Name: SixTrain
Series: Japanese Generation 1
Allegiance: Cybertron
Function: Six Robot Gestalt Warrior (very creative!)
Alternate Mode: N/A - Gestalt comprising Atlan, Convertor, Desire, Raise, San Diego & Windy
Note: I have the reissue, which is significantly different from the original. I will try to cover the original, but don't have one to view directly. I'll also compare to Reissue SixLiner, concentrating on retooling. This set is identical to Hasbro's Rail Racer (Overload=San Diego, Midnight Express=Windy, Railspike=Desire, Rapid Run=Raise, Swindle=Convertor, Tankor=Atlan)
ATLAN
Train Mode Height: 2cm Length: 5cm Width: 2cm
Robot Mode Height: 6cm Width: 2cm
A repaint of Aran (or Alan, with a t thrown into the name). Atlan is a silver (front) and blue (rear) Bullet Train engine, with silver stripes down the sides covering the letters "TGV" that were painted white on both Aran and the original Atlan. There's an Autobot logo on his roof, facing to the right, and has rotated 90° compared to Aran's. The windows are black, and the headlights are black on the original also.
Atlan rolls fairly well in this mode, there are red plastic wheels underneath which are slightly visible - these were orange on the original. He has a hole which can swing out from underneath his rear, allowing him to connect to San Diego, Convertor or Raise.
His transformation is simple enough - fold over the rear half, position his arms and stand him up.
In robot mode, Atlan has a blue torso, blue arms and legs, with silver paint for his face and waist and a black eyevisor. There's a big silver hood over his head, thanks to the front of the train just staying there. He has red wheels on his shoulders and red wheels on the outsides of his lower thighs, which stand out against the blue and silver.
The arms move at the shoulders and his knees can bend - together. Otherwise that's it. Not a great robot mode, but it's a nice train mode. The robot mode colours are a marked improvement on those of Aran.
SAN DIEGO
Train Mode Height: 2cm Length: 5cm Width: 2cm
Robot Mode Height: 6cm Width: 2cm
A gold steam locomotive, which is a radical repaint of the original - which was black like Diego (the SixLiner equivalent). The characters used to represent his name in Japanese actually transliterate as "San Deego", but the fan consensus seems to be that this toy is San Diego, which makes more sense, even if it sounds bizarre. There are silver highlights on front and silver trim down the side. There's a phantom red hole on top of the cabin, which is used to attach San Diego to SixTrain's back. The front set of wheels roll, and there's a partially concealed set of wheels at the back that roll. While the middle sets of wheels are moulded, the four moving wheels allow San Diego to roll fairly well.
This is a nice train mode, and white the colour scheme is the most radical departure in this set, I really appreciate how it differentiates San Diego and Diego - which I suspect was the idea. The gold looks good and seems to be a different gold plastic to the brittle mix that plagued the Pretenders. The Autobot symbol stamped on the left side of the snowplow looks good. There's a small post that folds out from the back of the train, allowing him to attach to Atlan, Desire or Windy.
San Diego's transformation is about as simple as it gets - fold the rear 90 degrees, position the arms. That's it. Luckily, the result is a nice looking robot mode. He's got a grey waist and head, although the face is unpainted which is a little disappointing. The thighs are blue, which works well with the gold, and his chest is painted a mustard yellow. I do prefer the look of Diego, in robot mode, but am still happy with the colour changes made here.
WINDY
Train Mode Height: 2.5cm Length: 6cm Width: 2cm
Robot Mode Height: 6.5cm Width: 2cm
Perhaps the most remarkable member of this set, and for two reasons. Firstly, Windy's tech spec clearly defines her as female. Secondly, Windy is not a retooling of Joe, rather a brand new mould entirely. She's a dark grey bullet train with black windows with jade windowframes and a silver nose. There's a small notch on her roof resembling a pantograph a rounded snowplow below her nose.
Windy's rounded lines remind me of some of the more modern diesel engines and the colours give her a real gothic look - which portrays her as a teenage girl who loves singing (straight out of anime!). There's a hole on her rear connector, allowing you to connect her to San Diego, Convertor or Raise.
