Brio Wooden Trains: A Review of a Favorite Childhood Toy

With the gift-giving season here once again, I think back to one of my favorite toys that I received under the Christmas tree years ago: Brio wooden trains. Brio wooden trains, a product of Brio Group (a wooden toy manufacturer), provided me hours of entertainment all throughout my young childhood years.

While the Brio Wooden Toy company has grown dramatically since I received my first Brio wooden train set for the Christmas of 1983, Brio still has maintained a consistent degree of quality and workmanship in their toys. That is a feat not surprising, since the company dates back to 1884, when Ivar Bengtsson formed his company in his homeland of Sweden. He and his wife, Sissa, began selling handwoven baskets, but by the end of the 1900s, the Brio catalog had included a number of toys. The Goinge Horse (Goinge is a district in Osby, Sweden, where the company headquarters remain to this day) was during this time the most popular Brio product. Brio actually produced a number of different products, including glassware and textiles, but toys remained prominent in the company's image and, to this day, Brio is perhaps by and large most identified with their wooden toys, which have remained at the forefront of the company's international expansion over the past number of decades.

Brio has produced a number of toys over the years, such as children's looms, pull toys, and the "Mec Set" (think about what an "Erector" set would look like if all the pieces were bulkier and made from wood and plastic). However, wooden trains are one of the most popular toys the company has sold over the years. Though I have not purchased a Brio product since the very early 1990s, A look at the online Brio catalog reveals the company still offers a wide range of fun and educational toys for kids, including a number of wooden train products, with which I am well familiar.