Despite a childhood fascination with wooden trains, I didn’t get my first wooden train set until my wife gave me several starter sets as a Christmas present many years ago, and from that point on I was hooked. Over the years my collections has grown to thousands of pieces. While I am considered a collector, I do not keep my BRIO in sealed boxes or behind glass, and I’m not interested in buying and keeping MIB sets. I use my pieces in layouts, and make several new ones each year on my homemade train tables.
All of my track and accessories are genuine BRIO, save for a few pieces of third party track and the monorail train from Plan Toys. Most of my BRIO is from the late 80’s, the 90’s, and the early 2000’s, and the rest is a smattering of modern accessories. I tend to prefer buildings and vehicles that have realistic styling.
Like many BRIO collectors, I am not a huge fan of the trend towards more and more plastic, but I recognize that it can be used appropriately and enable designs that are not possible with wood alone. It is hard for me to get too worked up over it given that the tipping wagons, cars with all-plastic hoppers, debuted in the 1970’s. What I don’t like is the use of plastic where wood will do, and many of the current generation accessories have plastic bases that integrate a large, molded plastic track. It’s visually jarring, not to mention fairly ugly, and a huge departure from the BRIO tradition.
While my BRIO set is quite large, it is not the largest…by a long shot! David Harper’s setup dwarfs mine, and as far as I know everyone else’s, too.
Acknowledgements
I want to give special thanks to the following individuals who have all made significant contributions to this site, whether it be direct content or just knowledge and information. This site would not be what it is without them.
- BRIO collector artheathen
- wooden train enthusiast and collector Dave Pecota
- BRIO enthusiast Josh McMorrow-Hernandez
- BRIO collector Tyme
Disclaimer
This site is not affiliated with BRIO Corp. or its parent company in any way, and I do not receive any promotional items or materials from them. I purchase all of my BRIO using my own money.
This web site uses affiliate marketing links. I receive a small percentage of the purchase price at no cost to you. I use the income from these links to help pay for the costs of operating this web site.