Customer Reviews

PlanToys Plan City Road System (Deluxe)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

We bought this, as well as some additional road & "plan city" items to add to our kid's Brio train setup. The whole line seems high quality & it was a big hit w/ the boys. They like their trains, but they love their cars & trucks too!

Plan city makes some nice little wooden vehicles, but this roadway set works just as well with Thomas, Brio, and even hotwheels, matchbox, etc cars.

The fact that it integrates so well with Brio, Thomas etc is great (even comes with a "crossing" road / track part!... although trying to work this into a train table that's already "full" can be pretty challenging! We're at the point where we have to "rotate" certain accessories in & out (which is good... keeps the toy fresh... and is fun for Dad to try to come up with new layouts... that actually fit on the table!).

Only downside... if you expand this set w/ additional road packs, you might need a male/male &/or female/female section... which they don't seem to sell. I'm actually making one of each by cutting two pieces in half & glueing the two male ends together & the two female ends together.

We bought this to go with the Plan City Station. We definately needed it. Unlike other roading systems (eg Thomas) this is a two way road which is nice. It has some pieces that have railroad crossings so you can combine any Thomas-compatible wooden railway pieces with the roads (We have Circo and Imaginarium).

The only problem (and the reason I gave it 4 stars not 5) is that there are no smaller straight pieces of road, which makes it difficult to make different shapes with the road. When it is connected to the City Station there is a fixed length that is the station that you need to match the rest of the roading system to so you can close the loop, and because the pieces of roading are all the same length it is difficult to do when you have a confined space. It may be possible to buy additional short pieces which would give you more play options.

Our set of Plan City stuff - the garage, airport, etc. - is much more fun now with the roads to connect all of it. Well made, easy to put together, and not too many pieces to overwhelm a 4 year-old but still fun enough to interest my older kids. You can also connect any wooden train tracks to it for added train action fun.

We have some of the older plan city (Brio?) roadway and I bought a set of this at a going out of business sale, not realizing it wasn't compatible with the old stuff. The old stuff was bigger (longer) and each piece had two connecting points at each end. Compared to this newer stuff, the difference is night and day. Hands down the old stuff is nicer - however the old stuff doesn't connect to the base of the new parking garage (although I am working on making pieces to allow old and new to connect).

I am wondering, though, if they made this smaller in part to save money but also so it can fit on a train table? Back when the old stuff was made, train tables in the house didn't seem as much of a fixture. Now that almost everyone has a train table, the more compact roadway makes somewhat more sense. The old stuff was definitely nicer for the floor, if you wanted to be able to have buildings around it as well.

What's confusing me is my set is all wood. I expected the rubber connectors people have been expressing issues with - mine is all wood. From that standpoint, it seems sturdy enough - but I'd love to know if I got old stock somehow, or if Plan has switched to the all wood design? (I just got a set of this in January 2011)

At any rate - this set is nice enough, though with 1 connector vs. 2 it is more wiggly than the old style. Seems like it will last a good while. I like how the bridge can be folded flat for storage - it doesn't look as nice as the old style, but that's a pretty ingenious feature. However I expect we'll glue the supports to the bridge to make the set-up more stable - this is what we did with our old set so it held up better. It would be nice if they would make it so the bridge attached to the supports better for play.

It would also be nice if all the Plan City buildings attached to the roadway somehow - the old style parking garage did not attach, and with the old garage it made sense to not have other things attached to the roadway. But now that the parking garage can be attached, it's kind of weird to not be able to attach the other buildings (car wash, service center) - and almost makes it make more sense just to have one of those carpets with the roadway printed on it. It's a little annoying how there will be a dip between the buildings and the roadway when you just place the buildings along side the roadway. Basically the roadway makes the parking garage more interesting, but makes the other buildings stand out kinda weirdly.

Kind of meager for the price, but a great addition to the parking garage if you can find it cheap(er).

We've had this road system for almost a year and it has worked out really well. It is durable and easy to manipulate. We're able to build tons of different road systems on the (relatively narrow) plan toys play table which was one of my concerns before we bought it. The bridge comes apart easily (too easily for my 3 and 1 year old boys) so we glued the raised part to the supports so all they have do is join the ramps. Highly recommended!

The Plan City Road System is expensive, but the quality is excellent. My boys love it and I plan on adding more pieces for Christmas. It is worth the money!

My 2 year old and 8 year old both love this toy. Very easy to put together in various configurations. Goes great with our Brio train set. More advanced than the train set in that you have to control the car to stay on the road and on the right side of the road, versus just pushing it and it staying on the train tracks. This really fascinated my son that he could let go of a train at the top of a hill and it stay on the track, but let go of a car at the top of a hill it would run off the road. The big hit of Christmas - very glad I got it.

This is a cute toy that my daughters enjoy playing with their cars and City Station. The problem I have with it is that the rubber connectors between the tracks fit too tightly on some of the pieces so that they have to be wiggled off very gently or they break off. It's frustrating for the kids when they can't get it apart, and then it's frustrating when the roads won't stay together. We got this last Christmas and a number of the connectors are broken in half. Why not make the whole piece wooden so it would be more durable? For $90 for a small set, I expected it to be heirloom quality. My kids are just as creative building roads out of their block sets and we don't have to worry about the blocks breaking. This set is fine and we'll keep it around, but if I had to do it again I would skip the roads and just buy more wooden blocks.

We bought this set for our son as a gift last Christmas...it has held up beautifully and is a great first set for a two year old. We also got the bridge, which is great as well, except the sides of the bridge have grooves that do not allow the vehicles to drive straight over and go down the ramp without falling off the side (that's why four stars). Our little guy is now building this himself, and continues to love the Plan toys. We definitely recommend for parents looking for safe and quality toys.

We've had this toy for about a year. My 2 and 4 year olds love the roads. They link in with another brands rail road set also. We've found them very durable. We've bought more roads to expand our set. I recommend this set. Lots of fun.