Bachmann Press Information - British Railway Announcements - Summer 2024

[Newportnobby]

In the announcement at 20.34 in they show all the 14T and 20T tanks as being Era 4 (1948-1956).
These would have lasted into and past transition era but the info on the Gulf blue livery doesn't tie up with your 'Gulf blue wagons were obtained by Gulf in 1960 so would be 1960 onwards' as 1960 is Era 5

(All Era references are quoted from Bachmann info)

[Ch4lkst3r]

In the announcement at 20.34 in they show all the 14T and 20T tanks as being Era 4 (1948-1956).
These would have lasted into and past transition era but the info on the Gulf blue livery doesn't tie up with your 'Gulf blue wagons were obtained by Gulf in 1960 so would be 1960 onwards' as 1960 is Era 5

(All Era references are quoted from Bachmann info)

I'm always unsure on the eras for rolling stock as things didn't get repainted overnight and their era specifications sometimes seem slightly dubious to me.  Here's the info on the Gulf wagons on the TMC website albeit for the 00 version (TMC Gulf Wagon)

[Newportnobby]

My post was not a criticism of your source, more an effort to 'put some flesh on the bones' as it were. BachFar have slapped an 'Era 4' on the whole lot, but era numbers can be open for discussion as who is to say the BachFar ones are a 'standard'?

[nabber]

Benzene and FINA not sure.  Any ideas?

That FINA logo seems to be 1954-1960 - so should be ok for early 1960s, assuming they didn't all get repainted overnight.

Neil

[Skyline2uk]

Will most likely snag myself at least one of the RF Brakes, thus adding even more choice / variety to the nuclear flask rakes I can run.

However I am still disappointed by the lack of Swallow livery class 47.

The last time this appeared under the Farish name it was still being made in Poole. It's a gap that they tried to fill with a Virgin one (you can easily justify running that with a complete Swallow MK2 rake), but they were so common around the county on Cross-Country duty...

Oh well patience is a virtue

Skyline2uk

[Ch4lkst3r]

My post was not a criticism of your source, more an effort to 'put some flesh on the bones' as it were. BachFar have slapped an 'Era 4' on the whole lot, but era numbers can be open for discussion as who is to say the BachFar ones are a 'standard'?

Didn't take it as a criticism. Was just adding where I'd got the info from

[NeMo]

Have been meaning to do a LNWR 350 for a while, and at £400 I'll keep thinking about doing one I've already got

That was exactly my reaction. I think I paid about £100 for my Class 350, and a lovely train it is too.

But £400 for essentially the same model? At first, I was like, "Okay, a bit steep, but presumably it's been rejigged to have a single DCC decoder, electrical connections between the carriages, and a built-in loudspeaker". But nope. It's the same model as far as I can tell. Needs three DCC decoders (one for the power car, and two for the headlights in each cab). Livery application looks lovely, in all fairness, but some of the weaker aspects of the first release (like the crudely-modelled high voltage cables between the cars) aren't any different.

While I am really pleased to see a LNWR-liveried 'Desiro', an RRP of £400 doesn't seem (to me) priced to sell.

I guess time will tell!

Cheers,

NeMo

[Roy L S]

Have been meaning to do a LNWR 350 for a while, and at £400 I'll keep thinking about doing one I've already got

That was exactly my reaction. I think I paid about £100 for my Class 350, and a lovely train it is too.

But £400 for essentially the same model? At first, I was like, "Okay, a bit steep, but presumably it's been rejigged to have a single DCC decoder, electrical connections between the carriages, and a built-in loudspeaker". But nope. It's the same model as far as I can tell. Needs three DCC decoders (one for the power car, and two for the headlights in each cab). Livery application looks lovely, in all fairness, but some of the weaker aspects of the first release (like the crudely-modelled high voltage cables between the cars) aren't any different.

While I am really pleased to see a LNWR-liveried 'Desiro', an RRP of £400 doesn't seem (to me) priced to sell.

I guess time will tell!

Cheers,

NeMo

Rails have them priced at £330, but given your comments above that still looks a fair amount of bunce for a model that hasn't been upgraded. I guess it just depends on how much people want those particular variants/liveries.

Personally I do struggle with the commercial logic for some of the releases we see and I seem to recall that not so many years ago we were seeing the original run Desiros in the Bargain bin for even less than £100.

Conversely I struggle to understand the lack of even a single new tool steam loco from Farish since the 8F was announced over 7 years ago. Even appreciating that as time marches on there is a wider range of eras to cover, nonetheless there are a good number of steam locos that would be immensely popular. For starters the most recent OO releases include the 94xx and V2 both of which would go down well (the 94xx was an ever present in the Farish range from 1970 until the mid to late "noughties").

Yes, we are seeing some very nicely executed Next18/sound upgrades from amongst the later coreless motor loco-drive steam models which are very welcome and appear to have gone down well, plus the LMS "Twins" show recognition of the popularity of the steam/diesel transition era, but the lack of new steam from Bachmann remains very perplexing, not least because we have seen new steam models from Sonic, EFE and still have the 43xx and Battle of Britain to come from Dapol which I believe are in or close to tooling  .

