DS turns 2 soon and he is obsessee with trains. We have little set from ikea but want to get him a nice set that comes with a table. I have seen a few by kidcraft on amazon. Do you guys have any tips for buying these or a favorite table set?
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So we have the kid craft one which is very similar to the Melissa & Doug one I looked at also, but got a better deal on the kid craft. I wish I would have held out for the table for black friday/cyber monday like I did for the actual train set.
Also check facebook market place because I have noticed they go much cheaper used and they're not in bad shape because it's a table and it can't be thrown around and broke.
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We have the Kidcraft Waterfall Mountain one, and it’s good - I like that it has the baskets underneath for storage and that it also has a plane and helicopter and stuff. We got some additional tracks to go with it.
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Our train table never got used and just took up a ton of space
I would recommend buying second hand, since they're often in really good shape and half the price.
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I would also buy second hand as we were gifted one and it was huge and annoying and didn’t get used much even though my son is crazy about vehicles of all kinds. Consider the height of the table and your child as well and make sure it’s easily accessible for them.
I know it’s not exactly what you’re looking for but I got one of these for $20 off a buy and sell and he loved it way more than the table we were gifted:
https://www.step2.com/p/deluxe-canyon-road-train-track-table/ETA: this table fits almost every car and train including the ones from ikea...and he still uses it at almost 4. Heavy use around age 2 or so like your son. Super lightweight and easy to move around and reach all the parts.
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We don’t have space for a table, but a couple of friends who have them all have the Melissa and Doug one and like it. I think most of them bought it around Black Friday.
We have a small Brio train set and I really like the quality of the tracks and cars.
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We had a Kidkraft one with 2 trundle drawers.
I bought it used and was in near perfect shape. The drawers were great because they held all of the trains, tracks, buildings, etc.
Once we started moving to Legos instead of trains one of the drawers I started using for Legos instead.
After 4 years I sold the table for exactly what I had paid for it. -
Thanks everyone!
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I just wanted to chime in in full agreement - our train table was not a hit. It mostly just collects junk. The only ways it was really useful to us were (a) as a way for my older kids to keep little toys like Shopkins away from their crawling baby sister and (b) a way to force my very late stander/walker to play standing up and begin creeping.
We have the KidKraft one - while really nice, it just didn't provide a big enough track surface for my girls (who LOVE building with train pieces)....they ultimately always ended up taking their tracks to the floor.
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We have a Melissa and Doug one. My husband bought it for super cheap at an estate sale. We set up trains and legos and both my boys love it.
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Just want to chime in. We never got a table and I don't regret it one bit. My kids were OBSESSED with the train sets and had a gazillion of them and would make these huge elaborate sets with them. A table would have just limited them and they probably wouldn't have used it.
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We had a train table and while it was never really used successfully for train tracks, it would have been excellent as a lego city table. I ended up giving it away and regretting it.
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@Adira: Totally agree. My son likes to make these sprawling towns and stations and uses our living room as part of it!
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Thanks everyone!
@Adira: cute photo thanks for sharing. Yes currently thats how my LOs play with their trains and set since we dont have the table yet -
@Adira: Love that he is wearing a Thomas shirt too
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If you want to wait to get a full train set, I'd highly recommend this train from Melissa and Doug: https://www.kohls.com/product/prd-457463/melissa-doug-stacking-train.jsp
It satisfies my son's train obsession and when he's 5 or so, we'll get the real train track set. I had 5 little brothers and they didn't really build their own tracks till around 5/6. When they were younger, I'd spend time putting a cool track together and they'd play with it for like 10 minutes.
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@looch: that’s a good idea. They make the big square “tiles” you could glue to a train table and make a big LEGO table instead.
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Thanks guys. I have seen a couple sets on amazon that do qualify for the registry completion discount so I'll use that to knock the price down
I would recommend buying second hand, since they're often in really good shape and half the price.
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