Looking for son

[roenickrox]

I have a 2 1/2 yr old. He loves his Geotrax from Fisher Price. He also loves watching Daddy's trains go around. I've been looking at getting him the Thomas and Friends set from Bachmann. Does anyone have any pros or cons to that set.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[lester perry]

I have a grand son who loves Thomas & friends. I bought him the wooden trains with lots & lots of track at about 3yrs. I also bought the Hornsby HO ones for him at about 5yrs. He loves the wooden ones even now at 7 yrs. The HO ones sit & look pretty, he would rather run an H8 or Hudson on my layout. From the get go he wanted to run Poppys train. I built a track close to the floor in my layout so he could see it ( He is short) thinking he could run thomas while I ran my stuff. I have a track connecting his level with mine. He will send me his thomas and request a Berkshire in return. I would wait a while and start with the wooden stuff and be prepared to have sore knees pushing it around with your son.
Les
Spend all the time you can with him he will be 18 and leaveing before you know it.

 

[roenickrox]

I was planning on waiting, but it kind of the same thing as you. I would probably just run the trains on my layout to make him happy. At least during the week I could run mine (I work nights and he's at preschool.) He is so into trans that I think him and I are the only ones who are happy when we get stuck by a long freighter two blocks from home.

 

[MasonJar]

Tim,

My daughter (now 4 1/2) has been playing with the wooden trains for at least two years. She has recently (last 12 months or so) been running the HO models with me using the Digitrax Zephyr. She loves to sound the whistle!

I got her a few junkers so she can sit at the workbench with me and "work". She has also put about 6 gallons of craft paint on the poor old locomotive and caboose (it has been every colour from silver to hot pink...).

We have also turned the car around when realizing that a train is going to cross the level crossing we just went over...!

Andrew

 

[Wimpy]

My youngest grandkid just turned 2 last week and my oldest is 5. I just receive a lionel O scale Thomas set and set it up on the floor today to break in the engine. The 2 year old was thrilled to help papa G run the train. I was told the bigger size seems to help the small ones. It seems to work as he already put one of the cars back on the track that he accidently knocked off. Not sure he could do that in HO scale. Even I have problems with doing it myself.

He sat on my lap and loved to put things on the train when it came by. I think I have given every car he owns a ridge in the gondola so far. As of this writting my other 2 grandkids have not seen the set up so don't know how they will react.

Wimpy

Wiscasset & Carrabassett Ry.
The biggest, littlest railroad, down east

 

[jasonm]

I've got a 3 1/2 year old son, and bought him Thomas and 2 passenger cars for Christmas (HO Bachmann). We've had a lot of fun with them and even named my trains James, Big Gordon, ... The Bachmann was actually better quality than I expected (I bought it online)
Thomas stays on a siding while I run my trains but also gives my son & I something to do together as Mom's not too into the whole "train thing".

Hope this helps,
jason

 

[sumpter250]

Tim,
Buy him the wood, and let him play, develope imagination, and hand/eye coordination. He's too young for "video games". When he gets tired of "the characters"(Thomas, and Brio) There's Whittle Short Line (wood trains, compatible with the wood track system, that
arePainted to represent current rail lines. They also have Metra trains). Also, don't glue down the track, it's like a puzzle. He'll get frustrated, but will eventually figure it out (and maybe be able to design a layout someday, without having to ask someone else to do it for him).
We humans are engineered to learn, but we need teachers,... and learning curves to fight with.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

I read somewhere, I forgot where....A guy bought his four year old son a Brio. The four year old made such a nice looking and cool Brio layout, the father, stuck for a layout design, copied and built it in HO.

 

[roenickrox]

Thank you all for your help. He loves his plastic Fisher-price trains. I was just going to get him a Thomas train to run on my layout since he's so interested when I'm working on it. I've seen the Brio and was thinking about getting him that, but he always comes running up to me wanting me to set up his Geotrax. It's almost the same thing, just plastic instead of wood. As with the Brio you can push it or some of the trains come with a remote (he loves to push and I take the easy way out.) We have so much stuff for it that when set up it takes up a good 4x10 floor space.

 

[oldtanker]

Our 3 year old grandson has "Thomas the Train" in battery power. He also has a wooden train set that has to be pushed by hand. Guess which he likes best......the wooden one. I think its because he can lay the track out any way he wants and having to push it makes it more interactive. He can at that age build a very large layout and he even insists on putting up the trees and structures that came with the wooden sets. We got him a table designed for those trains from Target for 80 & tax. The train sets are not very expensive. They couple by magnets so a 1 year old can do it....his little brother! Little brother has the same setup with the table and several sets.

 

[nicknero]

I work at hobbytown so I know a lot about the Thomas the tank stuff especially the people coming in asking if the wooden ones are DCC compliant but yea there was a guy that bought a table the biggest one we had and it wasnt enough he put 4 together and sanded them flat we love that guy he buys like a mile of wooden track everytime hes there. Also I got a 7 year old niece she loves my trains so I built her a stool to see my layout and I bought her a digitrax UT4 next thing Im doing is buying a Bachmann DCC loco for her to paint and such but shes probably gonna try to use my bigboy

 

[wjstix]

My granddaughter loves to play with her plastic Thomas and friends, it's made to the same size as the Brio wooden trains. I think I would go with that for your son to play with on his own, and maybe get the HO (technically OO) Thomas, Annie and Clarabel to run on your layout with him (under 'adult supervision').

 

[Drew Toner]

Lost son!

Gee, for a minute there, according to the title of your post, that you had lost your son, or were trying to give one away (no I don't want one!!)

But it seems that with all the above replies, it would indicate that those kids are welcomed to be with 'the elder':thumb: :thumb:

Drew

I have a 2 1/2 yr old. He loves his Geotrax from Fisher Price. He also loves watching Daddy's trains go around. I've been looking at getting him the Thomas and Friends set from Bachmann. Does anyone have any pros or cons to that set.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[roenickrox]

I did lose him (In the world of trains). He loves them. I guess What I was trying to ask was answered and I thank you all. My wife told me the other day she almost bought the Bachmann for him. I'm just worried that when I'm at work hell want to run his train on my layout. And of course somehow when I get home it will be in shambles. I will wait until he gets a little older when he understands that it will only be used when I'm home. For now he can still play with his Geotrax.

 

[eightyeightfan1]

Maybe you can make a small layout for him. Kid Friendly of course.This way he can play..oops..OPERATE his railroad while you're not there.

 

[Gil Finn]

What could be the problem with that?

I am sorry but I find an odd question to put to a forum.

What do you think you should do? Have you ask your wife what to do yet?

Hahahahah...just kidding. Buy the kid the set or maybe Harry Patter.