Nelson Rain Train 13,500 Square Feet Cast Iron Outdoor Lawn Traveling Water Sprinkler for Yard, and Garden, with Auto Shut Off, Yellow

Do you ever feel like your watering schedule controls your free time ? Well let me tell you this is a God send in taking back your time when it comes to watering. I should have done this years ago ! I purchased three of these as I have close to 1 acre of grass to water in a varied landscape. This has made watering fun again and it's an efficient way to take care of the job. You set up your course with a hose and set the ramp where you want it to stop and this cool little tractor takes care of the rest. I didn't want to spend a fortune on a in ground sprinkler system, and this is the next best thing. The watering radius is adjustable so you get the water where you need it and it's a great conversation piece. Sit back with a cool drink and enjoy watering your lawn again. This is a five star product and I don't write many reviews but this was well worth the purchase. These have been around for about 60 years and I can't believe I didn't try this option before. Would I recommend these sprinklers? Oh heck yeah ! I love these little watering machines ! Cheers...

I now own two of these.Let me tell you a little bit about my sprinkler journey over the last few years. My yard is fairly small. I figured it would be fairly easy to grow and maintain a lawn in such a small area. I had no idea how difficult it would be to water.After trying just about every sprinkler design on the market with less-than-satisfactory results, I was still hesitant to buy this because what I was expecting out of it was somewhat ridiculous for something so heavy duty.My backyard is the larger area, so I bought one for the backyard first. My backyard area to be watered is about 40x15.. It's not a huge area, but it does have a slight L to it, which means that it was tough to water. Not so for the Nelson Rain Train. It takes that corner like a pro, and it delivers water into all of the nooks and crannies better than any other sprinkler in existance.So I decided to try it in the front yard. Now let me explain how ridiculous this is. My front yard is about 8X20. It has walls on two sides that I don't like spraying excess water on due to the water stains it leaves behind, and that corner is a beast to get water to. Rain Train to the rescue! Seriously, in order to adequately water my front yard, this thing has to ravel about six feet. I actually let it run a bit more than that to make sure I get that corner good and wet. I still spray a lot of water on the walls, but it's down about a foot above ground level, so it doesn't get on any of the windows or fixtures.The major advantage of this sprinkler is that it offers the ultimate in adjustability. The moving circular spray provides the ultimate in consistency as well. That's a major problem with most sprinklers.It also seems very solid and sturdy in its construction. Yes, there are plastic parts on the motor, but it's protected form the sun by a pretty thick shell of brightly colored cast iron. It has a bit of heft to it as a result, but the weight is important because it helps the wheels gain traction.There are a few cautions with this sprinkler, though. For starters, you want to make sure that you have good vegetation on the ground that the sprinkler will be traversing. It's not good to have the sprinkler sitting and spinning in a single mud spot, as that could seriously flood part of your lawn. Also, make sure that if you use the shut off ramp, you follow a couple of important protocol. Make sure you anchor the ramp with the provided spike. If you don't, I find that the tractor just moves the ramp. Also, make sure that the ramp has a good foot and a half of perfectly straight hose on both sides. If the hose is curved leading into the ramp, I've found that it's pretty easy for the front wheel to jump the ramp, and now you have a runaway tractor. If you put a curve immediately after the ramp, the tractor might not be centered well enough to activate the shutoff valve.Also, be careful with water pressure if you decide to point the spray arms slightly downward to decrease distance. If you put a high water pressure into a spinning apparatus like that, you end up with something that falls just short of a pressure washer. You can scalp your lawn this way.Final assessment is that not only is this a solid buy. It is absolutely the best sprinkler money can buy. I was actually planning on buying a different brand for my second one to see if I could compare them, but when I saw that the prices were so close, I decided to go with the gold standard.I've also talked a friend into buying one. He has a fairly large yard for his dogs, and he has to go out and move his sprinkler three times to get the whole yard. There goes his morning. Now, he just sets it and forgets it...Though you will want to check on it periodically just in case. But if you carefully plan the route, which will become second nature after a while, I find that the possibility of the train derailing are quite low.

