The Play Trains! Guide to the Best Wooden Train Sets 2. Holidays and birthdays are a classic time for a child to receive a first wooden train set. Or, you might be like we were: eager to encourage your child’s new interest in trains no matter what time of the year it starts. Or perhaps you’ve already started your child’s collection, and you’re looking to add another major addition to it. Whatever the reason you’re in search of the perfect train set, I’ve turned my expert eye on the best wooden train sets that are currently available so that you can make an informed choice. From small beginner’s sets, to fun themed sets, to big complete sets, I have plenty of excellent options for you to consider. This guide was last updated on December 4th, 2.
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The Best Wooden Train Tables for Toddlers and Preschoolers. Do You Need a Train Table? Alternatives to Gluing Wooden Train Tracks to Train Tables. Wooden Train Tracks.
Bridges and Elevated Tracks. Roundhouses and Engine Sheds. Organizing Wooden Trains and Track. Wooden Train Freight Cars. But first, for anyone in a hurry to find a gift, here are some of your very best bets you can jump right down to where I talk about them: 1.
Best Wooden Train Sets for Kids 2. Brio Deluxe Railway Set: a big, high- quality set with lots of variety. Name. Train Town Set: a beautifully- crafted heirloom train set with plenty to do.
Hape Railway Forest Railway Set: a pretty, forest- themed set, and a good value and quality for the price. Dreamup Toys Wooden Train Set: a clever way to combine wooden trains with DUPLO and LEGOWhittle Shortline Railroad: super realistic wooden trains handcrafted in the USAThomas Wooden Railway Gold Mine Mountain Set: our long- running favorite Thomas set with a mountain and Cranky the Crane.
Brio My First Railway Beginner Pack Train Set: a Brio set that’s rated 1. Order Kidnap (2017) Movie. Thomas Wooden Railway Battery- Operated Percy and the Mail Station Set: one step up from a starter set, with a motorized engine and mail freight to deliver.
Bigjigs Rail Around the World Train Set: featuring several cute wooden world landmarks. Name. Train Basic Train Set: a sweet, classic starter train set.
Now, lets go in depth and talk wooden trains! Thomas Wooden Railway. If you’d like to welcome the little blue tank engine into your home, you have two choices: buy Thomas Wooden Railway sets and Thomas trains, or buy non- Thomas sets and add Thomas trains to them. Thomas brand track is by far my favorite.
The quality is even better than Brio, and the railroad tie detail looks fantastic in person. While the buildings and trains are featuring more plastic than ever, I still feel — or, perhaps, hope — this is a high quality brand, and nothing can replace the way that having the trains be talking, feeling characters vastly increases the possibilities for valuable pretend play. Looking at the Thomas sets currently on the market, if you’re searching for a very basic starter set that includes Thomas, take a look at the simple but classic Thomas Wooden Railway Oval Starter Set. However, I would not be quick to recommend this basic set. It looks okay, but the bridge is of a style that comes apart unless all the tracks in the layout are in perfect alignment.
You would be better off spending not much more for the Battery- Operated Percy and the Mail Station Set. Or, for a little more than that, there’s the Steaming Around Sodor Set, with a more stable type of bridge — and it’s a covered bridge, which is kind of cool — and more accessories. New this year, the Race Day Relay Set looks awfully exciting, and the reviews I’ve read say that the train jump ramp really works!
I also like how high the hill is. Those long drops are always fun to send trains down, and this set comes with special tracks with side walls to keep the trains from careening off on the curves at the bottom of the hill. It also comes with Gina along with Thomas, and it’s nice to see a female engine in a current set. This looks like a great set for a thrill- seeking engineer. Speaking of tall hills, the Speedy Surprise Drop Set Train Set claims to be the “highest Wooden Railway track set yet” and features a hidden tunnel to drop into. Like the other sets in the Creative Junction line, the Creative Junction Mix, Match and Build Set encourages creativity by letting children assemble the pieces of the set in different ways, in this case to create different destinations.
I think this is a great idea, and would be perfect for a child who would love having more destinations for telling the stories from the show and books. If you’re shopping for Christmas, check out the Fisher- Price Thomas the Train Wooden Railway Santa’s Workshop Express. It comes with a snow- covered Thomas pulling a present in a freight car, a Christmas tree, and a North Pole sign. And I kind of want to buy it just for the Sir Topham Hatt dressed as Santa Claus. The Celebration on Sodor Set has a cute party theme to it and could be fun for a birthday present.
The Musical Melody Tracks Set, which looks pretty cool. I love to see Fisher Price experimenting with what can be done with a wooden train set, like the musical chimes on the long downhill slope in this set. Another new set is the Pirate Cove Discovery Set Train Set, made to go with the Sodor’s Legend of the Lost Treasure DVD.
While it appears to feature a whole lot of plastic for a wooden train set in my opinion, this sets seems to have some exciting features, including a ship that “sails” in, a hidden treasure to discover by blasting its hiding place open, and a special track that launches Thomas out into the sea. Based on the Thomas DVD movie, Tale of the Brave, the Thomas’ Fossil Run Train Set is a platform set with an exciting, curving slope to speed down, trying to evade a rolling boulder! There’s a little gate at the bottom of the hill that opens for Thomas to escape through, and then closes to stop the boulder before it hits him.
The artwork on this set is very detailed, giving it a story book feeling, and the set will appeal to any child who is a fan of both trains and dinosaurs. Finally, our favorite wooden train set of all time is the Gold Mine Mountain Set, which can be found online or in- store at Toys- R- Us.
It includes both a fantastic and versatile three- level mountain and Cranky the Crane, making it (relatively speaking) a good value. The set has changed a bit since we bought it three years ago (the main differences seem to be more plastic and no gold dust paint on Salty), but it remains essentially the same. One thing to know about this set in general is that you’re only given enough track to connect two of the three levels of track on the mountain, so you will likely want to supplement it with more train tracks if you don’t already have more. However, you can build a closed loop of track and have plenty of fun with what comes in the box!
Thomas Wooden Railway also has a line of exclusive train sets that are only being sold in their online store and a handful of specialty toy stores around the US. I want to mention them because the sets themselves look awesome and have been getting good reviews, but I have mixed feelings about this development. On the one hand, I think it’s admirable that they’re trying to do something special for independent toy stores, and it’s good to see TWR responding to the suggestions of the store owners and trying to return to wooden train sets that are actually made mostly out of wood.
However, I feel like the combined scarcity and expense of these sets puts them — and all of the benefit of a new focus on play value — out of reach for most wooden train- buying families.