I grew up in a trailer house on 20 acres. Translation: lots of room to play outside, very little inside. During the warm months I led the sort of existence every hyperactive kid wants...I had numerous dogs to play with, a pony, and all sorts of simple outdoor toys, namely my little red wagon.
The Radio Flyer wagon is basically a metal box with sides approximately three or four inches high set on metal wheels with thin rubber for tires and a metal handle for pulling. There are also ones out there with plastic wheels instead of metal, which are cheaper but much less durable. All the metal has been rolled under so there are no sharp edges, only rounded ones throughout.
Even on uneven ground (the 20 acres used to be an alfalfa field before we stuck a trailer on it) the wagon rolls well. I had a blast pulling around various dogs, the neighbor's grandson, and hauling scrap lumber off into a stand of young cottonwoods for my fort...I even braided myself a long rope out of bailing twine that I could loop around a tree and pull myself in my wagon. Then I discovered books on sled dogs. From then on I was hitching various coonhounds and retrievers to the front of my wagon and making them pull me...or, that was the plan, more often than not they jerked forward so fast I was thrown off the back and the victimized dog went charging away, my wagon bouncing along behind, not necessarily upright. Then I discovered the proper way to train sled dogs, and the wagon eventually had to put up with an 80-pound kid riding and four dogs pulling at breakneck speeds over furrowed ground, then over gravel road.
Despite this extremely rough treatment my first Radio Flyer lasted a good four years, and would have lasted beyond that if my dad hadn't run it over on accident. For my second wagon my parents decided that perhaps they'd try to save some money and bought me a "Flexible Flyer" wagon, which is basically the large discount-store knockoff of Radio Flyer, but with plastic wheels and a plastic handle. That wagon lasted two weeks. Finally they caved in and bought me another Radio Flyer which, though more expensive, still ends up cheaper in the long run...I didn't have to buy another wagon until seven years later, when it was up to me to buy the wagon since I had a paper route.
That was a long time ago. My best dog that got actual sled dog training is now 15 years old, the only other dog that'd survived that long from the original bunch died last winter, a full brother to the 15-year-old I still have. Now I don't use wagons so much and I thought my days of being concerned about their use and durability were over. I forgot something...
My own kids. When I got pregnant my dad started making plans for getting my son all the things I had and loved, and all the different toys I never could have because we didn't have enough money. In some cases the "toys I had and loved" is very literal, my son now has two Tonka trucks that were mine, they were left outside for the last twelve years when my dad found them, all they needed was a sanding and re-paint. In other cases a new toy was needed to provide my son with the same enjoyment I had as a kid.
This last Christmas (technically my son's second, but considered his first since he was all of three days old his first Christmas) my husband, son, and I headed over to Dad's for our second holiday stop and were greeted by several large, interesting-looking boxes. Inside one of these, a brand new Radio Flyer.
I've only recently started using this wagon with my son since I had to wait until he was old enough to sit nicely and not try to get out while the wagon is moving, he is now almost two. He really enjoys riding in it, even more than his stroller because he can see everything better and, more importantly, there's room for more toys.
I don't know if there is a weight limit with these wagons, I know I used my last one through ten years old and I weighed a little over 100 pounds by time I stopped using it and never had any problems.
I've already warned my 3-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever what probably lays in store for him when baby gets just a little bit older and he's trying to come to terms with the pulling wagon thing. Maybe we'll get lucky and this kid won't even think of it, but I doubt it. At least I know that, no matter what he dishes out for this wagon, it will be a long time before I'll have to worry about buying him another one.