All Aboard- About the Friendship Express Train Car Toys?

[WingsOfMasquerade]

What's the deal with the Friendship Express train?
I remember these "pinkie trains" being the bane of shopping = huge shelf warmers when they were released. Now, however, the train seems much more popular, and also expensive? I found a Amazon Canada doing like 140 Canada dollars for just one car, that seems too steep.

I recently found at a garage sale the "Rarity Gem Carriage" train car.
I don't collect the train, so I tried looking it up on ebay (to see if I could sell it to buy ponies on here...) but there weren't any. Then, I went looking for it on google and only got other cars instead. There's some "Celestia Royal Car" or something that's a repaint/clone of it? So this got me thinking about the train.

How many cars did they make?
Pinkie Engine * Sweetie Belle Ice Cream * Rarity Gem * Fluttershy Animal * Royal Celestia * Wagon caboose? * ???

Do you collect or enjoy the train / does anybody?
It seems like it would be a cute way to display ponies & animals if you lined the whole thing up on a shelf in a straight row, but it would also take up space. (I don't have room for it)

Did they sell tracks for it more than that boring figure 8?
And will the engine pull them all if you actually owned all the cars & put ponies & animals in them.

Which car is the rarest / which car is the favorite one?
(Rarity's is actually really detailed inside with textures for her makeup/boutique or whatever she's got going there. The engine seems to have Applejack as a hood ornament. They really did seem to put thought into these cars. Any photos are welcome too if you've collected it & decorated it with ponies and animals I'm sure it would make a cute scene.

[okamigirl64]

I have a train shelf, but it's not on the track since it takes up too much space. At christmastime though, I put it under my little christmas tree which is really cute. 

Also, the Rarity gem carriage and Celestia carriage, while they do hook up to other train cars, can't actually be placed on the train track.

They never sold additional tracks, but the Toys R Us set (which is what I have) included all three train cars and a few more track pieces.

[Snapdragon]

I love the train!!! I bought like 4 of the "deluxe" sets to make a Christmas train to go around my tree! I have tons of track still, I just need to finish customizing the train cars.

[PrincessGryph]

I have the big TRU-exclusive set, my 2 yr old plays with it. Unfortunately, he poured juice on the engine and it stopped working, so I had to get another one. But the replacement I got sometimes runs off the track and I can't figure out what's wrong with it. He still enjoys the set tho, it's not like he's disciplined enough to keep the engine on the track anyway

The engine does pull all 3 cars that came with it, and I also got the little blue wagon thing too. Whether or not it will pull more, I've never tried. I would love to get my hands on an expansion track set.

[sailorstitch]

Just because......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfHr7WEmuIE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DqytXEWDhk

My train stays in the box when I'm not using it. I bought the deluxe one from TRU and then I found some extra track and an extra engine at Goodwill.

sailorstitch

[prancingstag]

I love the train set. I never noticed it shelf warming over here, and it has been out of stock for a good couple of years now, but they are starting to pop up second hand in children's unwanted toy lots on ebay. Try searching just "my little pony train" as parents may not know or care to use the term Friendship Express.

I had a lot of fun playing with my sets when they first came out, I'll have to dig them out of storage one day and run them around. I found that you can connect four carriages and a caboose to the engine, but it runs extremely slow and won't take some corners as when the wheels need to turn they are off the track slightly and just spin in place. It also won't go through the loop track as there's not enough room - when the engine tries to come out the other side some carriages are still on the track and it crashes into it's own tail. The engine, two carriages and a caboose goes better, but still needs watching in the loop as sometimes the engine juuust clips the caboose. The engine just by itself or with the caboose is quite speedy compared to any setup with a carriage load on it.

The releases as far as I could figure them out at the time:

Friendship Express Train set with engine, caboose and track pieces. Engine comes with either yellow or orange wheels, and the caboose is the reverse. (Eg. yellow wheels on the engine means orange wheels on the caboose, and vice versa). The engine also has the "MLP" logo on the side painted in pink.

Sweetie Belle's Ice Cream train carriage. The colours of the four small accessories are interchangable, but IIRC the squirrel is always a pinky-lavender.

Fluttershy's Animal Nursery train carriage - I believe the colours of some accessories were interchangeable.

Pony Friends Forever deluxe set - comes with engine, a recolour of Sweetie Belle's carriage, a recolour of Fluttershy's carriage, and track pieces. It has more track pieces than the single engine set - I believe two extra long pieces and one small curve. The engine has orange wheels and the MLP logo on the side is unpainted. I believe most of the colours of the pets are interchangable, I remember one of them being the same on all the sets I looked at but the three others being different - I think the cat is always yellow. I'm unsure about the suitcases and smaller accessories.

[LittleSpiffy]

There was someone on the forum who made extra track using pieces of craft wood...I think s/he had it at the 2014 Fair?  People!  Help me out!

[princessluna11706]

I gave the TRU exclusive set to my friend's daughter.  She LOVES it

[HoustonCollector72]

yeah there are 2 versions of the Train, the first one was sold separate ,the engine with Pinkie and the green small cart , Sweetie Belle   and Fluttershy cars and then a TRU version with the Engine and 2 carts .
Rarity and Celestia and also a third one that is Orange ( euro Exclusive)  are not train cars, they are Carriages , they can be attached to the train cars and also to the R/C Cars of Twily and Pinkie,as well as  AJ's Truck

A basic set of tracks will only allow you to attach the 2 carts and the small cart, if you add a third reg size cart ,it will get stuck as this video shows at the end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLCmpq-0zXY

[Elfpony]

There was someone on the forum who made extra track using pieces of craft wood...I think s/he had it at the 2014 Fair?  People!  Help me out!

Yes, didn't Ashlyne have it running the full length of her tables?

Elf

[Sunset]

I love the train set since my family already has a huge christmas train set up.  I own both the regular train and the TRU set.  Here is my set up.

visitors can't see pics , please register or login


I notice that no one has mentioned the Rainbow Train with Fluttershy.  I think she is maybe a Khols exclusive?

If you ar looking for more track,  you may be able to buy it on eBay or at garage sales.  I found a bag of extra track at a Good Will recently.  Not the train, just the track and the caboose!

[hathorcat]

If you check out the Coming Soon thread under the Vehicles link you should find all releases of the train set.

The price it is going for now is because its no longer a stocked item. Amazon marketplace sellers are a little notorious for assuming that means something has a crazy value and popping a super high price on things (there are some super high priced G3 items floating about there as well).

The hardest to find however probably remains the newest release as it has not turned up anywhere other than Canada and even then in very limited places and numbers. Its also the nicest colour in my opinion - I prefer the purple engine over the pink.

[sailorstitch]

If you check out the Coming Soon thread under the Vehicles link you should find all releases of the train set.

The Ranibow Power version is listed there, but there's no picture. Anybody have a picture?

sailorstitch

[WingsOfMasquerade]

Sunset, your pony display is so cool!
The train looks great in there, like it really is ponyville. If I had the space that's what I'd try to do.
This is super informative, complete with videos! I didn't know the carriage wasn't part of it...but looking at the wheels now it is clear that this is a different type of item. I am also happy to see that it works and is well liked. The TRU that used to be around here couldn't get rid of them for quite some time/boxes of it were just stacking up.

[hathorcat]

If you check out the Coming Soon thread under the Vehicles link you should find all releases of the train set.

The Ranibow Power version is listed there, but there's no picture. Anybody have a picture?

sailorstitch

There has never been a promo image found unfortunately. I think the only picture that is floating around belongs to buttercreamdream (I think).