Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

(Wife): PROS: 1. When the table is fully-assembled, we've found that it seems sturdy enough to support a roughly 28-lb toddler with Lego DUPLO blocks and other toys and stuff on it. 2. If they don't show you pictures of this, in our set, you can flip over the two top pieces, and they are the natural wood color underneath. So, you can use the table either way. Just bear in mind that the coloration / design is just veneer, and I doubt it's wood veneer. 3. Our set came with three slide-under red storage totes for the train tracks and features. This has been great for us. There is room for some larger items that stick out of the top of one of the bins, up to a point. We have had no problems so far. 4. This set also comes with a nice collection of vehicles: a train set with removable shipping containers that the crane can lift off the freight cars, a few wooden city cars that can be driven on the tracks, a boat for the water features painted on the one side of the table, an airplane and a helicopter. The set also includes a number of trees and traffic signs as well as some nice wooden people with fairly detailed features painted on them (and then varnished, I think -- possibly with kid-safe paint / varnish, as we haven't noticed any off-gassing so far). 5. I think what I love most about this set is that it strikes me as a potential gold mine for language development / speech therapy -- if like us, you have a late talker and are willing to use this set to play with your kid (and talk about what stuff does). There are (in my opinion) too many features to use at one time; but what we do is swap them out, and work on developing language associated with the vehicles, features, etc. NEUTRAL: 1. Our two-year-old loves the waterfall feature, although the upper portion is a bit difficult to attach. We've kept the upper section of our waterfall loose so far -- we're taking a "wait and see" approach, partly because the upper tunnel may have mildly sharp edges. We can certainly still use the bottom portion when the top part isn't cooperating. When the top part of the waterfall will stay put, my daughter does enjoy taking the boat that comes with this set and treating the waterfall and boat like a log flume ride. While not so practical or safe in real life, we can at least learn new words this way and in time discuss safety issues related to whitewater paddling. For now, I'd rather that she just get to learn new things and hopefully develop a sense of creativity in time. 2. The elevated track supports do hold the pieces firmly; however, they hug the track so well that it is essentially impossible for me to use one of the supports to connect two elevated track pieces. The elevated supports also do not really work with curved track. Instead, I recommend the Maxim Enterprise Inc Multi Level Support Risers, 6-Piece (red -- available here on Amazon). Use double-sided tape to tape short, straight track pieces to the top of the Maxim supports, and two pieces of track of any type other than specialty track joint pieces will connect fine and stay put. However, you will likely end up with a track on the floor. BUT, we find that the Maxim set does wonders to reduce our daughter's frustration at pieces being knocked over. These supports can be stacked on top of each other for multiple layers OR stacked staggered directly on top of each other, to conserve storage space. ; ) So, that's my recommendation on that one. As for the waterfall and the bridge: both provide appropriate supports for connecting pieces. Yay! = D 3. The train is of fair quality in terms of magnets and wheel alignment on the tracks. It typically still works well enough for us, even when the wheels do not stay 100% in the track grooves. But by all means, feel free to use a better train if you would like. And remember that you can certainly use the set's wooden vehicles on the tracks, instead of or in addition to the train. = ) CONS: 1. This table can arrive with some blemishes. 2. The veneer on this table can be thin and end up mildly scratched or damaged from some objects, including Legos. (This table does NOT provide a Lego surface. We just use DUPLO blocks on ours along with train tracks and other toys, depending on our daughter's wishes.) 3. While this table currently supports our daughter, that's not something we'll want to have her test long-term. Mostly, she uses it as intended, so I'm not as concerned for us as for any family with rambunctious climbers or rough-housing-loving kids. This table has been working fine for us so far, but solid wood or even a sturdy plywood would likely be higher-quality material. In fact, I almost bought such a train table, except that our daughter fell in love with this one. For the most part, I'm glad that she did. 4. This set contains some pieces that are small-ish -- probably not often "choke" size, but I would recommend using discretion with young kids, just in case. 5. While I think everyone understands that the table requires assembly, a couple of the toy items also do -- and sometimes use small screws that should be kept away from young children. My advice is to build everything while the young ones are asleep. 6. My husband says that the instructions only covered table assembly. So, you'll probably want to pull up a picture of this table to assemble the building with the helipad, for example. The bridge is pretty straight-forward. Just be sure to find the long piece with wood attached underneath at each end that has the matching drill hole marks for screwing in the plastic bridge pieces. (The plastic bridge sides also attach via plastic dowel-style rods to help stabilize the bridge sides.) 7. Some of the wooden track pieces fit together kinda tightly. Overall, they do seem to be pretty good quality, with peg male connectors just for the specialty pieces, I think. So anyway, I think that about does it.