PWTyler

Category: Brio Trains

  • This Week’s Brio Build II

    Most of our table builds start from wanting to use a specific piece then shaping layout around that. This week it was the collapsing bridge at the center (333911).

    The elevated metro station and its green ramps often end up in our layouts, especially as the 90 degree riser is an economical use of space on the small table.

    Down on the red bench waiting for Thomas, Annie, and Claribel is a figure from Hape’s “Busy City” we’ve affectionately named Working Mom, as she takes the train to work “just like Mommy.” Working Mom is usually at one station or another of any of our table builds.

    Of course, much of our dramatis personae on the tracks is Thomas and Friends, as that is what we’re mostly into these days. Nia and Hiro are favorites, although we can never have too many cranes on the table, either.

    Other pieces featured (with my best guess on identifying):

    1. The 2013+ version. ↩︎

  • Repairing a Brio Bridge

    A number of Brio pieces my parents kept around from my childhood have seen better days— missing pieces, cracked smokestacks, and broken knobs on track pieces. My most recent repair job was this arch bridge (333631).

    The Brio bridge with its 3d-printed pins in use in a classic figure-eight patten.

    This is not the viaduct that came in many of the classic figure eight sets, but a two piece bridge, and in my case missing both male pins. I recall it being broken even in my own childhood, and there was dried hot glue on the ends where my father had clearly tried to make it work for us anyway.

    The replacement pins came from TrainLab on Etsy. I didn’t have a metric sized drill bit set, so I had to work at it with a slightly smaller bit- I was a little worried I might crack or break the piece drilling out the broken pin, but it ended up being just fine.

    So far my son is not quite as impressed with me as I am, the key takeaway I got (as only a two year old can tell it) was that I couldn’t use it because Nia (his favorite Thomas character) couldn’t fit through the tunnel.

    Tough crowd.

    A closeup of the new 3d-printed bridge on the Brio bridge
    1. It appears 33363 may refer to multiple sets, as Brio changed their serial numbers at some point, but this is what I found in this document from the Brio subreddit. ↩︎

  • This Week’s Brio Build I

    Over the last year we’ve gotten really into wooden (mostly Brio) trains in our house. We are by no means Brio purists, and our collection has grown from a variety of sources- IKEA lillabo, Hape, my own childhood collection, neighborhood giveaways, and more. I’m hoping to post details on more specific items and sets, but starting off with the table build currently out for the week.

    My wife and I got the table from a neighbor with a Melissa and Doug set some time back, and while it took a bit, eventually got it re-painted and cleaned up.

    The jury is still out as to whether Sasha or I am having more fun here.