Eat Your Heart Out, Farmall!

Nelson RainTrain Traveling Sprinkler 1865

There's a shelf out in our garage, and on that shelf is a pile of lawn sprinklers, and in that pile is a tractor. Yes, a tractor: bright yellow, with tricycle gear, white lugged wheels and a brass hose connector where the drawbar would be if it weren't just 8" high. Oh, and it looks like it's been crossed with a helicopter: there's a "rotor" sprouting out of the body. But it's not a tractor and it's not a helicopter; it's a lawn sprinkler (I did say it's only eight inches high...).

The Nelson Rain Train 1865 may look like a tractor but it's actually a versatile traveling sprinkler. You simply route a ⁵⁄₈ or ¹⁄₂ -inch hose across the area to be watered, set the sprinkler so the back wheels straddle the hose and the front wheel rides along it, and turn on the water. A yellow plastic ramp can be placed on the hose where you want to shut the sprinkler off. The RainTrain walks slowly along the hose until it reaches the shutoff ramp, whereupon it just plain stops: stops moving and stops sprinkling. Water pressure runs a set of gears that s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y turn the rear wheels to move the sprinkler. It's adjustable in multiple ways: there's a two-speed transmission (which can also be set in neutral), and the spinning spray arms can be adjusted to change the diameter of the spray.

The drive wheels have long cleats to provide traction in all kinds of grass. We used ours for years in the St. Augustine grass common in Texas, where every once in a while the wheels would get tangled in a runner, but only once or twice a season. The shutoff switch – a spring-loaded button on the bottom of the body – works surprisingly well, closing the valve securely and without leaks. The heavy tractor-shaped body is made of cast iron, with a powder-coat paint finish. I've seen versions of this sprinkler that are easily forty years old, and have no rust. It can be laid out on a pair of fifty-foot hoses (the tractor just walks across the hose coupling) and have no problems towing the hose behind it unless the grass is very high and the ground is wet. The adjustable arms can be dialed down to cover only a few feet, or spray a strip as much as twenty feet wide.

We've had ours for years, and never had a problem. Well, only the time someone ran the course through a patch of ivy and the wheels became tangled, or the time someone laid out the hose so that the sprinkler wrapped itself around a tree. Other than user error, it's been a trouble-free sprinkler that has lasted many times longer than most of our other designs. If yours is a large yard with a variety of shapes to water, this is an ideal sprinkler. Just hope the neighborhood toddler doesn't try to use it on his (or her) "farm"! Summary PLUS: versatile and dependable MINUS: occasional user error WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: Just one question: Why do they call it a train when it looks like a tractor? Versatile and tough: you should own one.

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