My recently turned two year old son and his new steam choo choo are totally inseparable and it's boardline obsession. He actually got this train for his birthday from his grandpa, it got some pretty heavy use before it disappeared one day. I'm pretty sure I threw it away while throwing out a room full of furniture packaging but we'll not get into all that... soooooo we decided to order a new one for him. He hadn't seen it in a few weeks and when the new one arrived in the mail, he opened the package with me and I've never seen his face glow like that before. Biggest smile you ever saw as he said "oh my gosh oh my gosh hi choo choo!". Ever since it came he won't set it down. He loves it. He takes it everywhere he goes in the house, he eats with it, tries to bath with it, although I haven't let him yet, he takes it to the store and back. In fact, I've been going threw photos lately and realizing it's in almost every picture. I included some in the review for good measure.. sometimes I don't even realize he has it with him and I look down, and there it is. He actually has a bunch of wooden and plastic trains from multiple brands of all shapes sizes and colors that fit on the wooden track system, even a battery powered one, some cars and trucks.. a fire engine!! and this one takes the cake.. I'm not completely sure why, because if I ask him, he doesn't really tell me.. but if I had to guess, it's probably the cool authentic shape, and the fact that those little rails move as you push it along like a real steam train. I'm not going to lie, I get some enjoyment watching my son push it down a downhill length of track. It's pretty neat. And at this price point, you really can't beat it. It's cheaper than those Thomas ones that don't even have moving rail things! My son takes this thing on the track but scoots it around off the track too. The magnets seem strong, they hold on to coaches and his favorite red tender that some of the cheaper engines won't hold on to, that's the brio quality though.. the magnets are always super strong. The train overall seems very sturdy as my son has been scooting this thing up down and everywhere, and of course has dropped it many a time, and not a broken piece or paint chip has shown up on the unit to date. Can't say the same for some of the other brands' engines. Especially Melissa and Doug trains seem to be the worst about paint chipping. It's also mostly wood, which is cool, because brio has been making a lot of their stuff completely out of plastic lately and it's driving me bonkers, plastic is not the quality I expect from my favorite childhood brand, who used to make stuff out of wood exclusively. For shame, brio! *Shakes fist.*. Some of the smaller parts are plastic but it is what it is, those parts would be difficult to do out of wood, parts like the cow pusher grate, and the moving rail things, and of course the wheels, etc.. however the main base and such are all wood. Honestly for this price I expected an all plastic train, and got a mostly wood one.. so I was pleasantly surprised. Cons.. there really aren't many aside from having issues feeding him because he would rather push his train around the floor than sit at the table to eat.. I will say this, it handles turns pretty well, but on a long down hill stretch it always topples over on a turn at the bottom, it's a bit top heavy which compared to some of the longer brio engines, especially the ones with longer sets of wheels. If it's going down a Norma ramp at normal speed it won't topple, but a longer ramp, or if pushed a little too fast, it'll fall over. Not really a huge deal but I thought I would note it anyways. Also.. I have a couple cheap non-brio bridges that this thing has a bit of trouble freely moving through. It doesn't get stuck or anything, just requires a little extra push. The moving side rail things stick out a bit too much for those particular bridges. May be something to consider if you were planning on having a battery powered train push it around the track, may or may not work out if you have some bridges that run a bit tight on the edges. Anyways, for $10 or so, you get a really authentic looking train, with lots of cool detail, made mostly out of wood, with moving parts, and in the case of my son, a childhood companion.. which he puts to bed every night before he goes to sleep and greets in the morning before he starts the day. If you are buying this for your child, good luck getting him or her to ever put it down. It's a fight every time.
