandmark has one scale of train that says it is compatible with Thomas/Brio. http://www.maplelandmark.com/nametrains/nametrains_wrs.lasso

[christiedavid3]

I picked up a package of 6 or 8 cars, can't remember exactly, at K-Mart during one of their big 50% off clearance sales that are Lionel brand trains, but in the generic K-Mart packaging. They are really beautiful trains and they work perfectly with our Thomas engines. Since it's the holiday season, you may want to check the "generic" toys sections that Target, K-Mart, Wal-Mart have out now.