Our First Train Set

The first set we started out with was a Toys R Us house brand, Imaginarium, figure 8 set.  It was on sale for something ridiculous like 50% off, so we also got the Figure 8 expansion set at the same time.  I think it set us back a whopping (kidding)
$24.99 +
$19.99
---------
$44.98 % 2 = $22.49

$22.49!  That's a steal.  The Thomas oval starter set is $29.99 and just comes with very few pieces.  It DOES, however, now come with Percy and Thomas trains, which is worth something, but if you're like us, you'd rather get the motorized trains anyhow at a later date.

The expansion set gives you more track to work with, several of each of these pieces:

The sets were decent.  The wood is unpolished and raw, a little rough (now that I have other brands for comparison) and while they fit nicely with the Thomas branded pieces, they don't agree with one of our (preferred, glossier) generic brands as well.

We had lots of fun with this from the get go - quickly getting away from the stock figure 8 shape. The box gave us instructions for the first picture below. I was initially so nervous, that I labeled the bottoms (or side for double sided pieces) with the corresponding letters from the diagrams, so that I'd know what was what.  Needless to say, we're way past that now.