Roll on 2019, some of you will be jumping for joy that Fisher-Price are bringing back fully painted designs! The shape and design of the actual trains will remain much the same as last year’s design, but with full high quality painted livery. Now we have to admit, we LOVE both designs, but there is something very exciting about knowing the full coloured versions are making a comeback. This is a true opportunity for those that were not keen on last year’s redesign to buy the versions that they want. For now we will be stocking both, which is great, as different customers have a preference for both designs.

Our new Thomas & Friends™ Wood trains 2019 line-up will see Nia introduced, which many people have been reaching out to us and asking for through social media. As always, our Thomas range will be the correct UK versions, rather than US or Japanese. At the time of writing we have our stock reserved and ready to arrive with us in January, but for others reading this blog post later on, you will find we are fully stocked so you can purchase now!

We are also excited to be stocking “Birthday Thomas” which is a fun train in the range, perfect for celebrating a Thomas mad child’s birthday. It comes decorated with balloons and stars as part of the design and pulls a birthday cake carriage, which when pressed lights up and plays birthday music. A fantastic birthday present!

As with all the Thomas wooden trains we sell, they are compatible with your leading brands of wooden track, there is no need for having Thomas specific tracks or accessories. We find that many of our customers but the Thomas trains as an addition to their existing wooden train sets or as an additional item to the track and accessories they are purchasing from us.

We look forward to being able to provide you with the latest and greatest trains in the Thomas & Friends™ range through 2019!

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We offer multiple packs including a standard kit with different sizes of curved and straight pieces, one with some straights, curves but also splitters and track accessories and then a bridge kit complete with bridges, supports, ascenders and a few curves and straights!

By stocking different expansion packs, our customers can easily pick an option which best suits the track they already have. Many people even buy a few different packs at the same time and also add them to an order with more specialist track pieces that they may need.

All packs offer a nice saving over buying the same parts individually on the site and also offer a more convenient way of buying, without having to buy all the parts sold in the packs individually. They also make a great gift for any wooden railway mad child, coming complete as a boxed set and will allow them to create better layouts!

The Bigjigs expansion packs, as with all our wooden railway parts are also compatible with all other leading wooden track. This means that you do not have to worry about mixing with other brands or having to pay more money for your track on the high street! You can find out more about our track compatibility here.

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In late 2017 Fisher-Price released their redesigned trains, track and accessories throughout the US, Japan and then other countries around the world in 2018. The track was slightly redesigned to have a new two way connector design, with adapters included to connect the new style with the old (and other brands) and the trains now feature elements of wood throughout the design rather than completely painted.

Fisher-Price has stated that the new design tested very well with parents and children during its development and although there have been complaints over the web and social media, we think that the new design is a great addition! Although we love the original design, there is something about the way that the new engines are set apart from motorised and die-cast Thomas toys. Wooden Railways and Trains have regained in popularity recently and we feel that the new design attracts a wider audience of parents and children, who may not have considered the Thomas range previously as part of their wooden railway collection.

We recently launched the new Thomas & Friends™ Wood trains on our website and from the orders we have already been taking, have noticed that people are keen to add the new style of trains to their basket, due to their compatibility with other leading brands of wooden track and sets. In addition to this many die hard Thomas fans have been embracing some of the new style engines as an addition to their collection.

We understand that the new model of trains may have lost a touch of realism, but with this they have highlighted the natural elements of wooden toys and set some distinction between the wood and other varieties available. The new trains are made from sustainably sourced premium beech wood and combined with a slightly fresher paint design and some other subtle changes to the characters.

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Start small

Sometimes the best way to get going is by buying a starter set which comes complete with enough track and accessories to get started. Building your first railway based on the sets standard design or following the instructions will give you and your child a feel for how the parts all fit together and how the train can be run up and around the tracks. Most starter sets allow you to get a bit creative by varying the layout and making changes to certain parts, so start experimenting and see if your child enjoys creating different layouts.

Start adding extra track to your set

With so many different parts of compatible track available, you can quickly and easily start adding to your existing set without having to break the bank! Acquire some more straights and bends, these often come in mini, short, medium and large so buying a variety of these pieces will help add some flexibility to the new designs you create.

Get creative with more complex track

Following on from this you can start adding switches, splits, intersections, turntables and much more! By now you and your child can start creating more realistic setups, much like the metal model railways that older children create, but in a child friendly wooden version. With all the parts able to quickly and easily slot in and out of place your child can really get creative and work out solutions to how the track can be built. It is amazing to watch just how quickly they pick up designing the new sections of railway!