Transforming Windy is simple enough - fold over the rear to form her legs, stand her up and position the arms. There's a hatch on top (the train nose), which can flip out to shave some height off her hood, and while it's meant for her leg mode, you can flip it out here if you like.
While I really like the train mode, the robot mode isn't so good. Her head and cheat are orange and her face and waist silver, the wheels visible on her shoulders are red. The boots stick out about half a centimetre, which is very kibbly, and the hood is huge - on it's own this would be ok but this conspires with the boots to give her a lot of kibble. Still, the orange, silver and grey trunk looks ten times better than the green trunk of the original - which was flanked by orange wheels.
Despite the poor robot mode, the train mode is good and I'm really glad we get at least one entirely new Micromaster in this set (even if Joe wasn't the weak point of SixLiner). The new mould makes Windy worthwhile all on it's own, really.
RAISE
Train Mode Height: 2cm Length: 5.5cm Width: 2cm
Robot Mode Height: 6.5cm Width: 2cm
Raise is a white and blue Bullet Train engine with a black panoramic cockpit window on the front, surrounded by a grey border. The nose is far less Aerodynamic than Leaf's, the side windows and doors have been remoulded, along with the rear bogeys and airdams. In other words, only the front bogeys (the robot arms) haven't been remoulded here. Raise's Autobot logo on his roof faces left, and the post at the back will connect to attach to Atlan, Desire or Windy.
The wheels are red, rather than the orange of the original (yes, this is a theme, with only San Diego not having red wheels). You don't see the wheels since the skirt of the train (the airdam and moulded bogeys) sits very low. The side windows are black, painted into recesses on the blue side stripes.
Transformation involves folding the rear over to form his boots and positioning his arms. The end result is a figure that's quite similar to both Leaf - Raise has blue arms, Leaf's are red - and the original Raise, which had an orange chest while both reissue Raise and Leaf have red torso and heads with silver faces (although Raise's eyes are unpainted).
The robot torso piece is identical to that of Leaf, in fact, although the white boots are different moulds, and the white hoods are different, which Raise's being more rounded and Leaf's more pointy. The red looks better than the orange of the original, and Raise's blue thighs and arms look better than Leaf's black thighs and grey arms. It's not a terribly interesting robot mode, but the colours make for a more attractive figure this time around.
CONVERTOR
Train Mode Height: 2cm Length: 5cm Width: 2cm
Robot Mode Height: 6cm Width: 2cm
Convertor is almost a straight colour swap compared to Night, but then electric freight locos aren't usually terribly colourful or pretty. Instead of blue we have metallic pine green, which looks _very_ cool - much, much, better than the red and white of the original Convertor. There's no resculpting here, but then I quite liked Night's mould so I don't mind. Convertor has yellow lights in front (none in back, although Night had them). The windows black, and stretch all around the sides and both ends. There are white lines down his sides, the undercarriage loses the paint that Night's had, making this a darker toy.
What's interesting about this loco is that if not for the need to have a hole for his knees at the back, he'd be the same at both ends. There's a vent grill on the top of the cabin towards the front, and a lump behind that, but otherwise the train mode might as well be a palindrome. There are red wheels on his underside which allow him to sort of roll, though you can't seem them in this mode (which is a good thing). He has a pole that folds out on the back, so he can attach to Atlan, Desire or Windy.
Transforming Convertor is as simple as folding the rear section over, standing him up and positioning the arms. Which leaves you with a green and blue robot with grey thighs and red wheels on the shoulders. Other than the red this looks quite nice, and works better than Night's colour scheme since there's no orange. The robot mode parts are more or less the same colours as the original Convertor's, although the hood, arms and boots are now green, not red. His chest and head are blue, with a gold square on his chest and a silver waist. The face is silver and the eyestrip gold, which is fantastic detail even it it is a little tricky to see.
This repaint drips with cool. The green plastic is great and while it's a radical departure from the original, the changes are all for the better. Convertor's mould is identical to that of Night, who is also a strong Micromaster.
