THOMAS & FRIENDSTrackMaster, Avalanche Escape Set

Finally finished putting this together in a little under two hours. The instructions don't help much so I had to refer to the picture on the box many, many times. After all that hard work... WOW! This toy is amazing. Bigger footprint than I expected, but it will have a major wow factor for Xmas morning. The new style of track and Thomas engine design ensure that the toy works without any fuss (after you put it together of course). This is saying a lot compared to the old style of track and engine (like the castle set) that requires a lot of fidgeting to keep the track together and to keep Thomas from flying off the rails. In short, it works. Well worth the time and money.

I got this set for my 5yo for xmas, and it's a really fun set. I was definitely skeptical that the tipping track would work, but so far we've had no problems. We've tried it with a few new trackmaster trains (thomas, Timothy, James, diesel) and all have worked just fine. James' tender comes off the tracks sometimes, but not always. My son likes the tipping track, the tall incline, and the twisting tracks. I like that it's fun without being quite as complex as some other sets (like castle quest). Overall, I'd recommend to all for fun and relative ease of set up.

This is a really fun Thomas trackmaster set that provided hours of entertainment for my 3 year old Thomas crazy boy once we got it set up! I'll be honest, my husband and I were entertained by it too!Pros:Really fun to watchTrain goes around and around by itself without having to be completely manually reset every timeNot extremely difficult to put togetherTrains don't derail very oftenCons:Takes up a lot of floor space!!Some of the parts (3) have to be manually reset each time the train goes aroundDoesn't work with more than 1 car attachedDoesn't work with the track master trains that have the battery compartment attached behind themBatteries need to be fresh in trains to make it up the inclineDoesn't really work with more than one train on the track at a timeSometimes the trains derail on their ownIf you have the space for it, I would recommend this set. Price is a little high, but if you're looking at Thomas stuff, this is not news to you.

I purchased this as a Christmas present. This came in a plain brown box with no images displaying what the contents were. Therefore, when my child unwrapped the gift, she was confused by a plain brown box. The instructions have no meaning UNLESS you happen to turn the tracks upside down and compare the two digit alphanumeric code and compare to the visual instruction. Once the set was put together, Thomas the train gets stuck around the first bend coming off the teeter totter. As it makes its way back up the hill, the track connecting to the teeter totter does not align properly and Thomas the train once agains needs some manual encouragement. Total assembly time is around 30-45 mins.

I have not posted many reviews on Amazon, but after my initial experience for this miserable excuse for a toy, I felt that I needed to do my best to warn people away. While my young son has had lots of fun with many other Thomas products, this was simply awful. It's worth noting that this was a brand new set, right out of the box, and I installed brand new batteries in "Thomas," so he/it was not underpowered.PROS:1. When it works properly - which is rarely - it is kind of cool.CONS:1. The instructions are pretty much garbage. My wife and I - both of whom are fairly sharp, if I may say so - took a while getting through the instructions because they just weren't detailed enough. There were numerous times in which I had to go back through and swap out one little component for another further down the track because the instructions hadn't made it clear which piece really needed to go where.2. It took a LONG time to align the track so that the pivoting "gap" piece would work properly. My son just stood there watching as we went through failure after failure after failure. If you hook the sections together using the large, sloppy "tabs" that are made to join them in the middle, your set will almost inevitably fail.3. The instructions explain that not all other Thomas and Friends trains will work with this set. I think that what they really meant to say was "Thinking of using any trains other than this particular Thomas that we're including? Yeah, good luck with that." No other trains in our collection would clear the "gap" properly without falling off. Heck, none of the other trains would even activate the pop-up "scrap monster."4. Oh, yeah... speaking of that "scrap monster," I hope you're ready to push it back down after every time it pops up. It's not built to automatically move back down after each activation.5. The "fall-open" bridge also does not reset on its own, and folding the sides up each time gets old REALLY quickly.6. It comes with a couple of extra train cars to tack onto the back. We have yet to get Thomas to make a successful run over the "gap" while pulling either car, so they are useless.7. One of the cars is a flatbed made to catch the "fossil" that drops as he goes through the little cave tunnel. Don't expect the fossil to ever properly make it into the train car; ours never did, even after several attempts.8. Even when there are no extra cars being pulled, and everything seems to be lined up perfectly, and Thomas has made a few good runs around the track... he will inexplicably fail at the gap. Sometimes he'll get to the top of the incline and then suddenly scoot backwards all the way to the bottom. Sometimes he just won't clear the gap. It's extremely frustrating.9. Oh, yeah... there's a bit of curve (where the track "switch" is, just after the cave tunnel/fossil drop) that Thomas simply would not clear without completely derailing, no matter how many times we tried. I finally had to prop up that section of curve to give it a bit more of an "incline" so that gravity could help the train go through it successfully. A properly designed toy doesn't need anything "extra" to make the curves work as they should. Horrible design.10. In the time that it took me to write this review, our son, in his frustration, almost completely dismantled the whole thing. I have a feeling we'll be boxing this up and sending it back. This is an absolute atrocity, and I am amazed that it made it through QA. Major, major disappointment here; unless you have a major masochistic streak, I advise against purchasing it. I am genuinely sorry that I did.

My boys absolutely love this train set. As to what other reviews, this must be placed on a thin carpet. On flat surface, whenever the mountain collapses, the train set tends to shift a bit.I am very good at putting things together. If you're going to rely solely on the the instruction sheet, it did confused me for a bit. It took me about 10 minutes to put it together. It is a very huge set.My boys can play with it for hours. They would put 3 trains running one after the other.

This track is amazing! My son absolutely loves it. We get him a thomas set every Christmas and this one is by far the best yet. It's huge! Definitely a floor set, not for a table. This wouldn't fit on any table. But it's no big deal because its awesome!!

My 2 year old loves this train set. It takes up a lot of space on the floor, but my son plays with it most of his free time. Some of the parts don't stay together as well as I'd like (he bumps it and the train doesn't make the jump) but nothing has broken so far.

Mi niño encantado aunque preguntó si era una pista original pues se percató de que la caja llegó maltratada, las piezas no venían en envolturas y el manual llegó arrugado. Al menos llegó completa y funciona bien.

Big and good material. Train is also fun. Nice feature of swinging arm to pick and drop train from one point to another.Only the track assembly should have been better. In few weeks because of the size of the track, it bends a bit and then sometime train falls of the track.

Great set.First off, I was worried by some of the negative reviews regarding the bridge not lining up properly that meant the train falls off all the time.... this is TRUE! I had this trouble but there is a really easy fixed with a a piece of card under the red tower to make the top lean just a little bit toward the bridge. The set is made of plastic so I'm going to forgive this for an otherwise amazing design and solid, relatively cheap toy train set. For a video explaining this in more detail look on YouTube, search for the channel "Kid Toys Are Fun" and watch the end of their "Shipwreck Rails and Avalanche Escape Sets" video where this fix is shown.Great train set, good on its own, even better when joined to more tracks/sets. Great value compared to other brands of train sets. Large. Easily expandable.

Bought the train set as a Christmas gift for my nephew. He loves it and spends hours watching Thomas go around the tracks.

really awesome train set if it is set up perfectly and on a hard surface. Two down falls #1 it was a bit hard to put together #2 it has to be set up perfectly to work properly and the pieces come apart easy so if it is bumped while playing the train wont be able to stay on the track to complete the circuit. I am thinking of super gluing the pieces together so my 3 year old can play with it better. It is also quite long (longer then expected)