Is there a more overpriced toy license than "Thomas the Tank Engine"?

[Queasy]

My wife, son, and I were at Toys R Us after Christmas taking back a duplicate toy. We happened to bump into a play table that had wooden railroad tracks with Thomas the Tank Engine trains. My 20 month-old son fell in love with it. We sat there and let him play with the trains for a good 30 minutes. These are non-motorized trains but it is very cool as far as a kids toys go. We even talked with this other mom that came by with her kids about the Thomas train sets and she told us how nice they were and how much her kids loved the table...yada yada yada

We went ahead and used the exchanged gift to get a basic figure 8 train set that came with Thomas and Percy for $30.00. We didn't think that was that bad for track and two trains.

Imagine our surprise when we got home and started looking up prices online for extra track, train sets, building, and especially the table.

Play Table - $220
Mat that goes on the table - $60
Larger train sets - $100 to $200
Individual buildings - $20 to $80
Tunnels and Bridges - $20 to $50

UN-FREAKIN-BELIEVABLE!!!!

I love my son and I loved to play with trains when I was kid but that is just ridiculous. We're talking wooden trains that are not powered at all! Just the Imaginarium brand wooden train sets are kind of expensive. The Thomas Train sets are absurdly priced!!

I'm going to have to look into the regular Lionel or Geotrax brand trains now I think. That or just take him up to Toys R Us so he can play with them.

 

[NokiaDude]

That's why you break out the tools and BUILD YOUR OWN!!!

 

[iamme]

i agree. when i saw the the table price, i assumed it was the ENTIRE set!

 

[Queasy]

Well, I'm already making plans for building a short table that he can use to play with for his train set. But just the track by itself is uber-expensive when it has "Thomas" on it. The plain Imaginarium track is a whole lot cheaper.

 

[amdskip]

My brother had to have all the diecast ones when he was little. We have a huge collection of them all, probably 40 different engines or so. Then theres accessories and all that good stuff.

 

[badmouse]

Target sells a compatible set that works with Brio/Thomas - I didn't see it at target.com but here it is on ebay train set. It was $20 or so at Target around Christmas. Much better made than "compatible" trains used to be.

Ikea, if you have one nearby, also has inexpensive trains. Not exactly on the website, but you can see them here

The time-honored way of acquiring a large set of Thomas trains is to tell everyone that your kid loves them. People will show up with gifts. The things may be expensive, but they're wellmade and last a long time.

 

[Lvis]

I bought my boy a set, that was just like those, but much less money. It was a long time ago, he's nearly 11 now, but if you look around you may find something cheaper.

One of the nice things about kids as young as yours, they don't care about brand names. As long as it's fun, they're happy.

 

[flot]

Ah, incorrecto about brand names - that's the joy of thomas the tank engine. (my girlfriend's nephew is all about thomas)

Apparently there are like 20 different trains (well, engines?) each with their own name, personality, expression, etc. The kids know them by name and love each and every one.

That means it's a total goldmine for the company, since basically they know that you will pay $20 for the same block of wood with a different face painted on it, because otherwise your 3 year old will grow up to need therapy for the rest of his/her life.

 

[StageLeft]

My younger brother (named thomas) used to be huge on this stuff.

 

[MartyMcFly3]

Its amazing how much Thomas the Tank Engine crap our target store has.... carrying case, train set, individual trains, lunchboxes... So overpriced too...

 

[MystikMango]

Legos can get fairly expensive too, once you pass the Thomas phase.

Enjoy.

 

[slick230]

Those Thomas trains are so expensive because shitbag yuppie asshole parents will pay that much just to get their anklebiting grubs to shut up for 10 minutes.