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Original poster

Thomas Tank plastic or Brio

18 replies

UCM · 18/08/2006 21:29

I have seen a huge Thomas Tank set up which I wouldn't mind buying for DS 3rd Birthday, but I wondered whether anyone has bought this and wished they'd bought a wooden one. any thoughts......

OP posts:
southeastastra · 18/08/2006 21:32

the blue tomy plastic one is the best, i found, the parts are easier to come by!

Original poster
UCM · 18/08/2006 21:33

silly question SEA but did your LO play with it alot

OP posts:
Nemo1977 · 18/08/2006 21:35

plastic one is better as its cheaper and also dont end up with chunks taken out of the wooden trains. DS got wooden ones last xmas and ended up looking like they were years old after couple of hours.

southeastastra · 18/08/2006 21:41

my son played with it obsessively for ages then suddenly went off it! but it was worth the money and well made, it's still 'resting' in the toy box

Mercy · 18/08/2006 21:43

I got some Brio stuff for peanuts at a school fair and it's brilliant; but if I had to pay full price for it I'm not sure I would have bothered with it. Soo expensive - unless I had at least a couple of kids who were into trains etc or could pass it on.

brimfull · 18/08/2006 21:45

we were given a huge box of brio train stuff,the thomas trains that ds longs for cost £15.00 each.I'm sure they'll last for 300 yrs but he's be just as happy with the plastic ones.
I would say get the plastic as long as it's easy for a 3-4 yr old to put together themselves.The brio is very easy and ds makes his own tracks now (3.5yrs).

TheBlonde · 18/08/2006 21:54

We have brio. It's good but the downside is noise/pain when it gets hurled about

southeastastra · 18/08/2006 21:56

when my ds(5) was a baby he whacked his big brother on the head with a brio wooden tunnel !

gingernut · 18/08/2006 22:00

We have the wooden stuff. Track is mainly from Tesco (much cheaper than Brio) with some Brio special bits (e.g. fancy bridges and tunnels) and Thomas trains. It's played with a lot. Not sure if the plastic set is as flexible, but then no-one I know has the plastic one.

puff · 18/08/2006 22:02

We have a mixture of Brio, Learning Curve (lots of lovely Thomas related stuff) and then compatible track from eg ELC and Tesco. Buying the track this way is much cheaper and then we've spent money on eg motorised Thomas the Tank engines, signal boxes etc.

Ds1 and 2 have played with the stuff every day since we bought the first lot of stuff when ds1 was 2.5.

We were given some plastic Thomas stuff (Tomy I think) and they weren't so keen as the Brio type stuff seems to be much easier for little hands to put together and they can be quite creative with it.

Tommy · 18/08/2006 22:10

another wooden set family here! The DSs have played with it more or less every day since we got it 2 years ago. The Tesco stuff is really cheap and connects with it. I think it's more likely to last than the plastic ones.

jamiesam · 18/08/2006 22:15

We discovered too late that Asda do unbelievably cheap starter sets of wooden brio compatible track.

We have maily wooden track (though some happyland/elc plastic track) as well as 'beginners electric train' track - which all get played with all the time by ds's, 3 and 5. Wooden track the favourite in this house though.

southeastastra · 18/08/2006 22:17

the tomy trains are easier to come by, there are so many! they are nice toys

SaintGeorgeMarple · 18/08/2006 22:40

We've got the Tomy stuff. First got some for DS1 when he was 3, he's now nearly 9.

We now have 3 massive sets (including a blummin giant Thomas) and loads of extra bits. Still going strong after 6 yrs of 2 kids bashing the hell out of it on a very regular basis.

Clary · 18/08/2006 22:55

We have lots of Brio and Brio-alike - Tesco, Asda, Sainsbos, ELC. I really like it and the kids have played with it from age 1 (one of DD's first words was Brrrrm) to, well, still playign with it now and DS1 is 7.
Only issue with it is that Brio brand stuff is dear. But the lookalike is basically as good.

Never had plastic train track so cannot comment on that.

GeorginaA · 18/08/2006 22:57

Get both

Seriously, both get a LOT of play still by both ds1 (aged 5) AND ds2 (aged 2). We don't have any genuine brio, but have lots of cheapy Asda/Tesco/Sainsbury versions which are still fab. The Tomy set is just awesome, and ds1 loves saving up for new trains with his sticker chart.

Honestly, if you have the space, give house room to both...

Original poster
UCM · 19/08/2006 09:37

Thank you for all of the replies. This is worse than choosing my mortgage .

So would I be right in thinking that the plastic stuff does more movements or not?

OP posts:
saltire · 19/08/2006 10:27

We had the plastic one and it was played with loads. We sold it all last year on ebay, and there lots of people bidding. Its very easy to buy, Toys R Us do it

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