More than ten years ago, I purchased an Orbit Traveling Sprinkler for our acre of lawn. It has worked relatively well.The motor of a traveling sprinkler is its spinning arms, driven by garden hose water pressure. As the arms spin, they drive the rear axle and spiked wheels through a small transmission. The transmission is a simple set of gears, that allow for the selection of two forward speeds, or neutral for stationary use.The front wheel of a traveling sprinkler straddles the garden hose that feeds water to the spinning arms, guiding the sprinkler where it should go. I use two 100', 5/8" hoses that can reach all corners of my acre from my main yard water source. You can use more or less hose depending upon the size of your lawn. Generally, I lay the hose on the path I want the sprinkler to travel, and turn the end that is connected to the sprinkler back on itself, forming a loop of hose behind the sprinkler as it sits astride the hose. When the water is then turned on, the sprinkler travels back along the hose towards the water source. There is a small plastic ramp that comes with the sprinkler, that clamps on to the hose at the position you want to turn the sprinkler off. The ramp depresses a shut-off plunger valve on the underside of the sprinkler as it passes over. This is very handy in case you forget it is out there and running; because it will invent its own path if it runs out of hose to travel on.The Orbit sprinkler has worked dependably for longer than I had expected. But I think it might be better suited to smaller yards than my own. While most manufacturers boast that their sprinkler will travel 150' - 200' per set, the Orbit would struggle with those distances, even when traveling in a straight line. 75' - 100' of filled water hose is quite a load to be dragging through the grass. It would not negotiate even a broad 90° turn on the hose without over-turning if the trailing loop of hose was very long.I got in the habit of checking on the Orbit sprinkler often when it was running. It did not require much of an anomaly to cause the sprinkler to stall, dig a hole, or turn on its side and stop. It travels slower than I expected it to. Knowing all of this about it, I simply made it an hourly chore to see how it was doing. I also got in the habit of pulling the trailing hose loop out from behind it to form a longer path going forward, and to take the load off of it. This pretty much eliminated stalls and over-turning events. It seems to have been slowing down a little lately. If I put it into high gear it would sometimes stall, and I would find the sprinkler arms stopped, spewing streams of water into puddles. In low gear it would rarely stall. Because of all this I stopped using its shut-off ramp, because I knew I'd be out checking on it soon anyway.Concerned about the Orbit Traveling Sprinkler, I began looking into other solutions. While doing so, I found a Nelson 'Raintrain' traveling sprinkler on Amazon (free shipping) for less than I remember paying for the Orbit. I have used it for a couple of days now, and am very impressed with it.Out of the box I noticed the Raintrain is much heavier and sits higher off the lawn. Its hose connection is accessible, where the Orbit is almost impossible to get a hand on for connecting the hose. When I connected it up and turned on the water, the first thing I noticed was the sprinkler arms were spinning much faster than those on the orbit, even in high gear. I went out to check on it after the first hour, and it had traveled further than the Orbit would have in three hours. Of course, faster travel may mean less water delivered to the lawn. I set it up on a 150' straight run and it performed without a hitch, moving just as quickly towing a 75' loop of hose behind as it did with just 3' of loop. I then set it up on a 25' straight, followed by a 100' sweeping turn, something I knew from experience the Orbit could not do, and it again performed without a hitch.Last evening I disassembled the Orbit transmission to see if there was something causing it not to perform well. Everything was in good shape; but I did find a slight nozzle blockage in one of the sprinkler arms, which would cause a slowdown. It was not sufficient enough a blockage to be apparent to the eye while it was running, as it seemed there was plenty of water coming through both nozzles. I am reassembling it now to see if it runs a little stronger.I am posting this for anyone who might not know of these traveling sprinklers, or for anyone considering purchasing one. The Orbit Traveling Sprinkler is a good unit, but I think it might be better suited to smaller yards, 1/4 acre or less) where not many path turns are required. It's a little lighter and easier for mama or one of the children to pack around. The Nelson Raintrain is a performer, better suited to larger yards, and can handle curves better. They are both good units for their design. My confidence is building in the Raintrain, so that I am not as obliged to make hourly checks any longer.