Brio/train set experts please come and talk to me!

[onlyatchristmastime]

Feeling very cosy and excited to have the Christmas username dusted off!

I’m set on a classic, probably Brio, train set for Christmas for my DS who will be just turned 2. I also have a daughter who will be 4 who is Disney princess-mad but I think she would also love a train set (they’re both mini engineers like DH, always twiddling at things to see how they work) and I suspect the more they have of it to put together, the more enjoyable a toy it will be. Most threads on here seem to agree that the track doesn’t need to be Brio, but that their special things - trains, stations, bridges etc - are worth the money.

Strategising the most fun/cost effective way to do this - thinking I should get DS a Brio starter set, maybe the one with the light up rainbow thingy? And get DD the Brio Disney princess railway. And then supplement it with a track expansion pack from somewhere like John Lewis or Bigjigs so they can put it all together and cover the playroom floor. Or should I prioritise getting a train with an engine - if so should it be the steam one? Any tips on when and where is the best way to purchase all of this? So many options!

Should say I don’t (currently) have any concerns about them playing together, and I would prefer not to buy second hand as I am a bit weird about things that have been on the floor in houses I can’t vouch for…

TIA Christmas fans 🤶

Brio is great, but it’s bulky and heavy so people will sell fabulous items 2nd hand if they kids grow out of it and they don’t have space. There are bargains out there!

Our DS loved it….we have a set that rotates around family currently with my nephew includes my original simple circle track curves (darker wood, some drawn on by 3 year old me) - over 45 years old and still going strong !

Please do join in, I LOVE this thread! I posted last year about the impossibility of buying for my then one year old when DD already had every ‘big’ present known to man to hand on to him. Construction/small world stuff is the one thing we have very little of. For DS I thought this might be cute, I like the practising cause and effect idea. I’d want a lot more track to supplement it though. And it’s highly expensive for what it is!

Definitely look at eBay bundles. We have bridges, ferries, cranes, turnstiles, all sorts of interesting add-ons to a regular track from vintage eBay purchases which either isn't available brain new or would cost a fortune. Plus easy to get grandparents to buy a brand new train with no concerns about it not fitting or already having it.

Our house is over taken with the stuff.. currently have a train track from dining room to living room..that was DP not DS 😅😂. Chad valley do a cheap set that fits well with brio and big jigs if you want to get extras. We bought a lot of ours from eBay as you can buy in bulk or just get the parts you need. Also the brio website. Aldi do a version too that fits, we got an airport from there that fits it well. X

Another vote for avoiding battery powered for now. My kids much preferred pushing the engines round at that age. The battery ones were better when they were older.

I’ve been known to put it in the dishwasher, came out fine.

If you have space for a play table, that’s a great addition.

For storage, we bought a tower plastic drawer unit with 4 drawers. I never got round to labelling them, but we aimed for a drawer for straight track, a drawer for curved, a drawer for things like junctions etc and the last drawer for rolling stock. It mainly worked. Then we had to add a separate box for big stuff like mountains! It was easy to just take the whole drawer out when they were playing and then just throw everything back in at the end and slide the drawers in.

We were given a load of Brio by a friend when her son got too big for it. I supplemented it with Ikea tracks and all of the John Lewis wooden structures (bridge, train house, tunnels, train wash battery trains etc). The JL stuff is really good quality and a great price. I’m keeping it all for my future grandchildren in 25 years 😂

I don’t like secondhand things generally, but would buy a secondhand train set. It would be easy to sanitise and is pretty hardy.

We got our ds the Aldi one for his 2nd birthday, he loves it, plays with most days! Gradually added extras, tunnel, ikea turntable and the crane - which is his favourite.
Works perfectly fine with chad valley, JL, big jigs and biro. It’s also stood upto the rough and tough of a toddler putting it away 🙈 which mainly involves picking up the whole thing and folding it into the box 😱
Another vote for avoiding the battery powered train, it might have been because it was a cheaper one (came in the Aldi set) but it didn’t last two minutes.

I’d also avoid the letter trains from bigjigs, they don’t fit through tunnels (also big jigs) and that causes some frustration so they are now on display 😂

I'd recommend getting a box of odd connector bits - male to male and female to female, as well as short bits of track and different types of curve. Always frustrating (for the kids of course!) when you can't make your layout join up.

