Thomas take and play?

[kirstybumx3]

Rio is really into Thomas the tank engine at the moment so I'm looking to get him some bits for Christmas but I am lost!
There seems to be loads, where do I start?
What is this 'take and play' stuff and do you buy all of the trains separately or do some come in the sets? Is it only certain trains that are compatible? And mainly which are the best buys?
Thanks!

 

[ColeCaden]

Ok there are 3 different types of Thomas things you can get. The take and play ones join together via magnets. U normally get one with the set but the others are fairly cheap to add on. These ones u need to push round the track. If you are going to buy a first set I recommend the quarry one. This is by far the most played with one in our house. All the take and play sets join together and are a bit hit in our house. You can also buy extra track. Amazon have some good offers on their take and play things at the min.

The track master trains are battery operated and are bigger train tracks. The trains go round themselves. The newer stuff is not as good as the older sets in my opinion . Quite flimsy.
The third sets are the wooden ones which can be very expensive.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[ColeCaden]

Also I think smyths or toys r us might be doing 3 for 2 on Thomas stuff. I would say for his age the take and play ones are the best option. My 5 year old and 2 year old love them

 

[wildflower79]

My dd has lots of Thomas wooden railway stuff. Pretty much all the different wooden railway sets eg. Brio, tesco, bigjigs fit together. The tesco set is really good value for the price. We started with that and just added bits on. We bought lots 2nd hand. You have to buy the Thomas wooden engines to fit on though (the take and play engines won't fit)

I've never tried take and play, but have got dd some trackmaster for xmas.

Toys r us is 2 for 3 on all fisher price thomas stuff at the moment. Sorry, meant 3 for 2!

 

[biglebowski]

My lo loooooves his take n play stuff. He has the Tidmouth Shed and we bought him a pirate one from Argos for Christmas. You usually get a Thomas train with them and buy the rest separate. You can pick them up on offer from supermarkets a lot, and Toys r Us have the 3 for 2 offer on the now. Id recommend getting the additional track to make the sets a bit more interesting. My lo often just loves playing with the trains on their own. They have been great to take away on holiday or when we go for a meal as the trains are dinky. Many a time we have used a menu as a "tunnel" to pass the time!!!
We are also going to buy a few wooden Thomas trains to add to his wooden set. Hes train mad!!!
They are pretty fly though as Take n Play, Trackmaster and wooden are all slightly different sizes so arent compatible! Take n play is a reasonable way to start and are often on offer. Check Amazon for reviews first as a few have reviews that arent great.

 

[kirstybumx3]

Brilliant, thanks so much everyone for your replies they have been really helpful!

 

[liz1985]

We have the trackmaster thomas stuff. Its the most expensive i think, the trains can be about £20 each. I think it depends how he'll like to play with it. Noah love setting up the track and getting loads of trains going round at once, wheras the take and play they push it round themselves. It is expensive but good quality.

 

[dizzy65]

Following! My youngest is obsessed with thomas right now and i want to get him a bunch of thomas stuff

 

[sequeena]

We love thomas take and play. Pick a set and off you go! You can get extra track to make the sets bigger (or buy more sets and join the together). The larger trains with tenders are around £8 but do go on offer. You can get talking trains and I just got a bumble bee striped james for christmas We do have trackmaster but thomas prefers take and play so he can push the himself. And crash. A lot.

 

[Sparrow85]

I also have a Thomas obsessed boy, it's actually getting out of control! He's 3 in December.

We bought him a wooden train set with table for christmas last year and the love of everything train related just escalated from there.

Like others said, there's lots of different ranges and they're not compatible with each other. We've been collecting the take and play trains since last year. Max pretty much has every one now and they are played with and loved every day. We have the roaring dino run set and that's fab. We've also got the percy at the scrapyard set. You get a train with every set, but it's mostly thomas that you get with them. The others are about £7-8 each to pick up. Extra track packs can be picked up for about £10 and are well worth it, as you can then connect all the sets to each other. This range also folds up so handy for storing or taking with you if you're going out.

The trackmaster trains are motorised and my LO doesn't have any of these sets just yet. But, we're getting him a few for birthday/christmas, as well as the track builder pack. Asda have a 5-in-1 just now for £32.

Pretty much everything on his santa list is thomas related. If he's in to it though, you can't really go wrong.