We bought this for my son last year when he was nearly 3 as he has started to show an interest in trains.
I love this set, he played with it constantly for days, so much so I got a bit sick of it sitting on the rug in the lounge and tried to pack it away but as soon as he noticed it had gone we had to get it back out :)
I love it because there's not a ton of fiddly pieces, there's just 6 pieces of track, 2 sides of the station platform and the train,car and 3 people, along with a happyland station sign. There's a little birds nest which sits on the station roof and the station house has a cute little pretend clock on the wall and a post box on the side. There's flower boxes and hanging baskets, lift up barriers at the car crossing and pretend traffic lights.
It takes 2 AA batteries but I can honestly say we've had the same batteries in there for a year and it's still going strong.
The train is in 3 pieces so your little one can decide where the passengers go, there's one carriage for the driver which triggers a button as you sit him in to make the train move and a spare carriage for passengers, I think it's just designed for one but my kids manage to get 2 on and we've had all kinds of animals and even santa and snowman from the other happyland ranges hitching a ride or driving the train. We also have the happyland bus so we've got lots of spare people but most play figures fit in the holes because they're a good size.
The train makes cho cho noises and does it's horn as it makes it 's way round the track and when it gets back to the station it stops for about 8 seconds to allow the kids to swap passengers before setting off again.
As you can see the kids are getting bigger now, my son is 4 just after Christmas and my daughter is 6 but they both still love playing with this, play has become a bit more adventurous recently and we often have passengers jumping out halfway round the track and the sports car driver gets sat on the track to see how close he can leave it before the train comes!
If I had to make a criticism it would be that the track is a little tight at the car crossing but we've put it together and taken it apart hundreds of times and it's still rock solid, even when they don't get the track perfectly flat the train can cope with a little uneven surface, great if you're playing on carpet :)
This really was a great buy, it is quite expensive but it's so durable and they hold their value for selling on when they eventually outgrow it, I'm not sure when that will be!
At the time of writing Early Leaning Centre have them on offer for half price, so £25 instead of £50, a real bargain in my opinion :)
http://www.elc.co.uk/imaginative-play/happyland-country-train-set/118635.html
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are my own, I was not asked to provide a review and did not receive anything for doing so.
No comments:
Post a Comment