Don't buy off-brand Wooden Railways!

Earlier, I told of the beginning of my introduction to Thomas and Friends. Now, let me speak of my introduction to the Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway system. Due to costs, we bought an off-brand Train Table that came with tracks and trains and then bought my son a Battery-Operated Percy, with the idea to eventually buy other Steamies and Diesels and Destinations.

What a mistake!

Percy kept falling off the tracks to my son’s dismay. In reading many reviews I saw many parent warn the same thing. Non-Thomas track is inferior and the trains will fall off. In time we got more track, this time Thomas track, and found how much superior this track was. The track fits together tight, the trains don’t fall off, and it holds up to abuse better. (Not to mention that it looks better, looking more like real railway track!)

So, if you are a beginner with Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway, I urge you to start small, and get the right track and trains from the beginning and not deal with the frustration your child will experience when the train just doesn't work right!

I recommend starting with Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Coal Hopper Figure 8 Set the and adding the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Figure 8 Expansion Pack and/or Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway - Deluxe Figure 8 Expansion Track Pack to it.

You will thank yourself and avoid lots of frustration!

Fisher Price Upgrades the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway: Post Two - The Photos!

So, I went back today with my son to take photos of the differences in the new Fisher-Price Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway toys at Toys 'R' Us. I hope you appreciate the improvements from these low-quality camera phone pictures in bad lighting for photos. This blog post is a continuation from yesterday's part one that you can read HERE.

Look at this! It appears to come with the previous version of Diesel, but I so want to get this for my son. I wish I had the extra funds!

Left: Previous version, Right: Improved version

Left: Improved version, Right: Previous version

Left: Previous version, Right: Improved version

Left: Improved version, Right: Previous version

Top: Previous version, Bottom: Improved version

Top: Improved version, Bottom: Previous Version

Left: Previous version, Right: Improved version

Top: Improved version, Bottom: Previous version

To see even more photographs comparing the Learning Curve pre-refresh to the Fisher-Price refreshed engines, click HERE and HERE.

Fisher Price Upgrades the Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway: Post One

Yesterday, I took my 2 ½ year old son to Toys 'R' Us to get a Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway Toby for being so good in 2 days of seeing the doctor after suffering from a concussion. When we got there, right away, I noticed that they had a new promo table for the kids to play with and new Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway Trains.

Then, looking at the trains, I noticed that the battery operated trains such as Hiro and James were bigger with bigger, different, better faces! Their bodies were much more detailed too. Looking at the packaging, I saw it was different with a picture of the wooden track on the left of the packaging rather than just wood. These were the new Thomas toys!

We say better faces on all the trains, and the new Toby actually has a funnel! Seriously, this is a great time to replace any trains you need to replace, because these are much better than the older ones! A few items appear not to have changed, but are instead just better quality versions of the previous Learning Curve models. It has made me redo my entire wish list for my son.

That being said, I was a bad blogger and did not take pictures of the differences, other than this picture showing a great sale. I will do that next time. Click HERE for next time, then HERE for the 3rd post, and HERE for the 4th post on these changes! :-)