because charlene asked

I've been MIA.  More on that later.

For now, I'll leave you with this...

Hey Char!  Glad to see you visited my comments and thanks to your question I'm going to post about my all time favorite toddler toy:  The Imaginarium Train Station.  Yes, it's pricey at $150 (I bought it for $120 on sale, but before tax) and yes it can be an eyesore in our family room (what toy isn't?); but it's by far our most used toy.

I'd post pics of Sam at the table but I'm having trouble uploading pics to blogger today!

Anyway, what do I love about it?

• It's at the right level for toddlers.
• Both the table and train set that it comes with are great in my opinion.
• It makes noises as the train goes through tunnels and over bridges.
• It's a high quality set at the best price I've seen compared to similar sets.
• "Thomas the Tank" trains designed for the Thomas set of this size also fit on this set!
• It has 2 great drawers to store extra trains, another track set - whatever you wish!
• It's a great toy for multiple children to play with and offers less sharing disputes.

What do I not love about it?

• I do not recommend it for kids under 2.  When Sam was younger than 2 he just wanted to destroy the tracks.  Now that Sam is older he rarely takes the set apart (once every 2 months?)
• When Sam does take it apart, it is a pain to put the tracks back together in the right order - we almost always have to consult the directions.  At one point we had thought about screwing the tracks to the table but I wanted to have the option to replace with other sets, though I have yet to buy another set and doubt I ever will.
• The set comes with one battery operated engine.  Well, that "little engine that could" is the "little engine that couldn't".  It has such a hard time going up one of the hills.  We don't mind though, Sam is always talking about helping it up the hill.  And frankly usually we have that train without batteries anyway because they always run out.
• The drawer sometimes sticks on the table platform, making it a bit tricky to close all the way.

P.S.  Toys 'R Us is not paying me to recommend this train set.  LOL.  And for what it's worth, I'm not being paid by Amazon to recommend products I've mentioned in the past of theirs either.  Should a ton of people buy from amazon via my links I could eventually get a small kick-back but I don't expect that will happen.  It's not a goal of mine and the incentive is small, very small. ;)  The short of it is, I blog about products that I believe in.