Aibu about Thomas and friends toys

[Lime19]

We were collecting the "take and play" toys for my son. He loves playing with them! All the tracks connect and they are brilliant quality. They also all fold down smaller.

However, I think these have been discontinued and replaced with the "adventure" type of play set. Now these seem less good quality, they don't connect with old sets without special adaptors. The trains which we have been collecting too no longer connect by magnet but by plastic hook. It means to connect old trains you need tiny adaptors. I just stopped my boy putting one in his mouth!

Is anyone else annoyed about this?! Aibu to wish they just left the old style alone because it was a lovely toy.

I hear you. Our daughter loves her trains, we are also annoyed at the replacement of the take and play range. We haven't bought any of the new range, probably won't bother now if you say there are tiny adapters!

I had the same frustration with the trackmaster tea. I had a few of the very old blue tracks. Those then changed to a brown track, with adaptors to connect it to the blue track (same battery powered trains though)
Now the track and trains are different! It's annoying.
(I've had the track for years and years and was looking to buy new engines for DS2 which is how I noticed the latest change)

Yanbu. It's driving me mad! Apparently you can get in touch with the people who make it to get adapters

My son is 16 and this happened when he was small. They think they'll get more business as people will buy all the new stuff but really, most won't.

You're not in NI are you? We have some Thomas old style take n play.

This is where eBay and similar are your friends - lots of people will be looking to clear out their old Thomas stuff as their dc have lost interest, etc.

If you haven't looked there for the ones you don't have, get you over there!

They were called Take Along first, they do this for commercial reasons. Stop buying them or find suppliers online or small independents that still stock them.

My grandson has Thomas Wooden Railway, as did my children when they were young. It's the only one that never seems to change, thankfully.

Lime we have a metric shit ton of take and play that needs rehoming as DS has outgrown it. It may take me a few days to retrieve as its all at ExH's house and he's being a difficult prick at present, but if you would like it for your DC just drop me a message, if you're happy to cover postage you may have it. There's lots of trains and extra track and flexitrack too.

When I say metric shit ton - this is maybe half of it 😂

Anyone who has the old blue Trackmaster track and are looking to add track/trains , check online for Tomica track/pieces. My DS 3 has been train mad for a year and the new Tomica trains work on the old track. (Plus some collectors advertise the old Thomas under Tomica to differentiate it from the newer one)

We've got wooden railway (brio type) and bought some magnetic trains, but they are the wrong width for the track. Are there any that fit?

The wooden trains don't fit the take and play track. But all the other wooden systems are interchangeable (Tesco, Brio, Big Jigs, ELC etc). It's what I'd advise anyone to go with starting out.

Justanothernameonthepage

Thanks I'll have a look. I begrudge buying new track when I have so much sat here ready to use if we had decent engines (old engines are a bit buggered now they're on their 4th child!) So hopefully I can find some new engines for DS2

We have one take and play, glad I haven't got anymore.

I find the IKEA and Brio go nicely together

We are having the same problems. To make matters worse my son has autism and detests change so it is so hard to explain why the trains are different. He doesn't much like trackmaster as they are hooks but loved the magnets on take and play. Looks like I am searching ebay for older versions now.

They've discontinued take n play?!!! 😱

I must have bought a take and play train by accident? Are they narrower than the brio railway?

They are narrower yes. Take and play are metal. The new 'adventures' ones seem to be plastic? There is absolutely TONS of take and play discounted in my local Smyths and Toys R Us. Also eBay is coming down with it. No need to panic yet :)

Ah, then I think I know somewhere that has loads with the magnets in stock still! Message me if you want details.

My train mad son uses his Thomas trains on all our Brio style track. It doesn't fit perfectly on the rails but he doesn't seem to notice. We have a bit of stay and play stuff but find it a bit flimsy and he can be more inventive with his brio stuff.
Bought loads of track off eBay, brio, ikea, John Lewis etc all fits together and you can
Get all sorts of bridges etc to be inventive with. I prefer that it's wood to flimsy plastic.

This is one of the many reasons I stopped my son watching Thomas and took away all the trains. They are the most money grubbing company I have ever come across! Not only do they change the track set up endlessly they also just keep introducing more and more and more characters so you are pestered into buying them. I also think all the biffing and bashing of the trains contributed to my son's pushy behaviour with other kids. All the trains behave like spoilt brats the whole time and I read that children that young don't really understand "comeuppance" in a narrative so are likely o be taking entirely the wrong message away from the whole thing.

If you have train mad kids I would buy brio (or fakes) and watch Ivor the Engjne (all on YouTube or complete DVD is very cheap), Chuggington (Amazon video I think) or Dinosaur Train (Netflix).

I didn't take away all the trains!! I meant books!!! He still has the take and play trains that don't fit the bloody wooden track we have (they're good for taking to restaurants etc though as smaller than brio trains).

Does anyone have a link to the adapter kits?

DS has take n play, trackmaster, Wooden Thomas and a collection of the minis. Can't stand the change to Thomas Adventures but fortunately I picked up a bag full of Take n Plays in a local charity shop, so DS is sorted for the near future at least.