"Rusty's a Pretty Neat Diesel!"
Written: Jan 23 '03 (Updated Mar 26 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Teaches a skill, "action" cars, magnetic sand, an interesting character.
Cons: Mixer doesn't spin reliably, construction cars mostly plastic, sand piece might get lost.
The Bottom Line: This is a great little action-packed set to add to your Thomas collection.
|
|
|
| dagny21's Full Review: Learning Curve Engines Rusty With Construction Car... |
All right, I'll admit it: With all my talk in previous reviews about not paying full price for Thomas items, I did it this time. I paid too much because I just couldn't wait! We were near the only Thomas store in the area and I just couldn't pass by without going in and buying something. It'd been a few weeks since my last pile of stuff had arrived from eBay (I saved about 40% overall purchasing that way) and I was having Thomas withdrawals.
One of the items I had stuck in my head that I just had to get for my son was the "Rusty with Construction Cars" set. I pretty much knew walking into the store that I was going to pay through the nose for it, but I couldn't bring myself to wait for a sale, or a good deal elsewhere, so I just broke down and bought it.
The Set
~ Rusty is a vibrant, dark orange color. Not really the rust red color you see in the books and videos, but he bares a close enough resemblance that my 2-year-old definitely recognizes him. He is more wood than most of the engines I've seen, with only the necessary plastic face and wheels.
~ The Sand Dumper is really my favorite part of this set. It's mostly plastic, which is disappointing in a "wooden" toy, but probably necessary for this car to work properly. The yellow "dumper" hangs on a brown plastic support so that it rocks gently back and forth as the train rolls down the track, and tips over at the touch of a fingertip to empty it's piece of sand cargo. The cargo piece has a magnet inside it that allows it to be dragged by other engines, or picked up by Cranky the Crane, or the Sodor Cargo Crane if you have either of those pieces, which we do not yet. The really neat thing about this sand dumper is that getting the piece of sand back in the dumper is a delicate procedure, and if your engineer is very young like mine (2 years old), it will take him a bit of practice to be able to get the cargo back in without tipping it right back out again.
~ The Cement Mixer is pretty cool looking as freight cars go. It looks like it belongs with the sand dumper, as the hopper is the same bright yellow as the dumper and attached to a brown support. It is also mostly plastic. It has 6 wheels instead of the 4 that Rusty and the sand dumper have, and the middle set of wheels are really part of a gear system that turns the cement mixer as the train rolls on down the track. It bugs me a bit that the mixer part does not turn steadily, but rather is still for a bit, then turns, then is still again. I think this is poor design, my husband seems to think this is on purpose and makes it more realistic. On our car, the mixer also seems to turn more frequently when the car is pushed backward on the track. In any case, my son seems to take this as a matter of course, and this causes him no frustration at all, so I don't really have a complaint.
Playing with Rusty
I presented my son with the Rusty set when my husband and I wanted to go out to dinner at a nice restaurant and have something to keep him occupied. He immediately recognized him, even though he only appears for about 2 seconds in one of the videos we have. He was most interested in the sand dumper, and discovered that it tipped quite easily to dump out the sand cargo. At first, this did cause a bit of frustration to him, but after we coached him through replacing the cargo several times and instructed him to "go slow" and "be gentle" he began to be able to put the piece back in himself. It was a real pleasure to see how accomplished he felt in learning this new, delicate skill.
As usual when my son receives a new engine he wants to "hold" it, and resists all attempts on the part of his parents to see it run along the tracks. He did attach the construction cars to other engines and let them go, however, and very quickly learned another lesson: not to push directly on the sand dumper or the cargo would end up on the carpet. So, now when he's sending his long train through tunnels or guiding it around a turn, he pulls on the car in front of the dumper, or pushes on the car behind the dumper. I never get tired of watching my son learn problem solving skills from his Thomas & Friends wooden railroad set.
I'm always blown away by how creative my son gets with his Thomas & Friends toys. Though we don't have a crane, he soon figured out there was a magnet inside his sand cargo, and began playing with it in a way that never would have occured to me: he places the sand cargo against the magnet of an engine and that engine drags the sand down the track. I'm so proud!
Another great thing about Rusty is that he's a nice diesel. My son is very familiar with the diesel engines from the Thomas & the Magic Railroad movie, which are all mean and devious. We had a nice little conversation about how Rusty is a "good guy" and a "kind" diesel who "helped save Stepney from scrap." I think this is a good, indirect lesson to my son about not pigeonholing people. "Not all diesels are bad, just because we've met a few we don't like." This is a lesson easily translated into real life I think.
A few days after I gave Rusty to my son, he brought him up to me while I was busy doing my own thing and said "Rusty's pretty neat diesel." I have to agree.
FIND RELATED REVIEWS BELOW
Wooden Railway System
Annie - Thomas' Beloved Coach
Barrel Car
Bertie the Bus
Clarabel- Thomas' Beloved Coach
Edward the Blue Engine
Gordon the Big Express Engine
Harold the Helicoptor
Henry the Green Engine
James the Red Engine
Lady
Percy the Small Engine
Thomas the Tank Engine
Tidmouth Milk Tanker
Toby the Tram Engine
Arched Stone Bridge
Single Stone Tunnel
6.5 inch Curved Switch Track
6.5 inch Curved Track
Circle Set
Books
Diesel's Devious Deed
Thomas: The Really Useful Engine
Buying Thomas
All Aboard Toys
Train Table
Nilo Train Table
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 21.95
Type of Toy: Trains
Age Range of Child: 3 to 5 Years
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
dagny21
|
 in Kids & Family |
 - Top 500 |
|
Member: Christine D
Location: Alaska
Reviews written: 388
Trusted by: 66 members
About Me:
Happily married mother of one boy.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.