Thomas the Tank Engine and Cassia the Crane: Five fun ways to play!

As a boy mom I have gotten used to tracks and vehicles all over the floor over the years, and my imaginative boy spends a lot of time flipping them through loops, racing each other and making up stories about them. He even decided once to give all his hot wheels cars names and one of them is called “chicken mayor” – it is brown, it does not look like chicken mayonaise, but perhaps it has mayoral ambitions. That’s why it is good to have a character set like Thomas the Tank Engine and Cassia the Crane that he can play with – combined with a favourite activity of a moving vehicle with moving parts – you can’t go wrong with all of this.

Thomas the Tank Engine has been a firm favourite in our home and we have a number of Thomas books we read at story time. I think what I like about Thomas is although he gets it wrong sometimes, he never gives up and is determined to be really useful engine. I think these are qualities we can enjoy passing on to our children.

The Cassia Crane & Thomas Cargo Motorised Train Set set is a lot of fun for little boys whose greatest enjoyment comes from opening, shutting, switching and in short, just fiddling with everything. Here are a few things we’ve explored in this set.

• Thomas stops in front of Cassia the crane when you turn the switch. Kids love turning things on and off and it’s useful to load the barrel if you get Thomas to stop right next to the crane.

• Thomas offloads the barrel down the chute. This whole process happens automatically as Thomas zooms past. The carriage containing the barrel is at an angle and in perfect position to drop off its cargo.

• Thomas can push the barrel in front of him too. The carriage as well for that matter. He’s a strong little engine.

• Cassia the crane’s claw mechanism is very easy to manipulate. It springs open and shut. So Cassia is easily able to pop that barrel on Thomas.

• Cassia is quite flexible and can spin a full 360 degrees all around to get the cargo in at the right angle.

Thomas is powered by two AAA batteries. When we first got the set we didn’t have new ones, so Thomas was a bit slow.

But he soon chuffed along very quickly when we got the new batteries. We really needed the switch then! You can also turn Thomas’ batteries on and off too on the actual toy.

I would totally recommend this set for all preschoolers but my eight year old enjoyed it too. So definitely for the younger kids. I think what I really like about it, apart from all the moving parts, is that Nicky talks to his toys and makes up stories – this is what creativity is all about. He has also taken apart and rebuilt the track a few times – that is what little boys love to do. The tracks, by the way, are compatible with other TrackMaster sets.

What do you like about this set?

Disclaimer: This post was sponsored by Mattel.

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