Customer Reviews

Thomas Ultimate Set

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The first thing to know is that this set is not compatible with the wooden sets. This set has plastic track that has plastic battery powered trains. Our four year old has both the plastic and wooden trains, and he plays with the plastic Tomy set the most. The battery operated trains go faster and you can connect a lot of cars (sold seperately) onto one train.

Of the sets that are for sale on Amazon, this is the one to buy (especially if there is a free shipping offer). Here is a quick run down of some of the nicer items in this set.

--Cranky at the docks. This is cool because the train automatically stops when it pulls into the station. Cranky then turns back and forth as if it is loading the train. There is room for two trains side by side.
--A two sided station that has a built in stop track.
--A road/track intersection. The road vehicles have to stop until you push a button to let them go. As the train goes through, it also pushes open a gate that blocks the path of the bus.
--A lot of road including a road bridge. It would be nice if the road stayed together better, but it is still fun. You also get two battery powered road vehicles.
--Thomas and his coaches along with Percy and three freight cars.
--A three way swith track that also has three sheds to park Thomas and his coaches.
--A turntable. This isn't so helpful because of the ten positions on the turntable, only four of them are for "standard" track. The rest require a "diamond" type connector that you can't find anywhere. As shown on the box, the turntable really isn't connected to anything. You'll need to reconfigure the track or buy more track to have fun with the tunrtable.
--Miscellaneous tunnels, bridges, trees, etc.

If you buy this, I recommend the following.
--Buy another train such as Henry, Gordon or James. With such a big track it is more fun with more than two trains.
--Once you get comfortable with how the track can be arranged, rearrange the track so that it is a more open plan. My son likes to sit close to the track and his feet tends to accidentally wipe out much of the set. In other words, there is a lot of rail and road track in the middle of the set which is where kids want to be. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't sell extra track but it is not hard to find on line. Buy some extra track and rearrange things so that you have a more-open layout. It is especially helpful to buy the male female track adapters.

In summary, you get a lot of neat stuff with this set and your child will have hours and hours of fun with it. It semms expensive, but if you were to buy these items seperately, it would cost a lot more.

My 3 yr old son is Thomas crazy. He has the wooden railway which he loves and we just recently bought this one. He seems to like the larger trains made by Tomy better than the wooden ones. I like this set, but I agree with previous reviewers that you'll have to find a way to re-configure it. It is VERY LARGE and my 3yr old tends to knock over and disconnect the track fairly frequently. The only other thing that I would add is that the box and picture of the vehicles is very misleading, 3 of the vehicles trevor, terrance and caroline are miniature. They are smaller even then both the wooden and metal trains by learning curve. This was a little upsetting to us because that was one of the reason we bought the set for the rare vehicles. All in all it most be pretty good because my sons plays with it from the time he wakes up until he goes to bed. You can hear him playing out the stories that he watches on the tapes. Also, although it is motorized you can put the trains in the off position and they can push it just like the wooden trains. We don't even put the batteries in anymore because like another reviewer we found that he just watched. It promtes much more imagination this way.

My son was going to be getting this train set for Christmas. He absolutely loves trains and we thought it was a great buy at about $100. It comes with tons and tons of pieces, plus it's motorized. We had no idea how HUGE it was going to be though. BE PREPARED to dedicate an ENTIRE room to this train set though. By the time you set it up and leave about a foot or so of crawling space around the track for your child to play, it takes up an entire room. We could not put this set in his room because when he stepped out of bed, he would be stepping right onto his train set AND it would have left no room for anything else in his room. We thought about putting it in our dining room which is huge. But, by the time we left about a foot of crawling space for my son to get completely around his train set, there was no room for my table or for people to even walk from one room to another. If you have a large room to dedicate to this toy, then this is definitely the train set for your child. Sadly to say, we have to return ours and try to find a smaller version.

My cousin has this toy and loves it. The only thing is that the track do not stay together. When the bridge falls and he goesto fix it the track comes part which is fustrating for a 5 y.o. For the most part he loves it but personally i dont htink it was worth the $100+. Hes unable to sit in the middle of the tracks and watch the train go around ( like manay kids love) and the train goes very slow and he always trying to speed it up and im afraid he may break it. I think this year I may invest and buy him a LIONEL train, b/c at least then he cant sit and watch the train speed around an an occasional smoke isnt bad.

I purchased this set for my son's second birthday and he LOVES it. He plays with it every single day.

It is a great deal, cheaper than purchasing other sets separately and it can also be used together with the other two sets my son already had (if there is enough room for all tracks of course :) because it will be really huge if you add some extra tracks.

Be prepared to the size of this set, it is really big, just like the box show, it takes my entire living-room, but sometimes I don't assemble all pieces at the same time if I need more space in the living-room. I just assemble parts of it together or create separate layouts for my son to play with all his trains (I purchased more trains separately). If you don't have a room which is large enough for the entire set to be assembled, you can just create different separate sets, you don't need to put all pieces together at the same time (I do that often).

My son likes to sit in the middle of the tracks but the layout of this set doesn't allow much space for kids to play or sit among the tracks if you assemble the set exactly as the box shows. But there are enough tracks for us parents to use our creativity and rearrange the tracks in a way there is plenty of space for our kids to sit in the middle or walk among the tracks.

