Customer Reviews

Quadrilla Marble Railway, Rail

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Our boys love the Quadrilla Marble stuff. We have both the Quadrilla Marble Railway, Basic Set and the Quadrilla Marble Railway, Twist and Rail set. After more than a year of owning them we still pull out regularly to play with.

We were looking to expand our sets for bigger and better things so added this set, but were a little disappointed in what it added to our system. Included are several of the long runs, and a handful of half length ones, as well several new block shapes that add flexibility. It also includes both the green and red teeter-totters which are widely loved.

However this kit also includes about 10 pieces that are just boards with hole groups in them (2x2, 1x2, 1x3), not really runs. These pieces must be totally key for the super advanced run builder, but we are simply not there yet. We've built a few of the runs from the manual and find that the ones that use these special boards tend to be tricky, and require a lot of careful balancing and assembly to use. While the professional Mechanical Engineers in the house can build them, they are way, way beyond the skill of our boys. Further we are years away from dreaming up structures that could use these. In retrospect a second twist and rail set would probably have been more gratifying for us.

So in short while we love the Quadrilla marble stuff, unless you are ready for the most advanced runs, expand with a different set than this one, or perhaps buy the individual pieces that can be bought separately. However if you are already doing some pretty complicated castles, these may well be the key pieces you've been needing all along!

I purchased this toy for my 4 year old twin granddaughters. It's a nice toy if you want to do all the work of constructing the rail. They had a lot of fun making the marbles roll down the track and watching them come out.

However, they are too young to actually construct anything by themselves. I feel this toy is far better suited to older children. At this age there is very little educational value, but for an older child there would be a great deal of value. That's why I gave it three stars.

We gave this set to our 3-3/4-year-old son for Christmas yesterday and he's in love with it. We still haven't opened most of our presents (I'm writing on Dec. 26th) as he only wants to keep making different marble runs.

The reviews here helped us make the decision to buy the set so I wanted to give our thoughts after about 6 hours of playing with the set.

1. The set is too complicated for our son to build good marble runs on his own. But it is easy to put together and our son can construct simple structures on his own (he loves building with blocks as well). He does love helping to build the sets. So one should regard this toy, for a 3-4 year old, as something a parent does together with the child. And once the set is done, he has been in seventh heaven playing with the marbles and having them go down the runs.

2. The wood parts are well made and feel good to the touch. The marbles make very pleasing noises in the run. The longer runs are made of quality plywood and the stacking blocks are solid wood (stained oak, I believe).

3. There is a learning curve to figuring out how to build good runs. How difficult this is depends on one's background. It took me about ten minutes to get accustomed to how one builds a marble run, about 30 minutes to master the basics, and a few joyful hours of construction to really understand the subtleties of interesting good runs. My wife is taking a little longer to figure it out, but is having a great time learning. Some people have been really frustrated by the set. I can see how this might happen, but there are just a few simple construction principles and if you follow them, there really aren't any problems. The manual also has a number of nice examples and the YouTube instructional videos offered by Quadrilla are very helpful (we only watched these before buying the product as there were a number of reviews by people who said it was a difficult system).

4. We bought the Rails system as our first set as we were convinced that we were going to like the set and wanted a lot of track. We already used most of the pieces up in our runs.

5. Some of the pieces like the 2" x 2" are specialized and you'll only use them for certain special purposes. But they are useful, and we've already used them (on day two). The 1 x 2 and 1 x 3 pieces are pretty necessary for the intermediate runs and the Quadrilla examples show how to use it.

6. Part of the great thing about Quadrilla is that it is a both a construction toy and a marble run. Because it's made of wood, at times it won't be the most stable construction. So if you bump the set, it may fall down (and some reviewers have complained about this). But our son has been very good about being careful and hasn't been bumping into it accidentally. On the other hand, he is able to demolish the set on purpose when he wants to build a new run, and since it's wood, nothing gets hurt and he's very happy. The construction aspect was important to us. One can probably make stranger-shaped marble runs from many of the plastic kits (like swirly loop-de-loops), but one loses the construction aspect (at the 3-4 year old age at least). If our son was 8 or 9, I might consider some of the advanced plastic sets as he would be able to build them. But he can't right now.

Overall, we were very hesitant about the set because of its price. But our son has loved this set so much more than pretty much anything he's gotten, that we definitely made the right decision.

Many reviews (for this and its sister set, the Twist) have covered the excellent quality of craftsmanship on this toy, so I'll comment more on its functionality. O.K., I can't resist - this is a lovely toy! We've had this set for a little over 3 months. It is my 8 yr old's set, but his 11 yr old brother builds with it about as much. As others have commented, it is NOT for your average preschooler. I think people believe marble runs should be for that age, and my guys had the Discovery Toys plastic set when they were that age and enjoyed it very much. This is completely different. Those sets you can put together any way you choose, and gravity will push the little marble to the bottom. This set actually has spacers to help you keep the track perfectly level. The marbles are kept moving by the momentum created as they drop through the chutes in the blocks to the next level. So if you want your marble to travel left along the top track, then back right along the next, you have to plan and have a block with the appropriate base opening for it to drop to the next level. You have to remember, as you build, which way the marble will travel on each track, because there's no downward slope to remind you. Each colored block has a different function, or pair of functions (for blue ones the marble can drop through the top and come out on one side, or enter on the other side and drop through the bottom, teal can drop through the top and out on one side or travel completely through the base, like a tunnel, red ones are toggles- the first marble through the top exits on the left, the second exits to the right). It took some getting used to, but now I'll hear them say "O.K., pass a natural block and 2 spacers" (5 spacers are the height of one block), they've memorized the function of each block and can eyeball the difference in height of one end of the track vs. the other (as they once learned to ask for a 3" or 4" piece of Thomas track to fill in a gap based on experience).
I think it's a great toy for planning and spatial reasoning, etc. It's not something they play with all the time, it comes and goes. It'll be out for a few days, and then back on the box for a few weeks. I bought it thinking it would be a good toy for all 4 of my kids to work together on (like their Kapla blocks that we love)- not so much. Mostly, one person builds something, and everyone comes to check it out and play with it,until it inevitably gets knocked over, then someone else builds something. It's the kind of toy that you get your own idea of what you want to build, and it's frustrating to compromise your vision. My 8 yr old says its his favorite thing to play when his big brother won't let him play Bionicles with him and his little sister is playing dolls. Yes, it can tip over if it's bumped too hard, but we've learned to take that in stride. That is another reason it could be pretty frustrating for a little person, though. My 4 yr. old hasn't attempted building anything, but loves dropping marbles through her brothers' creations, and she's learned to be careful, that the structures are fragile.
We have added some extra track pieces and funnels, and that makes it more interesting. It's only August, but my son announced today that the Switch set (which releases the marbles for you, so you can just watch them run the track) is officially on his Christmas list!

I ordered the Quadrilla Marble Railway for my 5 and 4-year-old grandsons this year for Christmas. I had looked at several marble run sets but when I read this one had won Awards,I decided on the Quadrilla. It was a huge hit..maybe the biggest with my 35-year-old son-in-law! And what a wonderful thing for them to work on together.My 13-year-old nephew who has autism was visiting over the Holidays and he played with the set for hours. The 5-year-old has given me a list of additional add-on sets he "needs" for his next birthday.

My son saw this toy at a store and we ordered two sets from amazon. He just loves it. I can't believe how creative he can be with it. He thinks he's having fun and I see him learning about physics!