Can Anyone Give Me a Crash Course in Thomas the Tank Engine Toys?

Hi

My son also loved Thomas when he was your sons age! We went with the wooden trains that connect with a magnet and these use the wooden track , they are compatible with the Brio track and trains aswell so you don't always have to buy the Thomas stuff. We liked the wooden trains because we found the detail to be better as they are bigger , we still have all the engines and accessories now even though my son has gone past the Thomas stage becase they are timeless toys and one day hopefully grandkids will enjoy playing with them.

Hope this helps

K.

My 2 & 11/12 yo and my 4.5 year old LOVE Thomas... we also only bought the Take Along's b/c they are the cheapest and quietest! We have found that the wooden tracks do work for the take alongs, although they do have tracks specific for the take alongs, they are gray in color... they dont have has many "sets" for the take alongs but my kids favorite is the Waterfall

My son also collects the take along trains. You have to be very careful and only buy the train sets that are specifically for take along trains or they will not fit well on the tracks. The wooden ones and the trackmaster are totally different than the take along (both are bigger). The track that we have is silver/gray in color and snaps together. Toys R Us seems to have the best selection, and sometimes Target.

Hi. My son (3) loves Thomas and has the trackmaster set. They are not interchangeable. The trains are different sizes for each type of track, and the grooves of each type of track are a little different. I don't know much about the wooden sets, but I would stay away from the trackmaster set, only b/c its really hard to find all the stuff they make for it. Toys r us doesn't sell it nor does any other small toy store I've been in. I can only find it at Target or online. It's also more expensive. Oh the gray plastic tracks fit all the trains but it doesn't have the grooves thst the trackmast set needs so it won't function prooperly. Good luck.

the take along and trackmaster (plastic)are not compatible. target has some take along sets, plus ebay has lots of used take alongs - my son has been into thomas for 5 years and still loves them, so i am well versed lol
the plastic track is much wider than the take along track and so the take alongs really dont run well on it.
wooden and take alongs are a little more compatible, but if you want to stick with take alongs i would.
my son has all three types and we keep them seperate.

I realize this is a little late, but I wanted to let you know what we did. We found a different brand of train table/track with train cars, people, trees, buildings, etc, at Sam's Club for $70 or something and it fit with the Thomas set. I know they used to have a set at Toys R Us that wasn't Thomas brand, but was compatible with it all. We still get some of the Thomas cars, and we have extra track pieces that are Thomas and they seem to be better (more durable, better fit) than the off brand, but we got so much that it doesn't matter to us if we throw away one piece every now and then (probably one piece ever 2 months, and that's with 3 kids playing really rough with them). The key is to make sure it's the same type of set, b/c the widths are different. We had a friend give us a plastic train and it doesn't fit in the tunnels, etc, that we have for our wooden set.