DESIRE
Train Mode Height: 2.5cm Length: 5.5cm Width: 2cm
Robot Mode Height: 5.5cm Width: 2cm
A white bullet train based on Spark, but as with Raise, Desire's train mode has been extensively remoulded. There are blue stripes down the side below the windows, which are black. The cockpit windows are black with a grey frame around them, and there's a big Autobot symbol on the sloping nose which looks nice. The nose is the most obvious retooling here - Spark's comes to a point whereas Desire's slopes and tapes to a point at the bottom. Originally, Desire was the only Train Team member with an Autobot logo - since he forms the chest. The tech spec actually calls the Train Team, by the way. There's a big gap on top and a red bit (the head) visible in front of that. Kind of ruins the view from the top, but not as much as the orange head of the original would have.
Aside from the hole it's a good train. He has a hole that folds down from the back, he can combine with San Diego, Convertor or Raise. He rolls well, on little red wheels. You can see the front ones but the back ones are pretty well hidden.
Transforming Desire involves folding the back down, folding the head up and straightening him out. Unlike the others, this guy's robot mode is the top of the train, not the underside. Which explains the garbage on top of the train mode.
Even so, it's not an awesome robot mode to compensate. He's got the afore mentioned red head, with a silver face, a blue torso and black thighs, white lower legs and arms. The overall effect here is very similar to Spark - the black has been swapped for blue but the heads are identical and the white is... white. There's some extra silver paint on his waist, not that it makes a lot of difference. He doesn't have a hood, unlike his teammates. This is a decent robot mode, but it's not good enough to save Desire from his bad train mode, nor is it different enough from Spark's to make things interesting.
COMBINED MODE
Height: 17cm Width: 11cm
The connections are pretty standard - you attach all six components to the connecting pieces. Convertor is the left leg, Windy the right leg. Atlan is the right arm and Raise the left. Desire forms the chest and San Diego gets the dubious honour of forming the back. You could get away with leaving San Diego off, but then you'd have Fivetrain and San Diego alone in the corner. There is some transforming to be done to each toy, but it's more or less 6 trains hooked up with connecting pieces. None of them actually connect to each other!
There are some minor changes in how the toys fit together in the remould. The most obvious is a new connector at the right knee, since Windy has the flip up nose that Joe didn't have. The other is that San Diego sits flatter against his back than Diego does on SixLiner, thanks to the retooling on Desire. The retooling on Raise is inconsequential here. The head is totally redone, with bigger antennae that sweep out to the sides and a rounded helmet. I'm neutral on which head I like better - both SixTrain and SixLiner have nice heads - suffice it to say I'm glad they have different heads.
While this guy may have more connecting pieces than Devastator, he's a lot more stable than the quintessentially famous combiner. He's taller than Monstructor, too, although that's not really too difficult. The colour scheme is very unified here, the dark grey chestpiece and blue groin, feet, hands and gun work well with the blues and greys prominent in this set of Micromasters. The original actually had red extremities and a black groin, and was far less unified. The consistent theme here contrasts well with the varied theme of SixLiner, while the original was a mix and hence wasn't as convincing as a recolour. The light colours here are represent by the whites on the chest (Desire) and left arm (Raise) as well as the silver thighs.
He sports the Autobot symbol from Desire's nose on his chest, but the reissue also has two on it's knees thanks to Convertor & Windy. They're sideways, but they're visible. From the top you'll see two on the shoulders, as well.
A nice Gestalt for the size, although there's not much poseability. The shoulders can turn but you're likely to pop the arms off. Spindly, but otherwise SixTrain's a great little Gestalt, which I'm happy to say looks quite different to SixLiner.
VARIATIONS
As mentioned there's the original, which comes as a giftset, and has stickers. Then there's the reissue which has painted details including insignia in spades. There are all red versions in the chase series. TFU's Rail Racer is identical to reissue Sixtrain, in different packaging.
OVERALL
A nice Gestalt set, and a clear improvement over the original. The overall colour scheme is a lot better than I expected and has a different feel than SixLiner's, which was a pleasant surprise. The components feature three repaints, two retools and one new mould altogether. All six components are different to their originals, ranging from the almost-the-same Atlan to the vastly different Convertor and San Diego. The quality of the Micromasters ranges from the excellent San Diego and Convertor to the fairly poor Desire, but on average the components make good Micromasters. Recommended if you're a Gestalt or Micromaster fan - even if you have SixLiner - 8.5/10
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