And the tracks are not difficult to be assembled, of course, small children will need the assistance of an adult to assemble some parts of this set (such as the bridges or the sheds), my son needs help with these, but joining the blue or gray tracks together is very easy and my son, who is 2 years and 2 months old now learned it very quickly. We just need to show our children how to do it.

These tracks do stay together when assembled on the floor, of course some parts won't stay together if assembled over a carpet, but my son even puts some tracks together on the bed and the tracks stay together most of the time and when they get appart, he simply puts them together again.

I purchased some extra trains separately and my son plays with them all at the same time when I create separate layouts with these tracks. Sometimes he also puts the trains in the off position and turns on only one train to push the others and it works just fine. It also saves batteries this way. :)

He has also a few wooden trains which came along with the DVDs I bought for him. He puts them on the blue tracks for the motorized plastic trains to push them. The wooden trains have magnets on each end so they stick together while the motorized plastic trains push them over the blue tracks. And the wooden trains move just fine on these tracks too. Sometimes he puts 6 or more trains together, turns on only one train to push the others and they all ride on the tracks perfectly if the batteries are good. Sometimes my son plays with this set with the trains in the off position too. He makes the trains move with his hands just like he does with the wooden trains, so when I forget to buy new batteries, that is not a problem for him.

The only disappointing thing (for me) was the size of Trevor, Terrence and Caroline, they are much smaller than the trains, but that was not a problem for my son. This set comes with three engine sheds, two bridges, a tunnel, stations, a small trees, Thomas (motorized), Annie, Clarabel, Percy (green train #6 - motorized), three freight cars, Harold (the helicopter, which flies around the station), Cranky (which moves on the dock - one of my son's favorite), a boat, Elizabeth (motorized), Trevor, Terrence and Caroline.

There are some small pieces that come with this set and if you have small children you can just assemble the set without these pieces in case you are leaving your child playing alone with the set.

I do like this set and I'm very pleased with this purchase. My son is very happy too.
I'm a 34 year-old mom who loves to see my 2 year-old son's happy face when we play together. :) When when his dad comes back from work and joins us, we all have fun together recreating scenes from the DVDs or VHS tapes. I live in Brazil and couldn't find this set here, so my sister who lives in the US bought it for me and sent it through the mail and I can say it was worth paying the postage to Brazil. My son loves this set and plays with it everyday, from the time he wakes up to the time he goes to bed. It has been 3 months since he received it and he doesn't seem to be tired of this set.

Hope this review was helpful if you are considering purchasing it.

My son started at 2 years old with the wooden tracks. Now he has graduated to the motorized engines with the blue track. He can't get enough of these. He's already gotten his early Xmas presents. He got this + additional tracks & trains. The only thing I see missing in this kit is Bertie the bus.

As for it's size, it is large. Even with the smaller blue sets my son has, we have tried to get him to take it apart every couple of days into a box and then get it back out the next day. IT's not a toy he ever forgets about. He always pulls it out to play with it & build it in new ways. It is not a track designed to just sit there and the child watch the train go around. It is designed for little "engineering" minds to think & build using different configurations. It sparks his imagination! His sister even likes to play with him.

It certainly is a lot cheaper to buy this set than to buy several other sets. Each time we buy a set with blue track, we always seem to get another Thomas. Although my son has informed me that each Thomas has a different face. He's right! There's a happy Thomas, sad Thomas and what I call a surprised Thomas. He puts all 3 on his tracks and plays.

If you are just now introducing your child/grandchild to the great Thomas the Tank Engine, you should consider this track if he/she is over 3 years old. The wooden track has a lot of neat stuff but the older kids seem to really like the motorized engines that come with the blue tracks.

It's easy to put together for him (he's 4) and it stays together. I hope Tomy adds more exciting pieces such as clock towers, mountain passes and things similar to the wooden track sets. I'd like to see the talk'n action Engines as well. I've been trying to find them everywhere and I can't. MY son carries around the brochures that come in the sets and the talk'n action trains are shown in there.

Oh well, just when I think he has enough, he finds something else he wants.

This set gets 2 thumbs up from this family (or shall I say 8 thumbs up - 2 from all 4 of us)!

For the price, this is an ok set. It would be better for a 5-6 year old, not 3 as the box indicates. If your child is young, it is really difficult and frustrating. It is hard for little hands to put the cars together. This set is also big so that it doesn't fit in our train table. The track pieces are so long that alternate track layouts on the train table are very limited. With the batteries our son just watched the train go around and around. We bought a wooden set from Learning Curve which is much better. He can do the cars and put the track together by himself. Since it is not batterey operated, he is actually playing with it - instead of just watching it go around.

This train set is easy to set up and everything has worked just fine on carpet. My only problem is replacing the batteries in the engines is a royal pain! The battery case does not screw off. You have to press the engine sides together while you pry off the bottom piece. I spent 30 minutes replacing the batteries in one engine. This is a great value and my kids love it but I hope the manufacturer figures out a better way to design the engines. I came close to throwing poor Thomas against a wall.

my son loves this toy so much even forgot his favorite icecream when he was playing. not only he loves this toy, i am crazy about this`too. we had a lot of fun since we got this toy.

My god son loves Thomas The Train and this was a gift for his third birthday and from all the reports i've been getting he loves it and his mother's thinking about getting stock in a battery company. He plays with the trains from the time he gets up till its time for bed.[...]