Our son had hours of fun with his wooden train set. We built it up gradually with people buying extra parts for birthday/Christmas gifts. All brands seem to be compatible. Highly recommend getting expansion packs to go with a set (have extra double ended connectors and tracksplitters etc). He loved building different track layouts. If your children like Thomas the Tank engine you can get wooden Thomas the Tank engine trains too. Storage wise we kept the track in a footstool so he could get it out himself when he was a bit bigger.

The only thing to avoid is ikea track. It has little plastic bits in, so look carefully on photos if you’re buying on line. It’s often sold as “being compatible” with brio. It definitely is not.

I'd say it is worth having a bit of Ikea stuff, because you can pop out the plastic "mae ends" for those inevitable moments when you need a piece of track with make/male or female/female ends, Track pieces are maje/female as standard.

Brio /brio type railways is marvellous those. My dc are not 15 and 12, and it's the only toy I've kept. Apart from the magnetic crane, this giresatuon was our favourite add on.

It really does grow with your child. We started with just a figure 8 at age 3 but ended up with a big recycling box full of different brands. You can ask for Christmas and birthday presents to add to the set if grandparents want to help (especially if they are the type to buy huge plastic items you don't have room for).
I got really nostalgic buying my favourite Thomas the Tank engine ones from my childhood story books (Stepney). We used to lay it out on the coffee table but they liked making big layouts that went in and out of bedrooms too using every bit of track.

I suggested at the start of this thread to get a Duplo train set....I have now changed my mind 😂
I want a wooden train set. Me - at the grand old age of almost 50. I want it to take over my entire living room and Choo Choo around the hall and bedrooms.
😂😂😂

Bigjigs have some great special trains and features so worth a look. Expansion pack and packs with curves/track splits are useful for making different layouts. Also ones that have the same connection on both sides are useful for joining things together.

My sister bought my eldest a mountain from John Lewis which was popular because of the slope to run trains down - but he is nearly 9 so I don’t know if it is still available.

This present becomes less for my children with every post…

Thanks so much to everyone who’s posted btw, I really appreciate people sharing their knowledge on things like this (and being much more willing than DH to talk about Christmas during a September heatwave!)

@onlyatchristmastime
"Wooden train sets are for life not just Christmas" should be the advertising catch phrase.

(I would also scan EBay, car boots and second hand shops for wooden track to extend your sets. It's fairly indestructible stuff so second hand is often a good buy

The only thing to avoid is ikea track. It has little plastic bits in, so look carefully on photos if you’re buying on line. It’s often sold as “being compatible” with brio. It definitely is not.

I've got the IKEA track as a spare at grandparents and there is no plastic bits.....

The wooden train track was probably our most played with and long lasting toy our 3ds had. We started with a Tesco set and then added 2nd hand bits. However we loved the big jigs stuff. We got extra connectors with two holes or two sticky out bits which were invaluable when creating the perfect track. When ds3 was born ds1 (aged4) would build the track so ds2 (aged 2) could play with it whilst I breast fed. It kept them busy for ages. The household challenge was to use every single piece and have a complete track - happy memories!

We got 2 lidl sets last year thinking that for £15 each they'd be smll. There was loads of track in each, a v affordable way of expanding your track collection.

The brio suspension bridge and signal Bell are the biggest hits in this house as extras

Definitely look at secondhand train sets. Brio is almost indestructible.

I still have a huge box of Brio that we bought secondhand in 1991 for my son. It's done 2 boys and my grandchildren and will be saved for their children too!

That’s older than me! 😁 I think this thread has definitely persuaded me to look at secondhand too. Hope my grandchildren get to play with it one day!

You can't really go wrong with a train set. It was our most played-with toy, by the DC - but also by visiting adults.

There weren't many games that visitors acttually played with the DC with - the train set and lego were about it.

I wouldn't bother with getting the track from Brio - any of the brands will do. Save Brio for some fancy trains and/or bridges etc.

The beauty about a train set as a toy is, if it's a hit, you can keep adding on to it in years to come as all the different brands are compatable, pretty much, which also makes it an excellent gift to suggest to relatives - they can get something within their budget, large or small, to add to it.

Has anyone mentioned Thomas the Tank Engine? Cranky the Crane was our most treasured toy in this house for a while