- Brand: Brio
- Toy vehicle form: Train
- Material: Wood
- Color: Red
- Age Range (Description): 36 months to 120 months
- Product includes – A large locomotive with front and rear lights, and buttons for forward, stop and reverse. Also features the characteristic ‘choo-choo’ sound effects and a switch on top that allows free wheel movement without the battery function.
- Perfect for the creative toddler – Start your budding train engineer off on the right track with a BRIO World Mighty Red Action Locomotive toy train. It’s the perfect gift at Christmas or over the holiday season for the creative toddler – designed for ages 3 and up.
- Compatibility – As your child develops, so can their railway play as the 33592 Mighty Red Action Locomotive is compatible with all other BRIO railway tracks and vehicles.
- Develops important skills – Playing with train sets helps children to understand and learn about their environment in a fun way, and the train functions help improve a child’s spatial awareness and fine motor skills.
- Safe for your child – We conduct more than 1,000 safety tests a year to ensure that our products conform to all safety standards, and we take pride in developing toys that are completely safe for children to play with.
Dan F., WI –
We wanted a train in a small area with a small tree, but even a basic 36″ H-O electric train setup would have been too large. We had our son’s Brio wooden set from 25+ years ago, and that would work fine space-wise, but we wanted something with motion. After reading several reviews of the many small battery powered engines for Brio trains (no good up hills, can pull only 2-3 cars, etc.) I had all but given up on my quest. Enter Mighty Red!!! Two batteries rather than one (ah, more car-pulling power …), lights in forward and reverse (ah, more light …), train sounds (ah, more sound … [well, duh!~]), can leap tall buildings at a single bound (OK, maybe not that). It was and is the answer to my dreams. This engine easily pulls an 8-car train on a flat track, and can easily get up elevating tracks with 3-4 cars.SO WHY ONLY 4 STARS??? The batteries, my friend; it’s all about the batteries. This engine takes two AAA batteries (I suggest alkaline). Never mind the fact that it eats them alive, I don’t care. My main concern is about how they are put in, and the effect that will have over time (and not much time, if you’re not careful). And I’ll mention now that I recommend alkaline batts because the last longer than rechargeable batts and need to be changed less frequently.Here is my concern in that regard:To access the battery compartment, you need to remove the smokestack (Brio calls it the boiler cover) using a small Phillips-head screwdriver (a #0 or #2 size). If you use one too large or too small (like for eyeglasses) you can easily strip the screw, so use the right size driver. However, the boiler screw also allows you to use a small flat-head screw driver (for after you strip the Phillips portion of the screw head) such as a 3mm (Metric) or a 9/64 (ASE). I ask you, should changing a battery be potentially this involved?Once you have the cover removed, you will go through some minor contortions while your fingers try to get it back on (back, down & flat) against the force of the battery spring; it’s do-able, but it takes a bit of practice. But hey, it is your son or daughter you want to enthrall, so you WILL get it done. OK. Take a breather now … you earned it. And all that work is worth it, too … but only for about 50-minutes or so of intermittent use, after which the batteries will die (sooner with rechargeables) & you will have to change them again. Yeah, I know. Dang! (I know that in order to keep things relatively compact, fit the engine to track, tunnels, etc., Brio had to design the blastard thing this way, but … oh, woe to us Dads and Moms …)My main concern (and, finally, the reason for my 4-stars) is that the batteries will need to be changed out so often (and more so if you use rechargeables), that the “boiler” screw is very prone to having its head stripped which, if that happens, will make changing the batteries impossible. One can only hope that Brio has used a very hard steel for the screw. If not, we’re screwed (LOL. See what I did there …) Wait a sec. What do you mean I’m being juvenile? I’m 64, dammit. Don’t call me juvenile. Don’t!Whoops! Sorry. It got away from me there for a moment. In the end, I highly recommend this over the other wooden train-set engines out there (we do have two “Thomas” ones) as it truly does have more pulling power and can get a number of cars up a hill. Cool feature … on the way DOWN a hill, a small button in the front activates and you get the “whoo, whoo, chug, chug” sound again.So in the end, I recommend this engine, as it is more powerful (than a locomotive??? Ahh. I did it again. Funny, man … just can’t stop doing this “stuff”. What’’s wrong with me???) than other smaller ones. Just make certain that when you unscrew the “boiler cover” for the first time, you have the right driver, you push down with some force, and that you twist slowly & deliberately to loosen it. When you replace the screw, do not over tighten. This will minimize the likelihood that you will strip out the screw head. Buy it, and enjoy!
