Uploaded August 2013 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Hey Guys and Gals here we have Trackmaster Connor's race to the castle. I bought this on ebay about a month ago along with the other 2 Caitlin and Stephen.
Connor is based on a New york central streamline steam locomotive and has some of the details of the prototype (real life version). This engine is the 2nd American Streamline engine in the Thomas and friends franchise and made his first appearance in the season 17 episode "Calm down Caitlin" where he had a small speaking cameo.
The package consists of the locomotive and tender and a coach, the coach is actually a covered truck with window decals fitted, very cheap and nasty this coach is. The locomotive and Tender is great though although the fit and finish isn't what it should be the battery cover was difficult to remove and rather poor fitting when put back together. the tender is very light and will need to be weighted if it is to be in front of more than several cars without toppling over. The drive unit was the same when i removed it to swap the motor for the upgrade it was difficult to remove and refit. this could point to the fact that they don't like people such as myself tinkering with the engines drive units.
The engine runs on a single AA battery fitted to a flat type drive unit (all the king of the railways engines thus far have had the flat type drive unit). it was quite fast without me having to do anything straight out of the box but for a streamlined steamer we want more more more speed! That's where the motor swap comes into play oh yes, i went ahead and swapped the standard motor for a higher performance version from Tamiya the Power Dash motor. This motor I have found to double the speed of any single battery engine and still provide decent battery life. If you want to swap one of these motors into your train you need to check out my tutorial video where i did it to Molly it applies to all engines with this type of drive unit. Anyway I also went ahead and swapped to coupling between the loco and tender for a wire tied in a loop to improve the look, the coupling mod also allows these engines to use the turntable as they don't fit with the standard coupling, a massive flaw from TM there!
The loco drives really well and had zero derailments unlike Caitlin in her review who didn't want to stay on the tracks that day :D Modded speed was excellent but i did run the new motor in for a full hour before filming this does indeed seem to help allot.
I give this loco an 8/10 overall, for running I give it a 10/10, for looks a 7/10 (the coach), value i give it 7/10.
Anyway thanks for watching!
Shout out to Ryan Passarelli! see I told you it was coming haha.
Hey Guys and Gals here we have Trackmaster Connor's race to the castle. I bought this on ebay about a month ago along with the other 2 Caitlin and Stephen.
Connor is based on a New york central streamline steam locomotive and has some of the details of the prototype (real life version). This engine is the 2nd American Streamline engine in the Thomas and friends franchise and made his first appearance in the season 17 episode "Calm down Caitlin" where he had a small speaking cameo.
The package consists of the locomotive and tender and a coach, the coach is actually a covered truck with window decals fitted, very cheap and nasty this coach is. The locomotive and Tender is great though although the fit and finish isn't what it should be the battery cover was difficult to remove and rather poor fitting when put back together. the tender is very light and will need to be weighted if it is to be in front of more than several cars without toppling over. The drive unit was the same when i removed it to swap the motor for the upgrade it was difficult to remove and refit. this could point to the fact that they don't like people such as myself tinkering with the engines drive units.
The engine runs on a single AA battery fitted to a flat type drive unit (all the king of the railways engines thus far have had the flat type drive unit). it was quite fast without me having to do anything straight out of the box but for a streamlined steamer we want more more more speed! That's where the motor swap comes into play oh yes, i went ahead and swapped the standard motor for a higher performance version from Tamiya the Power Dash motor. This motor I have found to double the speed of any single battery engine and still provide decent battery life. If you want to swap one of these motors into your train you need to check out my tutorial video where i did it to Molly it applies to all engines with this type of drive unit. Anyway I also went ahead and swapped to coupling between the loco and tender for a wire tied in a loop to improve the look, the coupling mod also allows these engines to use the turntable as they don't fit with the standard coupling, a massive flaw from TM there!
The loco drives really well and had zero derailments unlike Caitlin in her review who didn't want to stay on the tracks that day :D Modded speed was excellent but i did run the new motor in for a full hour before filming this does indeed seem to help allot.
I give this loco an 8/10 overall, for running I give it a 10/10, for looks a 7/10 (the coach), value i give it 7/10.
Anyway thanks for watching!
Shout out to Ryan Passarelli! see I told you it was coming haha.
