Good quality Brio substitute?

[justwanttoweeinpeace]

DS has a Brio train set. He wants more for Xmas. Before I go out and sell the car to pay for it, could anyone recommend a good Brio compatable alternative?

I'm not buying another thing from Thomas and Friends, it's terrible quality and I'm sick of throwing broken trains and bits of plastic out.

TIA

Love this thread, as was thinking the same thing! I'm glad someone mentioned the Lidl stuff as I was wondering about getting it. Do all the vehicles fit (I.e. Even the cars). It looks like the road is two train tracks joined side by side is that right?

In answer to your op we have built up our collection by asking for it from generous family and keeping an eye on amazon lightning deals and just prices in general from Amazon/tk maxx.

Re the lidl cars yes they do and have magnets so can form part of the trains.

Last years lidl sets were amazing and definitely fit brio nicely.

I was in my local TK MAXX yesterday and they certainly had some Brio sets that were worth a look. I'd buy some cheap and cheerful sets from wherever and backup with a few wiggly tracks (as per above links) and junction / mini curve packs.

I went shopping in lidl today and it was full of wooden brio type stuff that was very reasonable! I'd also recommend big jig!

We've bought DS the John Lewis set like PP. it's compatible with Brio etc as far as I can tell and comes with lots of scenery end other interesting bits.

It's gone down by £10 since then by the look of it though!

m.johnlewis.com/john-lewis-wooden-train-set/p/231202145#

I agree with PP to avoid Tesco - the bridges etc are poor quality.
We've found that over time and with lots of use the IKEA tracks fits more easily with the rest (mix of mostly bigjigs and brio).

The Tesco stuff we bought isn't great, it's shorter and tighter curves than the standard Brio ones and DS struggles to push trains round the tighter corners without derailing them.

We bought a bundle 2nd hand off ebay too, as others have said it's pretty much indestructible and you can use the money you save to buy fun extra bits new.