Wooden train set

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Planning to get DS a wooden train set for Christmas (it's about the only toy I can think of that his big sister doesn't already have!). There are obviously quite a few different brands, I was just wondering whether anyone had any suggestions as to which brand might be best.

He'll be 12 months. Would be nice if it was one that could be added to in the future.

And apologies, I know this has probably been discussed many tines before but I'm on the iOS app and the search function is useless!

We have brio here we bought it for my first born 1sr birthday, just a small set and we’ve added to it since, bigjigs and a amazon generic set all fit nicely

Ah good to know they're interchangeable! Thanks :)

I bought the Ikea one for my ds last Christmas. He loves it, it is well-made and there are plenty of extras you can buy to expand it. It was so much cheaper than other brands but didn’t seem to be materially different. I don’t know whether it combines with others but though.

We have few sets and they all work with each other. Ikea are great. Tesco and brio. Also Lidl have lovely sets nearer Christmas. Mine still play with their train tracks and have for years.

We had a combination of bigjigs, Thomas, ikea, tesco own brand, and other ones and they all fit together. My boys were obsessed with Thomas so we ended up with quite a collection of the trains.im keeping it all for any grandkids I might hopefully have in the future as it’s such a timeless toy.

Bigjigs, Brio, John Lewis own brand and Ikea are all interchangeable. A lot of other cheaper generic versions will say they are “compatible with major brands” so they should work as well.

At that age I’d probably get the Brio beginners/starters set - it is aimed at 12months plus and is easier for toddlers to use.

From memory, most of them are interchangable (Brio, bigjigs, Lidl did a set one year) but Ikea ones have a different connector, so avoid them!

Sorry just checked - the range you want is “Brio My first railway”, various sets.

Brio is definitely built to last. My dc and my nieces and nephews all play with my brothers old brio track and trains. It's 30ish years old. I think they've got a few generic bits of track too but can't comment on longevity of it as they are "only" 12ish years old in comparison.

They are all interchangeable. In my opinion Brio is worth the money.

My youngest son had Brio for his first birthday
He’s now 39
Over the years we have added to it for my grandsons and we have quite a lot now
Big Jigs also nice wooden train sets and they are compatible with Brio

They all interconnect. Ikea joins are harder though, so they need to be older to manage them.

We have a mix of Ikea and brio which fit together. Brio have interesting add ons like a station , car parking garage etc (highly recommend the brio car parking garage it is my two sons most used toy)

I used to work in a toy shop - we stocked BigJigs and Brio, but stopped stocking BigJigs because we got several complaints that the track pieces broke too easily. We replaced BigJigs with another Brio copy which was better quality - can't remember the name though. Anyway, Brio > BigJigs

@MinesAPintOfTea

They all interconnect. Ikea joins are harder though, so they need to be older to manage them.

We've found Ikea is not as good as the rest, too. We've got on well with Bigjigs and John Lewis as well as Brio though.

Thank you everyone, really helpful! I've set price drop alerts on a few of the Brio My First Railway bits :)

They are great :)

Good choice!

My sons have tonnes of the wooden track and agree its all interchangeable.
I bought the ikea stuff years ago and agree it had a connector that was plastic and stiff for kids to get in and out but they have now changed the design and it is now much better. Its wooden like all the rest and is comparable with other brands but cheaper

Brio fits with Ikea and Big Jigs and generic wooden Thomas Trains.

It's been my best investment, four plus years of use and now I can name most Thomas Engines 🤣

My nephew had Brio and loved it. My boys inherited it and also loved it. It’s still in great condition, so yes, a very good toy and the kind of thing you can add to with small presents from friends and family.

We actually got ours from LiDL that they were selling that year

I got some board, spray painted it all and then glued the track down on it so I didn’t have to take it down and reassemble it all the time.

We have lots of different types. We found the Thomas brand don't join as well with the other brands. Also some types have a little peg as the connector, rather than cut being all in one piece like a jigsaw piece, and although the peg is glued in place, DC did manage to pull some out - which I would be worried about with a one year old as a potential choking hazard.
Ours is quite old though so maybe designs have changed.

The Tesco ones (carousel?) also fit with the brio x

That's lovely @Soubriquet , I thought I remembered Lidl having some last year. I love lidl toys but am assuming most of my shopping is going to be online this year.