Coming up with ideas

With a box full of track to hand you can either help your child to build amazing railways or leave them to it. Once the realism of the designs kicks in and your child starts playing with the trains up and down the track, you will see that they naturally want to add stations, crossings, areas for loading the trains and even combine with other toys such as cars and figures. In fact in combination with other toys the ideas can really start flowing and soon you find that you are creating major train routes and cities throughout the living room or indeed whole house!

Use objects round the house

With the flexibility of track available and the ability to use track at different levels, maybe you can find things round the house to place the track on or around to really see what the track can do. I remember the days of building bridges balanced on VHS tapes and using pillows as underground tunnels. There were even times when I would try and run my railway up the stairs and through doorways!

Enjoy the time with your child

The main thing you can achieve through building wooden railways is the time spent with your child, watching them be creative and develop new skills at such a young age, while also having fun! Many families keep their stash of wooden train track and trains for years, often through generations and it can always be brought out from under the stairs and played with in all ages of childhood. With so many bits of track, parts and trains now available, you can cost effectively buy extra bits to add to the collection every so often. It doesn’t take long to amass enough track that all kinds of layouts can be achieved and dreamt up each and every time the train set is played with!

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The main wooden railway brands in the UK and throughout the world include Brio, Bigjigs, Maxim, ELC, Eichhorn, Imaginarium, KidKraft, Lillabo (Ikea), Thomas & Friends and others. The great thing about the suppliers of wooden railway is that they tend to create the parts in near identical sizing and format, allowing you to pick up pieces from multiple brands and expand your railway as in when you stumble across the parts you need. It is also worth noting that certain brands offer differing switches, turnouts and other specialist pieces and sizes, which overtime will help create the uniqueness of your set and is the advantage of using multiple companies products. All the compatible pieces feature the same broad connections and grooves of around 3mm deep, 5mm wide and with a 20mm gap between!

One brand of wooden railway that was mentioned a few years ago was the Lillabo range by Ikea, notably because people said they had problems with its compatibility with other wooden track due to the nature of how it had plastic connectors to form a male join and attach the tracks together. Many found that the plastic joint would simply not fit into your average female end of wooden railway without some modification and even using the male end of other brands would create a loose and wobbly fit against the female end of the Ikea track. Looking at their current range though it seems that they have rectified this problem by designing their track now with the standardised wooden connections and specifically state that their track “Combines with most other railway systems on the market.” In our opinion the general rule of thumb here would be that if you have the old version of their track it may not be compatible, whereas there should be no problem going forward with their current range!

When it comes to additional parts such as buildings, stations, engine sheds, bridges, tunnels, cranes and other accessories, these can also be supplied from multiple brands and although all vary in style and price, again they will fit with all major brands of wooden train track!

Equally the wooden trains themselves also fit and run on all the leading brands of wooden railway, with even the newer battery operated trains able to run up and down each brand of track. The metallic domes on the trains are also created in a standardised way to allow connection of different carriages and wagons from other sets. It is also worth noting that the hugely popular Thomas & Friends trains do not have to be used on Thomas specific track and can indeed be used on others…

Here on WoodenRailways.co.uk we stock our track, trains, parts and sets from multiple leading brands to offer you a wide selection of parts and affordable prices! We are always looking at what is currently on the market and aim to put the latest and most interesting pieces on the site. You are also assured when buying from this site that all the track and parts we sell are fully compatible not just with each other, but also with the other leading brands that we may not stock.

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We literally launched the site the day our first shipment of stock turned up (We don’t hang about!) and our first order was that very same night. There is still stock strewn all over the place which we are working on getting packed away as we speak, if we stop playing with it all first!

So far we have had orders from up and down the UK, with people taking advantage of our quick and easy checkout using either debit/credit card or PayPal. You aren’t required to create an account or login as we wanted purchasing to be as easy as possible!

Orders have ranged from people ordering a few sections of track, through to big orders of track, trains and extra parts! We think that our website offers people a fantastic opportunity to add to their wooden railway whenever they please, simply topping up on extra track and parts as they need them! All our wooden track and parts are of course fully compatible with the other leading brands.

We are currently running 10% off of everything to celebrate our launch and are glad to see people taking advantage of it when checking out. We will try and offer exciting discounts and voucher codes in the future as and when we can!

Our computers are manned all day long and we try and process and ship your order as soon as it comes in (Or the very next day if placed at night). We are also here to help via email whenever you have a question and throughout the day can normally get back to you within the hour.

Packing and sending out the orders has been a blast! We take pride in the whole process and know that there will be some very happy children (…and parents) receiving the parcel on the other end. All our parcels are packed carefully to make sure everything gets to you as it should, you may also find some little goodies in your orders at the moment…

So for now, all we can really say is thank you so much for everyone who has ordered and supported us this first week. We have been enjoying talking to you all on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and providing you with more detailed images and videos of our stock. Please follow and like us!

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