Hello, current or future wooden train enthusiast

I am the proud owner of a 3 year old (and a one year old) son, thus my introduction to wooden trains. I have a few friends whose kids are a year older, and seeing these elaborate train sets on train tables falling apart and having to be rebuilt twenty times in a setting made me quite hesitant to enter this realm.

Thus I bought my son this (INSERT PICTURE OF CAR TABLE) Step2 Car table.  Molded plastic tracks, no moving parts, nothing to lose.  Sounded like a great deal. And I was right, for that age.  It still gets played with to this very day. But now that we're into trains, it pales in comparison.

I think the reason that a lot of people get turned off from train sets is that they introduce them to their kids at way too young an age.  Thus the parent spends all day trying to repair the tracks and the kids end up frustrated.

The tracks at stores and play places are usually glued together, so kids love those.  Then you buy them a set, take it home and everything falls apart.

Before you go gluing your pieces down, damaging your Craigslist and destroying your ebay reselling possibilities, consider alternatives like Suretrack train clips.  More on them on my next post.

Also, consider these things for a starter sets:

1. Avoid spirals until your child is fairly old (maybe 3 or 3 1/2 at the youngest) and/or if you don't have a younger sibling around to deconstruct (as we kindly call it in our house.  The younger brother is playfully nicknamed "Mayhem".)
2. Avoid Thomas brand name stuff in the very, very beginning until you get a good enough stash.  I say this because people go out, spend $50 on a simple oval track, full price and they get bored and think that's it.  Simple is good initially, but not TOO simple.  I'd start out with a figure 8 set first, and if you get a non-name brand, like Toys 'R Us-in-store-brand Imaginarium.  Now that I have some other generic pieces, I really don't love the imaginarium wood quality, but I appreciate it for getting us up and started quickly and most of it is still usable and interchangeable.
3. Invest in buying some adapters before you even start.  You're going to need some male to male or female to female adapters, or else you're going to get stuck the first time you freestyle and try to create your own layouts.