(07-08-2015, 11:28 PM)daftande Wrote: Good find! I ordered both real steam thomas and the volcano drop set. Crazy that these dropped before Ryan, Mike or treasure thomas went on sale.

(07-08-2015, 10:01 PM)ripley802 Wrote: Great news guys. The Steam Along Thomas arrived today. I have not had a chance to play with it to much yet, but wanted to post some pics and a few observations so far.

First, the train it self. I was surprised to see the darker blue and almost metallic body color. It was a pleasant surprise indeed. The train takes 3 AAA as opposed to the normal 2 that most TMR trains have been taking.

The water filling. I know this was a topic of interest for most. I am not sure on what the item is in the pics posted earlier, maybe from a prototype or another earlier version etc.. But this version does not have anything removable from the bottom. The water is drawn up through the supplied yellow dropper, and it goes on the left side which is marked. The directions mentioned to fill it up but I only put a little water in for now. And I did not have distilled water so had to use a little tap water.

On the top the on/off switch is actually a press button. Press once to turn on and then again to turn off. I really like this design and hopefully is something incorporated into more TMR.

My fist impression of the workings were WOW. I think by far this is the coolest engine from the TMR series I have seen. Obviously that is an opinion and everyone has one, but other than not having sound, it is all that I expected. The light is blue versus the red from the old version, maybe this can be modified, but for me it it nice. The smoke seems to function great. You can see the little water droplets inside the smoke stack while it is working.

Well enough talking, here are some pics I snapped of him. I am eager for the Percy to come out and will definitely pick that one up. Enjoy and let me know if there are any questions you make have that I will try and help clear up. Thanks.

(07-09-2015, 12:01 AM)ripley802 Wrote: Thanks. Yeah, I agree, I was shocked to see them. I had the volcano drop set in my cart then removed it. I was hoping maybe they would run a deal on th,me like they had done with the target rescue Thomas and diesel. If not I will definitely get that set. In the pictures of the volcano set it looks like smoke from the Thomas. I am not sure if that is just a graphic or if that Thomas is a real steam?

(07-09-2015, 05:14 PM)daftande Wrote: Dude you are right! It says "For even more cool action, this set includes a motorized Thomas train that produces real steam." I can always return the extra real steam thomas in store, at least it helped me get free shipping haha.

(07-09-2015, 07:45 PM)Super Wrote: Thanks Ripley802 for all the detailed pictures

Is he actually longer to accommodated the steam works? Look how far back the front wheels look in the first 2 pictures. Looks like he would bottom out the front end if trying to start up one of those steep inclines in some Revolution sets..

There look to be two filler tubes, (pics 4 & 5) one on each side of the smoke box. I would think that if one were a dummy tube it would be covered so children (or adults) don't mistake it for the proper one and make a wet mess of things.

In the Product Description in Ripleys Toye R Us link it states its "cool to the touch steam" so I would assume its the same atomized mist as the original Steam Alongs.

(07-09-2015, 09:48 PM)Super Wrote: Thanks for the comparison Ripley
So he is much longer than the original and the front wheels are set back quite a ways. Wonder how he compares to a regular Thomas Revolution? He also looks quite heavy, is he?