All About Toy Trains For Kids - A Review by Erol Gurcan
TM Books and Video® released its “All about Trains for Kids” DVD in March. This DVD was delayed in the pipeline several times because the company focused on cowboy and tractor videos during last couple of years, except for the Lionel® FasTrackTM video released last fall. “TM had great success with its John Deere tractor videos, but they took longer to produce than we anticipated,” company founder and President Tom McComas said. “We wanted to get back to our roots with the train videos.” This new DVD picks up where TM’s “I Love Toy Trains” series left off.
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Among toy train fans, TM is best known for this its highly popular “I Love” series, which released its “Final Show” in 2004. That successful series was loved by both kids and train fans young at heart because of its charm, occasional silly humor, and the catchy music of singer/songwriter James Coffey. This new 55- minute DVD has lots of real and toy train footage, as well as a story entitled “A Lucky Dog.” The animated dog story is about a canine named Owney who is adopted by postal service workers and travels the rails with the US Mail. The book of the same name written by Dick Wale is also for sale in the current TM catalog. My nine-year-old daughter Kristine especially liked this part of the disc because it combined a story about a dog and a train.
Segmented like a Magazine
The DVD is structured and divided into three titled segments, something which was not done in the “ILTT” series. Segments include such titles as: “When Steam Was King,” “Building a Layout” using Lionel FasTrack, and others about railroad lingo, cabooses, and the Milwaukee Road’s Hiawatha. The steam portion features short clips of the Pere Marquette Berkshire #1225, Norfolk and Western J #611, and many other locomotives. This was the part of the disc that I liked best. Other parts show the Southern Pacific Daylight GS-4 #4449 and the UP Challenger #3985. The disc is also geared to be more educational than was the “ILTT” series. I also liked the segment on the Milwaukee Road’s Hiawatha. The model featured there is the Lionel locomotive that also graced the cover of the Lionel 2006 Volume 1 Catalog. Its great paint job is a wonderful example of art deco industrial design, and Lionel’s Railsounds 5.0TM sounds great on the audio track!
Trivia Question – The Narrator
As in the “I Love” series, director/producer Tom McComas son Jeff narrates, but he’s not a kid any more. Now a teenager, he began narrating the “I Love” series at about age three. He has a nice voice for narration. There are also more enjoyable songs by James Coffey. If you are a fan of his music – like I am – TM offers a CD of many of his songs from the “ILTT” series; it’s still available in the 2007 company’s catalog. Overall, it is a good video and well worth watching; I consider it a morethan- credible sequel to the “ILTT” series. However, it does not have the charm and humor that made the “ILTT” series so popular. There is now more real train footage than of the toy train models that we all love. Personally, I always preferred TM’s footage of toy trains more than those of their real life cousins. This DVD “is the first of a new series” states Mr. McComas. That’s good news to fans of TM’s toy-trainrelated videos. Hopefully, the next disc will feature more toy train footage and attempt to re-capture the charm and humor that made the “ILTT” series so popular. The DVD can be purchased at many hobby shops for $14.95 or ordered directly from TM at 1-800-892-2822 or on-line at www.tmbooks-video.com.
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