LEGO Toy Story Western Train Chase (7597)

**Update December 2011: Lego has delisted this set. There are, as of writing, still supplies of this train available. At some point, prices for the set will start to appreciate quickly.**This is a five star train for kids in the 5 to 8 year old range. Older kids may be more interested in the City line trains (7938 and 7939) or the Harry Potter Hogwart's Express train (4841). The City trains, incidentally, are the only ones that come as complete sets with track, motors and remote control devices.Wow, this is a good looking train! I believe that the photos and box art for the set don't do justice to how it looks when it is built, and how much fun it is to play with. This is an Old West 4-4-0 steam engine, box car, passenger car, and caboose. I would describe the design as more cartoon-like than realistic, with the engine having exaggerated proportions and the cars a tad short. The set includes no track or motor. It is designed as a push train. The engine uses four new drivers (and comes with two extra un-flanged drivers) as well as a cattle-catcher (a new part). The train cars themselves are short but attractively designed. As with the other new trains for 2010, this set is largely brick-built (i.e., few specialized plastic moldings). The set includes Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Bullseye, Rex, and Evil Doctor Pork Chops mini-figures. The passenger car and the caboose are designed with lift-off tops to make it easier to place characters inside, and the box car has a trap door in the roof. The caboose and the passenger car also have doors at each end, but these are hard to close unless you lift off the top. And I find that the engine is not as sturdy as I would like (e.g., the piston cylinders can pivot out of the proper orientation, the cattle catcher comes off when the kids hit objects -- as they are wont to do). The train is not a difficult build, but younger children will likely need some assistance.Regarding adding a motor, it is possible to use Lego's Power Function (PF) accessories to add one. The easiest way is power the drivers with a motor, place an IR receiver in the engine cab, and a battery in the box car. The problem with this method is that the drivers are large and so even at slow motor speeds, the train goes faster than it should. It is preferable, but more of a hastle, to build a tender and put both the motor and battery box in it. This engine deserves a tender, and a tender's wheels are a more appropriate size for the motor. Wheels, coupling magnets and bricks can be had, piece-by-piece, directly from Lego. Obviously, motorization is really a project for tinkerers, but isn't that what Lego is about? In any case, the major parts that you need are (usually directly from Lego): 88002 (motor), 8884 (IR receiver), 8879 (IR transmitter), and one of the following:-8878 (rechargeable battery) with 8887 (transformer for recharging)-88000 (AAA battery box).Though train buffs will likely be put-off by the design, this set is going to be very, very popular among children. Grandparents, I think this makes a perfect birthday or holiday gift. I do recommend buying track; the engine's wheels are on two bogies, so the whole thing can get a little sideways without it. As of early 2011, Lego discontinued their standard track pack, #7896. Two such sets gave you an oval. 7896 is still available but often at outrageous prices. In place of 7896, Lego currently offers a flex-track pack (#8867, which is enough to make a circle) and a combination straight and flex pack (#7499). I don't believe the flex track is ideal for curves, but it is not clear what Lego's plan is at the moment. There are also switches available (set #7895). If you want to add additional old west structures, you can add 7594, Woody's Roundup (which is a scene in Toy Story 2, not 3).

This LEGO set was a birthday gift for my four-year old. I knew when I purchased it that it was a set he would need to grow in to. We (mommy) built the train and I think it was slowly starting to fall apart a week later after being played with so much. However, I didn't want to build it and just set it up on the shelf to be admired from afar. The set is very detailed, but the instructions are easy to understand. Make sure you keep the instructions if you want to recreate the train in the future. For now, my kids just enjoy building their own versions of the train and playing with the Toy Story LEGO figurines. Hours of fun!

We (my husband, son, and I) are Toy Story and LEGO fans, so this seemed like a perfect choice for a family activity and toy.LEGO thoughtfully puts the pieces in little bags with one for each car, which makes navigating the visual assembly diagrams a little less frustrating.Assembling this was a lengthy affair and there was more than one mention of the time it took to build the transcontinental railroad. It took my husband (he has been an avid LEGO fan for at least 30 years) and I (I'm the person that doesn't read the manual and likes to figure it out on her own, though I do have limited dexterity which makes LEGO a challenge for me) almost 2 hours to assemble all of the cars.Once assembled, the train and the cars are pretty cool. Though due to the intricacies of the construction, this doesn't seem to me like a set you would really take apart and build something else (which is what I loved do do as a kid)...All of the main characters are represented and I like having our favorites (Buzz, Woody, Hammy, etc) in our general LEGO man population. I do wish they looked more like LEGO interpretations of the characters though (like in the LEGO video games of Star Wars and Indiana Jones), but they are still pretty neat to have.One of the cars has a trapdoor mechanism which is fun (my 7 year old had a ball making the LEGO guys disappear)...This is a train made out of LEGO and I was surprised that once it was assembled, it is pretty sturdy. After playing with it for a little while I feel like I can appreciate the epic instructions, all of the tiny pieces, and the lengthy construction.The one thing this train doesn't have is tracks. For some reason, the image on the box made me think it was more of a train set than just a train. Not that you need the tracks, as the wheels do just fine on tile, but I was hoping to add a motor and have it circle a track of some sort like a more traditional train set.All in all, it is a nice set and perfect for a Toy Story and LEGO enthusiast. The construction is challenging though, and in my humble opinion, the construction is too challenging for the age group that would really play with this, and I feel that maybe this is more of a collector's item. For our family, it meant that we spent 2 quality hours working together toward a mutual goal, and then all of us were proud of the results. To me that is a pretty good win.

This was an incomplete package. There was one train missing from the package. Since it was opened as a gift, I could not return it. Very disappointing.

My daughter loves this train. It was fun to put together and to play with. However, she started to get frustrated because the front wheels on the engine kept falling off. This aspect of the train is very poorly designed. There is only one point of contact between the engine and the front wheels. Any amount of play or pressure makes the piece fall off. We just took it off so she could play with it, but this really should have been thought out better. Other than that, we are happy with this train. It looks great and is really fun.