TwinPeaker –
Considering it’s a toy, I think it deserves five stars but let me lay out an engineer’s critique :DUsing this engine almost everyday with my son has brought out some design flaws. First the pros:- very strong engine, on flat tracks, it can pull 10-15 cars. Struggles to pull that many cars around a curve or up a slope, but that’s more because it struggles with traction, not power.- Batteries last reasonably long- Nice switch to toggle between automatic and manual mode (my son imposes a manual mode a lot of times on all players)- Quick stop button- Goes in reverse too!Cons: to be fair, I am nitpicking- my biggest gripe, why doesn’t it have a magnet in the front? My son makes long trains that sorely need to two engines to drive the train smoothly. Despite having two of these, I can only use one at a time and only in the front. VERY frustrating. The little freight engine that Brio sells lacks power to be a good secondary engine.- Only two wheels are driven – this gives it less traction than a James engine I have from another set. Having more wheels driven would have utilized it’s powerful motor much better and given the engine much better traction. As noted above, it has the power to pull 10+ cars up a slope but it lacks traction making it’s front end lift up when going uphill with a heavy load.- When going backwards, the rear independent floating piece doesn’t track well and the big wheels struggle to find traction to go uphill backwards. So basically the reverse feature is mostly wasted.- Wish they made it a bit bigger – 1) accommodate 2xAA size batteries (2) give it more weight in the front to pull a longer trainAll said, this is the best toy engine in our stable. The Tomica black steam engine doesn’t have sufficient torque to pull a long train, is too light to have good traction, and uses hooks so isn’t compatible with the magnet linked train sets. The Thomas and Friends engines are similar to the Tomica. Thomas and Friends engines that use magnets don’t have very good drive mechanism and often get stuck on the tracks.Brio – Please please make this engine with magnets at both ends! We will sure buy three – one in front, second for middle and a third at rear of a long train 🙂
Andrew S. – Boulder, CO, USA –
Single-battery engines are too slow and weak. With two batteries, this one climbs even with several cars attached. After returning the others, this is me daughter’s favorite. I was afraid the noises would run all the time, but they only sound briefly after pressing the button and are a fun touch. The neutral switch is a great feature.Sadly, Brio seems to suffer from manufacturing/quality issues on all three different models of engines I tried. Wheels aren’t attached straight on axles, causing the appearance of a wobble. In one case, the drive wheels were so tight to the body that they rubbed heavily and drained the batteries flat in only a couple of minutes, but I could not loosen them off to fix it.
Becky –
My 5 year old loves this train! It works well on the wooden track, moving forward, backward, and over hills with cars.
champak Dedhia –
Makes the train come alive. Strong engine, can pull at least six compartments over a bridge.
EC –
My only complaint is that the length of the place you unscrew for batteries is really awkwardly long and thin compared to other brio battery powered trains we’ve purchased – making battery replacement a chore in comparison if you don’t have a screwdriver with a longer, thinner tip. I have to use a smaller tool intended for computer repair work to get it open.
Howard Herndon –
Was a birthday gift for great grandson, so he was excited about this train engine actions.
David Kelsey P –
We were disappointed that it couldn’t handle going up the bridge and was too large to fit through the tunnel, so most of the components of my sons brio set do not work with this engine ?