- Hi, I'm Paris and welcome to the first installment
of Santa's Pick Saturdays for 2017.
Now what's an item that's been
on many kids' Christmas wishlists
and adults' wishlists, as well?
A model train set.
What's cool about this Blue Star model train set
isn't the technology in the trains.
It's the technology that controls the trains.
Now you can do everything from your phone.
With this you control the speed,
the direction, the lights, the sounds.
Thanks so much to Bachmann Trains
for sending out this set for our very first
Santa's Pick Saturday review.
♫ Epic Review Guys
- At Bachmann Trains,
they have a wide variety of trains.
I particularly like the older ones,
so I asked them to send me a steam locomotive set.
And depending on where you buy it,
this set goes for just over or just under $300.
Find out more about it at the link
down below this video.
I was honestly very excited
when the people at Bachmann Trains
contacted me about doing a review
of one of their train sets.
Now this comes with everything you need
to get the Blue Star Line up and running.
We've got the tracks,
we've got the locomotive,
we've got the other cars to attach.
The only thing you need to provide
is the smartphone.
You've got curved tracks,
some straight track,
and the main power piece
that you will plug the transformer into
so the power to this train
comes through the track.
Here is the steam locomotive,
with its tender,
you can see the coal in there.
Very nice detail,
and very heavy,
because of course it contains the motor
and will be pulling the rest of the cars.
And this is one of the cars, a tank car.
This is a gondola,
and it is Fredericksburg and Potomac.
And this is a combine,
I would have called it a passenger car.
And it is the Baltimore and Ohio.
Now once you get this set up,
what are you going to want?
More cars, more tracks,
those little trees and hillsides
that you can put along the course.
So they include advertisement for some track packs
that you can buy from them,
as well as those other accessories.
Again, I'll link to their website down below this video.
Where does every great Christmas morning toy get set up?
On the carpet, of course!
So that's what I'll be doing here.
Just showing you some more of the paperwork that's included.
If you really wanna know every single detail
and piece of the cars, here you go.
And here's your basic installation instructions,
and it seems like they have a pretty easy system now
for connecting the two pieces of track.
They just slide together til they click,
and these rails connecting will make
your continuous electrical circuit,
so it'll power the train all the way around the track.
That did take two hands to snap together,
but also it only took two seconds,
so this will be a pretty quick setup.
Took about five minutes to install,
including plugging in the power.
This is going very smoothly.
I'm now ready to download the app onto my phone.
With the app installed on my phone,
and Bluetooth turned on,
it's now waiting for a train to come in range,
so I will take this and slide it onto the tracks here.
Once it has power,
it should talk to my phone.
And the power switch on.
Roll the train a little,
hopefully I have it on the track correctly.
So now that it has power,
it should talk to the phone.
Ready?
(steam engine whooshing)
Cool.
Now, lights.
Yup, there we go.
You hear the sound of the steam there.
(bell ringing)
Now the sound is coming through the phone,
and not the train itself,
which isn't my preferred way of doing it,
but I think with an app,
that's the easiest way they had.
(bells ringing)
Okay, turn that off.
I assume this is volume.
(short train whistle)
Oh!
(long train whistle)
Okay.
And, forward.
(clacking)
Oh, I see,
and then this is the slider
for the speed to go forward.
Cool.
(train chugging)
That's not forward.
No, I see, I must have activated reverse.
Stop!
(train hissing)
Okay.
Try again.
(clacking)
Forward.
(clacking becoming louder and faster as train gains speed)
I love it.
(bells ringing)
(train clacking)
Oh, there we go.
(chugging becoming louder and faster as train gains speed)
That is full speed.
Handling it pretty well.
Let me shut it down,
and I'll add the rest of the cars.
(steam engine hissing)
And I was curious what the little speaker symbol
did on the side, I tapped it,
and look at all the different things
you can control the sounds of.
And under settings,
in addition to being able to rename your locomotive,
a lot of other controls, wow.
To couple the additional cars,
you just slide them together gently.
(clicking)
And we are coupled.
(train chugging)
(steam engine whooshing)
(short train whistle blowing)
(long train whistle blowing)
(bells ringing)
(train chugging slowly)
(train chugging quickly)
And though you may never want
to have to shut down your train,
(steam engine whooshing)
and put it away.
Let's see how long it takes to put this set away.
Less than three minutes,
and it's all disassembled,
ready to put away.
I love an easy to clean up toy.
Well, I think the Blue Star train set
would make a great Christmas morning gift.
Easy to set up and get playing with.
Learn all the features on the app,
lots of fun,
and when you're done,
it's easy to clean up and put away.
And the detail on the cars is just amazing.
I love that kind of stuff.
Thanks again to Bachmann Trains
for sending me this set to try out.
It was an early Christmas for me.
If you'd like this to be under your Christmas tree,
you can find out more about it at the links,
down below this video.
Now I'll be back on Saturday,
reviewing our next Santa's Pick.
If you'd like to suggest something
for Santa's Pick Saturdays,
we still have a few Saturdays open,
haven't quite decided the best gifts suggestion,
so please, in the comments,
down below this video,
let me know what you would like to see reviewed
as a possible gift suggestion for you
or for someone that's hard to shop for.
You can keep checking back for that video,
or you can click that subscribe button
in the bell next to it,
you'll get notified when my videos go up.
See you on the next review.
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