Quick tips - Collecting a Wooden Railway set

We gave Mr Sociable a wooden railway set for his second birthday. It was from ALDI & was compatible with the Thomas & Friends wooden railway series.

Mr Sociable's 2nd birthday morning

Since then, we have added lots more track, engines, carriages and fun accessories.

The boys are starting to play "together" with Thomas

One day, I'd like to build a track that uses every single piece!

This track was close, but not quite.

Here are my tips for creating a wooden railway set:
* For the basic track pieces (straight track, a bridge, a tunnel, curved track), buy the generic pieces from Kmart, Big W or Toys R Us. They all sell wooden railway pieces that are compatible with the Thomas Wooden Railway (like the ALDI set I originally bought). These pieces are plain wood, rather than striped (like the genuine Thomas brand) - but my kids don't care and they are a lot cheaper!
* Buy some interesting pieces from the genuine Thomas range. We have the chocolate factory, roundhouse, turntable, Cranky the crane, bumpy track, a swing-bridge and the wash-down. These pieces get played with a lot.
* If your kids are into the Thomas series on TV, then buy the genuine Thomas and Friends engines - these have also had a lot of play at our house (both with the track and without).
* Wait until the toy sales to buy the genuine Thomas stuff - Myer often does big specials on the Thomas range.
* The larger Thomas items (eg the chocolate factory) are great presents for grandparents, aunties, etc to buy for Christmas/birthday. Mr Sociable gradually collected these over Christmas/birthday when he was 2-3.
* Rather than buying everything, organise to with a friend to swap some of the interesting pieces (eg one of my neighbours let us borrow her pig farm and mine shaft). Before we had such a large collection, we used to borrow track too!

Any other tips that you would like to add?