Highly Misleading- Track is PLASTIC, not Wood
I was looking for additional track and found this to be a great value. The track I have now is wood, and I assumed these pieces would be wood also since the product packaging and description did not say otherwise and the photos on the product packaging “look” like wood. There is absolutely no mention anywhere saying what the tracks are made of.
So my amazement, when the track arrived, we found it is plastic! It does snap together a bit easier than the wooden track we have, but doesn’t look as nice as the wooden track.
NOTE: If you have wood track, this plastic track is NOT interchangable and can not be used to expand a wood track system. Again, the product description is highly misleading as this is promoted as a “Track Expansion Pack”
Overall I am extremely dissapointed with the highly misleading and deceptive manner the way this product is packaged and described, you assume it will be made from wood like most of the track is and have no way of telling otherwise. I won’t purchase from this vendor again, and shame on Amazon for not requiring more disclosure as to what materials the track is made of.
If you want a cheap plastic track that doesn’t always lay flat, then buy this. If you want wood track, or to expand wood track, don’t buy this.
Fantastic Train Set … Expansion Toy of The Year …
For the last few years at the big-box retailers, model railways have been stocked as a niche item or an occasional product with minimal interest. Sometimes only a few of them on an end-cap, like an afterthought.
With TrackMaster’s Thomas Adventure collection all of this quickly changed.
For the last four days, I’ve been stuck model railroading with my eighteen month old son, Fox. I first purchased him the Sodor Adventure set, quickly assembled it with no trouble and became hooked. Both of us laid there on the carpet, mesmerized watching the little blue engine continually circling the track.
Not feeling satisfied, like any parent obsessed, I ran back out and purchased:
TrackMaster Backpack of Track Kit — $[...]
TrackMaster Track Expansion Kit — $[...]
TrackMaster Mountain of Track — $[...]
TrackMaster Sodor Lumber Yard — $[...]
TrackMaster Thomas at The Station — $[...]
TrackMaster Sodor Adventure Set–$[...](*)
So in total, I spent about a $[...] You could actually do without the Backpack Kit and get two Expansion kits, as I later found it to be a better value. But it was more than worth the money I spent as this has really become the new time consuming thing to do all day long.
My chief complaints with the product is that the small bridge support pieces are not snappable or stackable like you would think, which would help you to elevate the track and keep it steady. To alleviate this problem, I had a flash of genius and pulled out some Lego sets and started building bridges, adding houses and some little people. Fox is going crazy over this stuff.
What I’ve found in the last number of days playing with Model Railroads, is that it’s a good lesson for my son to learn to ‘not touch’ or ‘watch’, ‘be gentle’ and ‘don’t grab’. After untold hours, he knows now to be gentle, not to grab the trains or the cars, dismantle the track or other set pieces. He also avoids walking on the track, too. Which was the first thing he was all about.
The Remote Control Engines that are available are also nice as they add the ability to go backwards and forwards and stop thus preventing collisions. My mind wants there to be electronic switching (haha), but that’s a bit advanced for Thomas and Friends.
This track is capable of being combined with the old blue track as well with a few adapter pieces which I’ve seen in the store and available on the Thomas website. Just be advised that some of these sets advertised are wooden, some are for the cars and some are both.
There are also quite a few engine sets, pulley cars, cabooses, containers, etc., available to add on to the track. All of them are battery operated and speed along very smoothly. They get high points for the low price point of between five and seven dollars per car or per set. Remember other Model Railroading equipment runs into the many hundreds. Also, the track is very flexible in terms of using other types of motorized vehicles and little cars.
Overall, this entire set is well worth the time and money and is durable and easy to install and quick to take down and put back up. We have a race to see if we can get all the track back in the box before bedtime every night too. Setting it up is actually part of the fun, too.
I’ll be playing with the stuff well into the new year, as will my son.
… …
