Thomas And Friends Wooden Railway - Collapsing Sodor Suspension Bridge

Ok, let me first say that my son has had hours upon hours of entertainment with all of his Thomas toys, no doubt...but my wife and I bought this bridge for our son for Valentine's Day and I cannot say that we've fallen in love with this bridge...

This bridge does have the "cool factor" going for it, because it compliments his set quite well; however, I just cannot get past the fact that it doesn't stay connected well enough.Yes, the bridge is made to collapse, but it doesn't take much for it to crumble with little more than the weight of two or three cars on the bridge.I also find it interesting that even the directions make a point that the bridge might collapse a little "too easily" and gives advice on how to keep it together better (WTH?)I don't even know why there are the buttons on the side of the bridge, because it doesn't take anything special for it to collapse.(Before you make comments that I am not connecting it well enough, I have read the directions thoroughly...)Why the button?

Also, I am just amazed that it came with two FEMALE ENDS!!!Why would you not want to make a loop with this bridge?My son has a train table and this bridge just stands alone, because it cannot complete the loop. I also read through some posts and noticed that you have to buy an adapter; which I find negligible, because when you pay almost $50 for a toy, you'd expect that the attention to detail would be there, but obviously, it wasn't...shame on you, Thomas!!!(I still love you, because my son loves your toys so much...)

Not a bad bridge, but not the best product that the Thomas line has kicked out in recent years.

I just bought this bridge for my 3 year-old boy. The frustrating part is that the bridge has two female ends, meaning you cannot make a full circle. At first I thought it was defective, so I called Learning Curve. The customer care person confirmed that it is made with two female ends and I need to buy an adapter. The toy was expensive without having to buy a $10 adapter. Why would Learning Curve do this? My son kept crying because he was so excited to make a track and he couldn't. Such a shame . .

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My son is 18 months, and this bridge has proven to be more fun for him than I expected.The typical assembly with the ascender tracks on each side presented a puzzle to my son:he could push the train up the track, but had to let go of the train as it passed through the bridge entrance.This resulted in long trains rolling back down the ramp.To my surprise, instead getting frustrated, he learned to use both hands, passing the train from one hand to the other as it passed through the bridge entrance.

The ages on the toy are 3+, so I only let him play with it supervised at first.Now he is 20 months, and doesn't take the train layouts on his table apart, I leave it set up.This might be a good bridge for younger children because it doesn't involve separate pieces that can be knocked apart accidentally, like Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway Knapford Covered Bridge

The construction is solid.The button to make the bridge drop doesn't work perfectly every time, but since my son doesn't use that aspect, I can't really comment if this will be a problem for him in the future.Actually, it sticking makes it less likely he will accidentally trigger it, collapsing the bridge.This button also does get in the way of engines/cars passing directly under when we play on the carpet, but it is just a matter of aligning the track to the left or right of the button, so there is enough clearance.

Overall, currently my son's favorite piece.His collection is still small though, and my wallet is in trouble the next coming years.

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My son loves Thomas and I must say that I love buying all the neat pieces to go with it.I love going through all the bridges and stuff finding the ones "they" might like.So when I saw this I knew he'd like it.When we opened it up though and attempted to collapse the bridge, we realized that it took 2 hands to make it come down.I had hoped that it would take one and he could be pushing the train as it collapsed.Also, it takes quite a bit of pressure to make it collapse and the buttons and bottom supports are made of cheap plastic.It hasn't yet, but I worry about it breaking.Getting it to come back up from the collapsed position is also kind of difficult and then you have to make sure the tracks are aligned.

The other complaint-it has 2 female ends.It doesn't show that part in the picture but now you're stuck not being able to make the tracks that you want unless you have a bunch of their specialty pieces.It doesn't show in the "Items that were also bought with this" the super expensive male/male and female/female pieces.

The kids still like using it because it's a big bridge, but I probably wouldn't buy it for anyone else.

EDITED: Thomas had been put away for a while and has since made a reappearance.We haven't been using the train table (I recommend not buying one) so our track layout has been HUGE.We made one and it used 4 loops, the original figure8 bridge, the coal bridge and this collapsing bridge.Since we've never had the chance to loop under this bridge (space constraints of the table, I never noticed we WEREN'T ABLE TO HAVE TRAINS GO UNDER THE BRIDGE!What?What good is a bridge if you can't have more track go under it?We propped it up the 1/4" with some cardboard pieces but that's not the point.I feel this was more than a let down, if the kids didn't like this, I'd have change the rating from 3 stars to 1 instead of just 2 stars.Quality control is less than lacking in this.For the money it is a huge disappointment.

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The 2 female connectors make using this bridge frustrating.Before I could buy an additional connector, the bridge broke.We can no longer reconnect the bridge after collapsing it.