This reminded me of my brother. Growing up, when we went to the library and checked out vhs tapes, I would get things like The NeverEnding Story and he would get documentaries about things like trains and big rigs. This is basically half real footage of trains and half animated sequences of trains and a young boy singing a proto-version of "Just keep swimming."

There's little in the way of plot, simply an older steam locomotive being bullied by the newer modern trains. A small heist subplot is inexplicably introduced at the end and a funny moment happens where the old steam engine, Yaemon, grabs the thieves (the animated trains have hands) and blasts them with his smoke stack. I'm pretty sure those crooks got lung cancer because of that.

The old train is supposed to be decommissioned, but since he saves the day he gets to stay in some train yard. The boy makes up with the bullies and everyone becomes friends at the end. One difference between this and, say, a Western property like Thomas is that the boy has a tragic backstory where his father died in a train accident, complete with flashback.

So if you know/have young kids who like trains, this isn't a bad option.

This reminded me of my brother. Growing up, when we went to the library and checked out vhs tapes, I would get things like The NeverEnding Story and he would get documentaries about things like trains and big rigs. This is basically half real footage of trains and half animated sequences of trains and a young boy singing a proto-version of "Just keep swimming."

There's little in the way of plot, simply an older steam locomotive being bullied by the newer modern trains. A small heist subplot is inexplicably introduced at the end and a funny moment happens where the old steam engine, Yaemon, grabs the thieves (the animated trains have hands) and blasts them with his smoke stack. I'm pretty sure those crooks got lung cancer because of that.

The old train is supposed to be decommissioned, but since he saves the day he gets to stay in some train yard. The boy makes up with the bullies and everyone becomes friends at the end. One difference between this and, say, a Western property like Thomas is that the boy has a tragic backstory where his father died in a train accident, complete with flashback.

So if you know/have young kids who like trains, this isn't a bad option.