Learning Curve Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway – Jack

5 Comments

1. Barbara D. Jacobs says:

   June 15, 2010 at 5:37 pm

   My 2.5 year old son was so excited to get Jack, it was all he talked about for weeks. While the toy is cute and durable like all of the Thomas Friends, we were both very disappointed to discover the scoop is a solid piece instead of a hollow working scoop. He still plays with Jack all the time but comments from time to time that Jack’s scoop is “broken”.
   Rating: 4 / 5
2. Janet Boyer says:

   June 15, 2010 at 6:45 pm

   My son has dozens of both the die-cast metal characters from the Thomas series, as well as the wooden ones.

   This new character travels on the wooden railway, and when you depress the top, his scoop goes up.

   My 6 year old enjoys pretending that Jack is helping a train that has wrecked, and often pairs him up with Alfie for “rescue and repair missions”.

   Very solid construction, and a very nice addition to the Thomas line!
   Rating: 5 / 5
3. carolyn says:

   June 15, 2010 at 7:09 pm

   We got to see Jack for the first time on “New Friends for Thomas.” If you’re not familiar with the story, Jack is a front loader that was brought into the island of Sodor to help with the construction of new train lines. He’s very anxious to help and sometimes has to be reminded of his place, but he’s a very cheerful and helpful fellow. He proves himself to be a very good friend and worker and gets to stay on the island.

   Well, we just had to get Jack after seeing this video. He’s been a very valuable purchase in our house – role playing abounds! It’s a little weird that they made his shovel solid – it should have been open so that he could scoop up things. Bet this will be a redesigned piece! Anyway, this is a great addition to the train series and he even goes on the track! Highly recommend!
   Rating: 5 / 5
4. Afternoon Delight says:

   June 15, 2010 at 8:59 pm

   My son Jack (2y) loves his Thomas and Percy more than this truck, but he just got the engines so that could be it.

   I myself think that Jack the truck is pretty cool. It’s very sturdy like the other vehicles by Learning Curve, its shovel does not interfere with clearance through the tunnels (at least the mountainpass tunnel), and for those concerned with the closed shovel, my husband discovered it has an enclosed magnet, so you can ‘connect’ to the trains and push or even slightly lift them. I have fun pushing trains with it. Did I say I bought this train set for my son!
   Rating: 5 / 5
5. John Smith says:

   June 15, 2010 at 11:23 pm

   Positives first:
   
   It is a must for anyone who has “pack” fans…and the mechanism to move the front loader is rather clever.

   People were upset by the magnet in place of a regular but if you were to combine this with say a cargo car loading piece or something similar you can let your child use jack instead of the much more expensive cranky the crane.

   The bright red color was a firm favorite and much nicer than the ugly color of Rosie or Billy.

   Jack is confirmed to likely appear again in “the great discovery” so it will be a character to use over and over again.

   Now the downside:

   Jack has changed, he is no longer like the first picture now he is like the second.

   Then I should let you know that Jack is slightly disproportionate and somewhat flimsy. (the button tends to break…it hasn’t happened to us but my 4 year old is rather gentle )

   The front loader does not lift put that high, while it works with cargo cars it still disappoints.

   When the loader is down, it often covers Jack’s face

   In ours, the holes drilled in the wood chassis for the wheel were too big causing the wheels to wobble when played with off track.

   In general my son and I both rather liked Jack, because we got him with a dvd, it is not worth 11+$ just alone. Look in your local toyshop if you cannot find it online
   Rating: 3 / 5