Uploaded June 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This is the first video I did not edit myself, it was edited by my Son.
Edited by thehsvdude!
Hi Guys and Gals, Here we have the recently released talking James from Trackmaster revolution, Let's have a good look at Him and other James' in my collection :)
This new Talking James looks good enough and is almost identical to a regular Trackmaster Revolution James but there are a couple of differences, the switch is replaced by an on/off button and the loco is slightly longer. The loco runs on 2xAAA batteries and while I like this economical approach to battery consumption I can't help but feel it struggles with power in places and the batteries don't last very long! Talking James has a number of very cool phrases from the show and some rather generic ones thrown in too, the speaker is loud and all the phrases are easy to hear almost from across the room.
On the track is the worst part sadly, he struggled to haul even a small load without losing traction very often, I did not have these problems with the Thomas and Percy Talking versions nor the regular non Talking James. I tested this problem some more after filming and found that the regular scared James had a much better grip on the track and was easily able to pull the load that the talking James struggled with. I am not sure why this happened! Could it have been a bad batch of traction tires at the factory that day? Did they somehow change the material of the traction tires? Who knows!? :P
I see it as a problem on the old track and before you jump in with "It's only designed for the new track!" Then why did they retain the trackmaster name if it could not keep some sort of compatibility with the actual proper trackmaster & blue track systems.
I give this talking James a 4/10.
It is an unimaginative, slapped together talking character of whom there are already 3 talking versions of that I can remember (there are other characters that deserve to Talk!). The lack of overall grip was a concern and adding weight did not help. I can't help but feel that the nasty plastic axles on the tender cause friction and limit the pulling power also. Avoid this one and go for Talking Thomas & Talking Percy instead!
Thanks for watching!
This is the first video I did not edit myself, it was edited by my Son.
Edited by thehsvdude!
Hi Guys and Gals, Here we have the recently released talking James from Trackmaster revolution, Let's have a good look at Him and other James' in my collection :)
This new Talking James looks good enough and is almost identical to a regular Trackmaster Revolution James but there are a couple of differences, the switch is replaced by an on/off button and the loco is slightly longer. The loco runs on 2xAAA batteries and while I like this economical approach to battery consumption I can't help but feel it struggles with power in places and the batteries don't last very long! Talking James has a number of very cool phrases from the show and some rather generic ones thrown in too, the speaker is loud and all the phrases are easy to hear almost from across the room.
On the track is the worst part sadly, he struggled to haul even a small load without losing traction very often, I did not have these problems with the Thomas and Percy Talking versions nor the regular non Talking James. I tested this problem some more after filming and found that the regular scared James had a much better grip on the track and was easily able to pull the load that the talking James struggled with. I am not sure why this happened! Could it have been a bad batch of traction tires at the factory that day? Did they somehow change the material of the traction tires? Who knows!? :P
I see it as a problem on the old track and before you jump in with "It's only designed for the new track!" Then why did they retain the trackmaster name if it could not keep some sort of compatibility with the actual proper trackmaster & blue track systems.
I give this talking James a 4/10.
It is an unimaginative, slapped together talking character of whom there are already 3 talking versions of that I can remember (there are other characters that deserve to Talk!). The lack of overall grip was a concern and adding weight did not help. I can't help but feel that the nasty plastic axles on the tender cause friction and limit the pulling power also. Avoid this one and go for Talking Thomas & Talking Percy instead!
Thanks for watching!
