Train Toys Battery Operated Locomotive Trains for Wooden Track, Motorized Train for Toddlers with Magnetic Connection, Compatible with Thomas, Brio, Chuggington, Melissa and Doug

This thing is great! Only "fire train" we could find and my boy loves fire trucks & trains. The buttons make it usable for my 3yo. The other yellow one we had with a 3 position slide switch is too hard for him to use at this age. Cool sounds and lights. Not too loud thankfully. It pulls pretty well and goes faster than the yellow train. It's solid enough that my 3yo isn't going to break it hopefully. Had it for a couple of weeks or a little less so far.

We are super happy with this train! It's really powerful, so it's slow but with a lot of torque. It has no problem going up and through Melissa and Doug train tracks as well as the Ikea ones. The batteries last a while as well!

Of all the little battery trains you can buy out there, for the money these trains are great. They have a forward, off, and reverse button on top. When you first start them they whistle and make train noises. The lights are bright, plenty of torque to pull some cars, the battery life is very good as well. This is my third train from this company and I'll buy more things from them in the future given the excellent quality

Good looking train. It looks relatively realistic compared to a real diesel engine.It runs great AFTER you fixed the battery compartment.If you want just the fix, scroll down to "The solution?". Otherwise continue reading if you are bored and want to know how I ended up with the proposed fix.The battery compartment was designed wrong. It has two springs, side-by-side, deep in the body. Normally, you mate the negative (flat) end of a battery to the spring. This is how it is for all toys, and for that matter, ANY electronics with a battery box that accepts AAA, AA, C, or D batteries.But on this toy, and another toy from the same company, the springs are on the same end, deep inside the body. This suggests the batteries should be connected in parallel. Knowing better (most toys connect batteries in series, not parallel), I double checked the instructions.My hunch was correct because the "Port" side of the train needs to have the battery go Positive end in, and the "Starboard" side go Negative end in. What you end up with, when the Stern/back is facing you, the left battery has its negative (flat) end facing you and the right battery have its positive (button) end facing you. This will connect the batteries in series producing 2.4v to 3v for the motor, sound, and lights.No biggie, right? Just screw the cover back on and off we go! And of course, we have a NO go. Or rather, a "Sometimes" go. Turning on the power and pressing the forward button will randomly make it "go". If you shake the train, sometimes it will work. If the train derails, there is a high chance it will no longer work until you shake it again. This sounds like the battery is not making proper contact.Another reviewer recommended shimming the battery to make sure there is a good contact. So I added aluminum foil where the battery cover is, to make sure they are making a good connection. This tricked me into believing it worked, because it was going great for awhile until the train was eventually dropped by an overactive toddler. Shaking it again made it worked again but from then on, it behaved the same as previously before adding the aluminum foil.So I did what any sensible parent with too many tools would do, I took the whole thing apart. As it turns out, where the Port side battery goes in (positive end in), the battery's button fits perfectly inside the spring's inner coil. The spring's "ring" presses against the face of the battery (which is isolated from the positive terminal) with the button (the positive terminal) in between the ring not touching the spring. This explains why shaking it makes it work sometimes. While any random bump will cause it to dislodge the button from touching the spring on the side and make it not work.The solution?Take a piece of aluminum foil and shove it down the Port-side battery hole to create a wall for the battery button to press against the entirety of the spring. No more problems after this.Like others have said, the train is all plastic and not the sturdy, indestructible, Lego kind of plastic. The wheels are thin and feels like it can easily be chipped or be bitten off. Definitely not for any little ones who isn't past the stage of putting stuff in their mouth. Otherwise, the pulling power of the train is pretty good and is more limited by the strength of the magnetic coupling. This particular train is good in that it has a magnetic coupler on both ends. This means you can place this in the middle of a very long train set to help push and pull it. Most of the other steam varieties can only pull because there is only a magnet in the rear. I bought a steam version for the front, this diesel in the middle, and had an old Thomas motorized "booster steam car" at the end. This enabled my little one to connect all the Thomas wooden train toys and make it "go"!

Work well, perfectly compatible with the originals.Kids love watching the "powered" engines pulling their trains around the track.Buy extra batteries, kids often do not turn them off and they run for hours...til the batteries die.

Stopped working after a few months.

Works well; sturdy enough for general play.

I bought one of these for my nephew and my niece liked it so much I bought one for her too!