Brio worth the price?

[RedRobyn2021]

Looking at buying my daughter her first train set, we are tight on money and space, so I'm trying to pick any toys for her really carefully.

Do you think Brio is worth it or have you tried another brand you think is better?

Any toy suggestions for a 17mo?

Thanks 😊

I got the brio trains and some pieces of their track. One was a bell that rang when the train passed. A couple of bridges. That sort of thing.

And the rest of the track elsewhere. It wasn't IKEA as that has plastic pieces that join together but I can't remember where we got it from now. Lots of places sell it though and it's all compatible.

Here is the bell. Ahhh, happy memories.

www.brio.net/products/all-products/railway/accessories/magnetic-bell-signal

I've just remembered the safari train!

I'll stop now I promise. I might have to go and get it all off the top of the wardrobe though!

www.brio.net/products/all-products/railway/trains-wagon-vehicles/safari-train

We had a brand very similar - Big Jigs. Looked very similar and a bit cheaper to

We have a mix, some brio, some Melissa and Doug, some Lidl and mostly bigjigs. In all honesty I think bigjigs have the best range, oh we also have a hape waterfall tunnel which is pretty cool. It's fine to mix and match, there really isn't much difference

If you're near Sheffield I've got a banana box full that you can have for £50!

Definitely worth it. We have a set in our family that has been used loads (was bought early 80s) gone through 9 children so far and is currently in the loft for the next generation.

We had a mix brio (charity shop find) Tesco and early learning. The early learning one was a dock I think with a crane. Amazing stuff, they played for hours.
I didn’t notice any massive difference between the own brand stuff and brio it all fitted together nicely (unlike megabloks vs Lego) and we had a mix of trains.
At the time I wished we had room for the table but they pretty took over the floor. My balancing skills were en pointe

My other toy suggestion would be a play kitchen and all that goes with it. Cutting fruit or veg is very popular in my house as well as a wooden toaster, Tim teaser and the Melissa and Doug ice cream store

That and an easel with chalk board on one side

brio have some nice bits but it isn't massively better than bigjigs/ikea

I have also bought second hand off eBay, it's not the kind of thing that matters if a piece has gone missing and you can easily tell it's condition from photos.

Look on eBay and marketplace. We got absolutely tons of it on there! It's almost indestructible!

You can mix and match them all

DS off school today and I’m currently staring at a massive world he’s built consisting of
asda
tesco
ikea
hape
thomas wooden railway
brio

he had his firSt piece 4+ years ago so amazing longevity

I would say the sturdiest bits are the big jigs

It is, but all the wooden tracks fit together. I'd splurge on a couple of special bits of Brio like bridges or signals, especially anything fiddly that might break is worth getting proper Brio. Then top it up with Ikea, bigjigs, supermarket brand ones, second hand bundles etc.

Avoid the Chinese knockoffs from amazon. They don't tend to be the right shapes so they mess with the compatability.

We have a load of wooden train set stuff from Lidl with the odd bits from Big Jigs, Brio (the garage in particular is fab - played with all day, every day for over 2 years!) As others have said it all fits together well & is interchangeable. We mainly bought the cheaper sets & added the more exciting additions (garage etc) from Brio / Big Jigs as they had slightly more options to choose from & looked a wee bit more durable.

We bought DS a Brio wooden toy cooker. If they still do them, they're a great toy, very robust and got daily use for years.

We had a mixture of second hand, Brio, Tesco and IKEA. All very much loved.
I'd very much recommend getting a couple of new bits alongside a lot of preloved so you can extend it as much as you like. It's such a great toy. We've kept ours for any potential grandkids sentimental old fool

We started off with a bag of second hand stuff that got added to with lidl, brio and big jigs.