help me sort this out

Hi All,

I am sure this all is here somewhere, but maybe you can enlighten me.
Whats the difference between the new Thomas trains. I bought my son a Percy with those hard plastic wheels (the stronger faster or whatever they are). then I went back to walmart and got a 'regular' one that had the old school rubber tires. were using the blue track. I have done a lot of research on all of this and I am blown away at how complex it all is. I tried to alter the percy with the hard plastic wheels to the rubber ones but ended up breaking it.
1. I have seen some posts on alter the new ones to old ones (wheels)
2. I see that TOMY still makes the Thomas trains in Japan? (and the chuggington). Are these better quality? IE: is it worth paying more for a train to get it from Tomy in Japan.
3. Lastly, I saw somehting about making alterations to trains (wheels and power) to make them faster and stronger. I just wanted to get some thoughts on that in general. Is it overkill? is it fun? easy? etc.

Thanks,
Kevin

Kevin, buying plarail (what Japan calls Tomy) is the best thing you could do if you aren't buying them off of eBay. I find Amazon a lot cheaper for the "regular" trains (thomas, percy, Diesel 10 etc.) and overkill in quality. And once you start working on mods, you become hooked to these trains like superglued lego bricks get stuck together: once they're together, they don't come apart.

It all depends what you enjoy doing? I quite enjoy putting the mods on an engine, if you have 1/2 an hour and a soldering iron it's pretty simple to change the motor to a faster one,

As for the new trackmaster well that's a point of discussion, so far I've avoid the new revolution engines with the hard wheels, and I've opted for the first generation engines, I don't really want to take the plunge as my son likes to push the engines too, which the new engines don't allow,

It all depends what you enjoy doing? I quite enjoy putting the mods on an engine, if you have 1/2 an hour and a soldering iron it's pretty simple to change the motor to a faster one,

As for the new trackmaster well that's a point of discussion, so far I've avoid the new revolution engines with the hard wheels, and I've opted for the first generation engines, I don't really want to take the plunge as my son likes to push the engines too, which the new engines don't allow,

I have been listening to the many complaints and critiques of these Revolutions, as I too have many mixed feelings, and seemingly more and more cons than pros as of recent, and I keep hearing the " NO free roll" reason as a con recurring again and again...with Fisher Price's history of unorganized, lack of any rhyme or reason, and sketchy products, marketing, and distribution, and the fact these are supposed to be baby toys, causes me to suspect we will soon see some tweaking and "new and improved" production modifications to this line soon...OR knowing FP, they might just scrap the whole line on a whim and throw something else completely different at us altogether!! Ba ha ha!!

[HankAmericanEngine]

Howdy @"Muddy Poppins"!

I'm just going to throw out my understandings of what you're asking about for each number you listed, so here I go!

1.) That would be right! @"Ucwepn" was able to mod one of the TrackMaster Revolution engines to have the TrackMaster/TOMY wheels, enhancing playability to some degree, but he and another member of the forum found this mod rather difficult to undertake, due to the tight fit of the wheels onto the geared axle and the half-axles to be removed without causing any damage to the plastic chassis.

2.) Any trains from the TAKARA TOMY Corporation are most definitely worth the expenditure and wait; the "Mystery of the Blue Mountain" pack that featured the Pre-Sodor Victor easily shows off the build quality for the mass-produced product, and the engines, track, cargo, figures, scenery, rolling stock, and accessories have a great deal of durability, so they can endure quite a bit of play for many years. To reiterate, four or five of my oldest engines are from the Plarail Corporation, and still run like new, despite being 11 years old.

3.)You can change the turbine(I think that's the proper terminology; @"Ucwepn" might know more) within the motor to enhance either speed or pulling power, or even both! Each Plarail engine is different, with some having 2-Speed motors (Default and faster), Hi-Power motors (faster, but stronger; takes a bit more to make the gears skip), and things of the nature.

Hope this helps!

Howdy @"Muddy Poppins"!

You can change the turbine(I think that's the proper terminology; @"Ucwepn" might know more) within the motor to enhance either speed or pulling power, or even both! Each Plarail engine is different, with some having 2-Speed motors (Default and faster), Hi-Power motors (faster, but stronger; takes a bit more to make the gears skip), and things of the nature.

I think you mean the rotor, but to be honest although it is possible to change the rotor in a Motor, it is much easier to just to change the entire motor for something which has more power, I think ucwepn uses the hyperdash2 motor with a lot of success


I've used this motor and it's nice to use, a good allrounder which is faster than the original, and is a direct replacement, for the standard item,

[HankAmericanEngine]

Thanks for that, @"Tramp"! I was just unsure of the correct term.

I haven't really done any motor swaps, so how do the other motors compare (I don't care about the battery consumption just speed and strength) to the hyper dash line?

[HankAmericanEngine]

I haven't really done any motor swaps, so how do the other motors compare (I don't care about the battery consumption just speed and strength) to the hyper dash line?

Howdy @"ROCKINATOR"!

I'll give a whack at explaining with engines in my collection!

My F7A AmTrak is a 2-Speed engine, so it can go the default speed of the TOMY/TrackMaster engine line, but then it can go a touch faster (I can't give a definitive percent, but it is fairly significant) in its second speed.

My Hyper-Guardian Cargo Liner, Trans Liner, and DD51 in the Hokkaido blue livery all have Hi-Power motors, meaning they can run at faster speeds and pull longer, heavier trains without having wheel slip as easily as the standard engines. It takes a lot more to make their gears grind and skip before it cannot pull its consist.

My J.N.R. HD300 has a lower-speed motor, but strong pulling power. It can haul fairly lengthy trains without having wheel slip as easily as the standard engines, but it doesn't mean it can't suffer from a lack of speed whilst pulling the consist.

Each of those little motors has something to offer, so finding out the right one for you is a bit more of research and trial-and-error.

I hope this helps!

[Super]

This video may help...