If you traveled back in time to my son’s toddler days, you would find us on his bedroom floor, surrounded by wooden train tracks.

My son: the one clutching at train in his chubby toddler fist as he ran its wheels down the almost-finished track.

Me: the one building my masterpiece railway at lightning speed, trying to connect the last stubborn track before my ambitions ended in disaster.

In those days of endless laundry and endless potty training and endless bedtime routines, all the intensity of first-time motherhood kept me from writing. Wooden train layouts became my creative outlet.

Before long, our initial wooden train set limited my artistry. A local toy store we often played at sold individual tracks. Switches, adapters, buffers — I picked up whatever I’d been missing when I built our last layout.

I combed the internet for more unusual tracks, new brands we hadn’t tried yet, sets with unique switches or bridges. As word of our train obsession spread, parents and grandparents and teachers came to me for advice about which wooden train brands were worth the investment.

And several years later, they still are. After all, you’re reading this right now!

Wooden Train Tracks

To this day, if I had to pick my favorite part about wooden train sets, I’d have to choose wooden train tracks.

The tracks are beautiful. They feel real and solid (too rare with toys these days). They present both an intellectual puzzle and a creative opportunity.

Wooden train tracks can be played with in a multitude of new ways — so many ways that I wrote a book about three creative little train tracks inventing “new track tricks.”

It’s no surprise this was the first installment I wrote in our Ultimate Wooden Train Guide when I started it years ago.

In this post, I share the knowledge I gain through our experience with many brands of wooden train tracks, including product recommendations and answers to frequently asked questions.

Wooden Train Track – Recommended Brands

Click on the name of each brand to be taken to a search on Amazon for their wooden train tracks.

By the way, if you do click on one, we will receive a small commission — at no additional cost to you — on anything you buy at Amazon for a certain length of time afterwards. Read our disclosure policy for more details.

Note: with many of the budget brands of track, you may want to take a piece of sandpaper and sand down any rough cuts. Saws cutting curves across the grain of the wood are often the cause, so check curves, switch tracks, and the ends of tracks for anything rough, splintery, or sharp.

Wooden Train Sets

If you’re interested in purchasing a wooden train set — and I recommend this as a good way to start a collection, or to add more track and new and interesting features to an existing train set — please take a look at the Play Trains! Guide to the Best Wooden Train Sets, where I’ve broken down the current options I recommend by brand.

Frequently Asked Questions about Wooden Train Track:

What brands of wooden train tracks work together? In our experience, Brio, Thomas, Chuggington, Nuchi, Bigjigs, Jesse’s Toy Box, Orbium, Conductor Carl, Melissa and Doug, and Imaginarium track all work well together. The connectors on Ikea track are a tight fit with other brands, sometimes too tight to work. I have, however, used Ikea tracks on purpose when I needed two tracks to stay together well. The old-style wooden Plan Toys track never fit well with our other tracks; I haven’t had a chance to test their new pressed tracks, so they may be better.

Is it better to stick to one brand of track, or build a collection from several different brands? I love having a range of brands to work with. There are subtle differences in the lengths of each brand’s version of each style of track. Why is this a positive thing? Well, when you build a complicated layout, often you need the last track to be a little longer or shorter to make the whole thing work. Thomas Wooden Railway tracks tend to be shorter than other brands, so if I need a track to be shorter, I dig through and find a Thomas track. If I need a track to be a smidge longer, I replace Thomas tracks with other brands.

Are Trackmaster trains compatible with wooden train tracks? Yes…to some extent. Trackmaster wheels are the same gauge (width) as wooden trains, so the trains will run on wooden tracks. However, they can’t take the tighter curves under their own power without derailing, and they won’t go up the bridges.

Are Take’n’Play trains compatible with wooden train tracks? Sadly, no. Take’n’Play trains are too narrow to run on wooden train tracks.

Are wooden trains compatible with Trackmaster and Take’n’Play tracks? Yes! Wooden trains fit on Trackmaster tracks, and Take’n’Play tracks seem to be intentionally made to be wide enough for wooden trains because they are too wide for the trains they’re made for. However, both of these tracks are much harder to work with when building a train set. Take’n’Play tracks tend to fall apart often, and neither type of track has the flexibility that comes from the wooden tracks being able to shift from side to side and up and down at their connections. And there’s a lot less variety in the types of tracks you can get for these lines of trains. On the other hand, I like having some of these plastic tracks around for activities where the tracks might get messy or wet.

This guide will be expanded with time. Have a question I didn’t answer? Ask in the comments or by email!





Posts in the Ultimate Wooden Train Guide:

The Best Wooden Train Sets

Wooden Train Tracks

Bridges and Elevated Tracks

Roundhouses and Engine Sheds

Organizing Wooden Trains and Track

Wooden Train Freight Cars

…and more to come!