Customer Reviews

Thomas And Friends Wooden Railway - Battery Powered James

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This metal battery operated James engine and his metal battery operated companions (Thomas, Lady, etc.) are for use with the wooden track. There are larger plastic battery operated engines that fit both the wooden track and the blue plastic track by Tomy.

This is a great product. Very well-constructed. Very durable. It can be switched on, go forward or backward, and it can be pushed manually--another reviewer complained that it could not be pushed, but it can be pushed.

Purchasing recommendation:
* Wait until appropriate age: Our son started with Thomas when he was 18 months old, but we did not buy any battery engines until he was 3. We wanted for him to use his imagination in pushing and pulling for a while. Now he sometimes sits back and just watches the battery engines, while at other times he pushes them.

* The metal engines are more durable: The metal engines cost more than the larger plastic battery-operated engines, but they are far more durable. They feel solid in the hand. They go both forward and backwards, while the plastic engines only go forward. They pull the wooden cars that your child may already have. They're just a better fit!

James is amazing... he chugs around corners and up and down hills without a hitch (although he sometimes gets confused with y-splits and de-rails).

Adds an amazing element to your Thomas train set. My 3 year old loves him, and runs all around the track helping him out. Definitely a must buy.

James is the best battery operated train. The four wheeled trains (like Lady) have problem with the tight radiused corners (3" curves), and constantly derail on a track that James with his 6 wheels has no problems with. If Lady had been the first battery operated train I bought, I would not have bought anymore based upon the difficulty she has with the track. Fortunately, I bought James first.

The battery-power James is mostly metal rather than wood (his tender is still made of wood) and is perhaps more rugged than the wooden Thomas & Friends engines. He is heavy, well-detailed and durable and is a very fine-looking engine. Toddlers will have no problem starting and stopping him, as the on/off switch is a large button that blends into the top of the driver's cab. And the working headlight is really cool.

However, once James gets rolling, he frequently derails off of our wooden railway or gets stuck. His pulling power is also pretty weak. Quite often, the magnet is unable to hold more than 3 cars (especially when heading uphill), and poor James speeds off while his freight cars or coaches are left behind.

As are all the Thomas & Friends wooden train toys, this is a very solid toy, built-to-last, although the battery powered Engines aren't actually wood - James is made of die-cast metal and has a bit more heft than the wooden engine. Unlike the Brio powered trains, the Thomas & Friends battery powered trains only go forward, but so far our 3 1/2 and 2 year old kids don't seem to mind too much, and the large start/stop button is easier for young kids to use. They love the working headlamp and like to watch him come through tunnels. James has plenty of strength on flat sections of track to pull pretty much any length train, but does struggle a bit on hills, though will make it up and over without too many cars. James doesn't work well with the Thomas & Friends switching track (the kind that has a working red switch to make the train go straight or turn) - when set to turn, James always ends up going off the track. However, I think that is mostly a problem with the switching track design, and not the train.

We bought this train along with the video, James and the Red Balloon and our little one just loves it. He particularly likes the battery operated ones the best and just has a blast playing with James. It works beautifully, and is quite durable. He gets drug all over the place and keeps coming back for more. Plus, he doesn't chew up batteries the way our Brio trains do. Great toy!

We have four battery operated engines (Thomas, Percy, Lady, James) and James was the last one purchased. James can not make a complete circle without derailing. Also, he can't make it up one of the low Thomas drawbridges. It has nothing to do with the way our track is set up because we did it according to manufacturer's instructions. Even in our own custom set up we removed all small curved track and James had serious problems. Even when Thomas didn't. There is no consistency from engine to engine. It is disappointing.

Our wooden train set is an amalgam of Thomas & Friends pieces and the more generic (and inexpensive) Imaginarium track, the Canadian equivalent of Brio. Unfortunately, the ascending Imaginarium track was a little too narrow for James' wheel base; he spins out when he's on it, and cannot even pull himself up, let alone other trains. At first, we wondered if the engine was defective, given the other reviews that said he pulled uphill. We did some experiments and noted that he pulls uphill fine on ascending Thomas track, so make sure you've got the right ascending track! Other than that, our son loves the bright red color of James and enjoys pushing him around manually or letting him chug about on battery power.

James was the first battery powered Thomas train we bought for our 2 year old son. He takes a single "AA" battery, which is installed by unscrewing a single screw on the bottom, and lifting the body of the train off. When you push the button on the top, he comes to life, moving at a surprisingly fast clip, and his lantern glows brightly. The great thing about the battery powered trains is that they are perfectly capable of being played with without power, and as long as the button is not pushed down (even without battery), the wheels roll freely. If you have the button on, the wheels will lock up and grind when you try to free-wheel it. Just something to be aware of.

All of the battery powered trains are built the same way, and they are all die cast metal instead of wood (with the exception of the tender car, if the train has one like James). This adds considerable weight to the train, and if dropped (or worse, thrown), really can hurt. So be aware if you have a temperamental engineer!

The speed of the engine with a fresh battery may pose some problems when navigating particularly curvy or technical track layouts, but with guidance does just fine.

Another thing to be aware of is that if you use track other than the Thomas track with the traction etched into it, these engines may have some difficulty going up steep hills. We have a few pieces of track from other random sets (like Brio), and sometimes the train won't make it up and over a hill depending on how big of a load they are carrying and how new a battery is in there.

I have not experienced that they make my son "lazy" about pushing his other trains, as some other reviewers have noted, but of course, all children are different. He really enjoys the hands on approach, and even when James or his other battery powered engines are going on their own, he gently keeps a finger or two on them constantly!

Overall these are really fun additions to the set.

We have Battery Operated Thomas and Battery Operated James. Other than the color they look very similar, and, I suspect, use the same mechanics. Unfortunately, James derails very often on the same tracks that Thomas has no problem navigating. I have two tracks: a coal sifter figure 8 and the oval starter kit from Target. James derailes on each one of the tracks separately as well as on the layout I created by combining the two sets. Sometimes it'd go around fine one time and then derail on the second run - very strange. Battery Operated Thomas almost never derails.

On the positive side, my two-year old son loves these trains.

I usually don't write reviews, especially negative ones, but I really recommend that you don't purchase this train. I bought James for my 2 year-old son's birthday; he has a train table with lots of trains already, and I thought it would be fun for him to see James navigate the tracks by himself. The first James that I bought didn't even work out of the box. When I put the battery in, the little headlight came on, but the wheels didn't turn. So back it went in exchange for another. This time, I did some research on the battery-powered Thomas line, and discovered that many other people have had the same problem. But I thought I would give it one more try, just to see if I had a little more luck this time, since it sounded like there were also plenty of people who had never had any problems.
Well, the next James that I purchased worked like a charm--for about a week, and that is being generous, because we didn't even play with it every day. Last night my son and I were playing with his trains, and my son turned on James and set him off the track. James promptly fell off the track onto the train table (about a 3-inch fall), and what do you know, all of a sudden his wheels won't turn, although his headlight still works. I tried a trick that someone talked about online about moving the wheels back and forth really fast, but it didn't work. So this James is also going back, and this time I'm not making the mistake of purchasing another one. Looks like my son will be pushing his trains from now on....what a big disappointment. For the money I spent, I would expect a lot better quality out of the Thomas line.