This is a cute train and it almost makes it, but fails on several points. I still recommend it, but with the following caveats.
#1. It's hard to keep the train in the track. There are many reasons why (woobly wheels and a track that's not quite deep enough) but the biggest one I found was the freight cars and passenger cars are too big. They hit their edges going around bends. This causes them to bind against one another and they come off the track. This is pretty easy to fix. The freight cars hardly need anything. Just a few hits on each corner of the car with a wood file and some paint and that fixes that. The passenger cars are a bit harder. The problem is they hit at the top and it takes more than a few hits with a file. Not hard to do, however unless you are very good with a file, you can make it look ugly. If are are good at wood working it's a piece of cake. But once you give these cars some added clearance they no longer bind when going around curves on the track. Don't forget to repaint after you file.
#2 The stays (towers, piers, whatever you want to call them) for the elevated tracks are very poorly done. I don't know about you, but my little one has trouble not knocking over things when he plays. These things fall over just by breathing on them. I solved this problem by doubling each one and holding them together with rubber bands. Of course you have to be sure you have enough depending on your layout, but it's very doable.
#3. The problem is the stays are also too low. If you try to run the train under the brides or elevated track, it just barely makes it. In fact depending on what you are setting your track up on, it might hit. I ended up making spacers out of 1/4" pegboard. Worked great.
#4. The transfer crane does not want to go down. I solved this by popping open the bell and adding some washers in there to give it more weight. That solved that problem.
#5. The standard crane works great lifting, but not much on turning. It really needs a weighted bottom and a little graphite in there.
#6. The trees and signs fall down very easy if you setup on carpet. I had to make some stands for all of them.
#7.Some of the tracks do not line up on the turn-about. So if you are coming up to it, it'll hit on the bottom of the train. If you are coasting down a ramp, it's a sudden stop at the bottom. It's like the turn about is about 1/8" too thick material compared to the track pieces. I fixed this with a little cardboard taped to the bottom of the tracks that mate up with the turn-about.
It's not all doom and gloom. The wood is very nice looking and they give you a lot of great pieces. I had no trouble creating some really great layouts. They supply gender changers and lots of good pieces. When it's all setup it really looks very nice. It looks very expensive from about 5' away. Once you start to play with it, you realize it's not that well done, but still fun for the little ones.
I paid just over $100 and at that price I think it's over priced when you consider how many things I had to fix to get it reliable. Honestly if all my issues were solved from the manufacturer, I'd consider $100 a bargain for this set. Just to me if you spend $100 or more you should not have to do the final fit and finish on a product..
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