Roy

[njee20]

That's obviously quite the leap. One presumes they think they can't make adequate margin on steam locos (or that there aren't any 'obvious' ones to go at), I'm sure they're not doing it to spite the market.

It does appear, from the outside at least, that some of their decisions are a little odd. They announced the TPE and SWT 350/450s about 6 years ago, and neither has yet been released, despite being just a re-livery (they tenuously call the 450 a new tooling because they need to fill the holes left by the pantograph, not the well, but the actual 1mm screw holes). During that time both liveries have become obsolete, so I guess adding SWR brings them up to date, but I do question how short their memory is given the propensity for discounting the original run in the far more widespread LM livery, and the lack of other modern 3rd rail EMUs. There is little nothing RTR to go with an SWR 350 after all. They've not done a 159 yet, which is the only obvious bed fellow.

Still, we're getting new models, and that's great. Just need some DB 90s please.

[PennineWagons]

They could always do a re-run of their existing V2! It's a decent-looking model despite the solid wheels and boiler skirt. I love my LNER apple-green one. The cost of the tooling must have been long written-off, so Farish could offer it for an attractive price. There'd be lots of outrage about it not being up to modern standards, but I bet it would sell in reasonable numbers. Come on Bachmann, you know you want to.
PW

[njee20]

Offering old tooled models at 'attractive prices' doesn't seem to be their MO (unlike Dapol). Farish effectively homogenise the cost of items, so a steam loco is £150 or whatever. Hence you end up with dinosaurs like the 170 being the same as a brand new 158.

[Roy L S]

That's obviously quite the leap. One presumes they think they can't make adequate margin on steam locos (or that there aren't any 'obvious' ones to go at), I'm sure they're not doing it to spite the market.

It does appear, from the outside at least, that some of their decisions are a little odd. They announced the TPE and SWT 350/450s about 6 years ago, and neither has yet been released, despite being just a re-livery (they tenuously call the 450 a new tooling because they need to fill the holes left by the pantograph, not the well, but the actual 1mm screw holes). During that time both liveries have become obsolete, so I guess adding SWR brings them up to date, but I do question how short their memory is given the propensity for discounting the original run in the far more widespread LM livery, and the lack of other modern 3rd rail EMUs. There is little nothing RTR to go with an SWR 350 after all. They've not done a 159 yet, which is the only obvious bed fellow.

Still, we're getting new models, and that's great. Just need some DB 90s please.

I wasn't suggesting that the lack of new tool steam was designed to somehow to "spite the market", more that it is perplexing when other manufacturers are tooling/producing and selling such models so there clearly is a viable market for them. Personally, I am wondering if we may not see anything new until all viable steam locos with the newer coreless motor type chassis have gone through the sound/next18 upgrade, which probably means the WD Austerity and Duchess still to do (not sure about the un-rebuilt Merchant Navy, that seemed a poor choice from the get go and got heavily discounted). However Bachmann are very tight lipped on the subject and those who model OO are starting to ask similar questions.

I absolutely agree with your other point, there have been some very odd choices product wise (to us as end users anyway).

Roy

[Carmont]

In the announcement at 20.34 in they show all the 14T and 20T tanks as being Era 4 (1948-1956).
These would have lasted into and past transition era but the info on the Gulf blue livery doesn't tie up with your 'Gulf blue wagons were obtained by Gulf in 1960 so would be 1960 onwards' as 1960 is Era 5

(All Era references are quoted from Bachmann info)

Further, I have an image in Touret's tomb, that shows the Benzine liveried example is a 1960 repaint, so again Era 5.

[Roy L S]

They could always do a re-run of their existing V2! It's a decent-looking model despite the solid wheels and boiler skirt. I love my LNER apple-green one. The cost of the tooling must have been long written-off, so Farish could offer it for an attractive price. There'd be lots of outrage about it not being up to modern standards, but I bet it would sell in reasonable numbers. Come on Bachmann, you know you want to.
PW

I don't think the existing V2 will ever see the light of day again, it wasn't all that well received back in 2006 as it was just too compromised in design (including the horrible skirt) and on top of that it is now much too far away from modern standards that are now expected. There was only ever one production run of three livery variants, so 3000 locos total (if Bachmann's usual batch size is assumed) and I doubt it did very well financially for Bachmann if it even covered it's costs. It is interesting to note (and perhaps reinforces the point) that Bachmann actually tooled for other variants including outside steam pipes, but they were never produced.

The other point is that the loco is not DCC ready (I got round this by removing the motor/gears and attaching a B1 tender drive which is a direct fit and also more powerful).

Even were it to be produced from the existing tooling I wouldn't expect the price point to be significantly less than the most up to date models, it just isn't really Bachmann's way, and my thinking is substantiated by the fact that there is very little difference in RRP between the newer loco-drive Next 18/sound Standard 5MT and the older 6 pin tender-driven "Black Five".

No, I am confident that the only way we'll ever see a RTR V2 now would be if a new tool model were released.

Roy

[Newportnobby]

The 3 steamers crying out for re-tooling are the V2, Crab and 94xx and I'd take one of each for sure. I have the black V2 from the set but the front bogie seems to have a mind of its own and the motor growls a lot. In fact, I do ask visitors "Have you seen my Growler?"