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Bachmann to produce S Stock for London Transport Museum


Andy Y
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It's an LT Museum product so it's their call and they must feel sufficiently confident to invest in it based on the performance of previous models. It's not just for Underground modellers anyway.

 

Touche

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I travelled on these units on my way to RailEx at Stoke Mandeville this year. They are quite nice both inside and out. I too have concerns for the limited geographical appeal, but bearing in mind the limited appeal of just about every prototype locomotive that's been made so far, and even the limited appeal of some coaching stock, then we really shouldn't be surprised these are being comissioned.

 

Would I buy one? I certainly have no need of one, even if I had the money, so probably not. I also have a ship* on my shoulder about London so don't really want reminders of it for as much as the rest of my life as I can manage.

 

* not chip - chips aren't big enough...

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Development obviously began some time ago. Do we have to be privvy to every new development, right from the very second it's a glimmer of an idea? I quite like the fact that something's kept secret, then announced not too far from actual delivery. 

As TfL are protective of their intellectual property, there was little or no chance of duplication of this model during its gestation, so no need to forestall rivals with an early announcement.

 

The Nim.

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I also have a ship* on my shoulder about London so don't really want reminders of it for as much as the rest of my life as I can manage.

 

* not chip - chips aren't big enough...

 

If it's that bad, I normally say a McCains Factory on my shoulder :jester:

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An interesting development.  Not a Bachmann initiative but a TfL Museum one.  Most visitors to London will by now have encountered S-stock trains on the Metropolitan, Circle, Hammersmith & City and District Lines although D-stock still forms most trains on the latter.

 

It's new and will be around for some time to come therefore there should be some longevity in the appeal of this model.  I would have perhaps thought an A-stock unit, given their popularity and long life, might have also sold well given their very recent departure but that's not my decision to make.

 

Internally if it represents an S8 Metropolitan Line unit then some of the seats should be transverse meaning so also should some be in the single cars.  Those are then unrepresentative of the S7 sets used on all other lines where all seats are longitudinal.

 

Also of interest is the price.  Listed at £280 for a motorised four-car unit and bearing in mind the relatively high price the TfL Museum often charges for its items implies - rightly or wrongly - that a 4-car EMU can still be produced for a retail price below £300 as a mainstream catalogue item or as a commission.  I can think of a few other contenders which may also attract respectable sales at that sort of price.

 

I have to say it's very doubtful whether the S-stock would interest me.  It's too recent and I have nowhere to put an 8-car unit of large-size Underground rolling stock.  I could short-form a set but they are in reality fixed-formation 8-car units not a pair of fours coupled.

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I'm just wondering how they can supposedly knock this out in four months announcement to delivery instead of the usual four years.....

Presumably because they have been working on it for some time? As the presence of pre-production models in the launch video would indicate?

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Too expensive for me at £280 (for just a 4 car version) + DCC Decoder...  :resent:

When ehattons do the Class 350 for £99 I see it unreasonable to make it £280!!!

 

List price is £189.95 if you want to make a fair comparison.  Bear in mind also that the cost per unit is usually much lower for a mainstream item which may be able to recover its costs over sales of several thousand / livery and class variants over time.  That isn't usually true for commissions such as this where the project sales might only run to a few hundred and - in this case - there is only one livery option and the only variation is of running numbers and internal seat configurations.

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Surprised that you needed to "bump" this.

 

Hope this is successful and encourages LT Museum to do models of older stock.

The post was written yesterday, but hidden. When made public, it was bumped to get it to the top of most recent posts even though it was 19 hours old.

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Too expensive for me at £280 (for just a 4 car version) + DCC Decoder...  :resent:

When ehattons do the Class 350 for £99 I see it unreasonable to make it £280!!!

 

An interesting case study in micro economics.

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Hello all,

 

I think this is a superb initiative and what I particularly like about it is that the launch was accompanied by images (and video) of the actual models, with a clearly realistic and achievable delivery date in sight.

 

For this reason I applaud those who knew but kept quiet and didn't "spoil the surprise..!"

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

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Fantastic announcement, for me this has really put an excitement into the hobby. What I find particularly refreshing is that it is only announced near release. Mike Walton and his team have done brilliantly to see the vision to deliver this model. I only hope it means we might also get the LTM GBRf Class 66 twin pack.

 

I must be the only one commenting here who pre-ordered instantly. Though how do we know whether we are one of the lucky first 250 to pre-order as I would love the certificate. I ordered at 10:10 as it took me a few moments to fish out the AMEX? Edit. LTM email you to say. Brilliant. Thank you!

 

Also considering we have been told to expect four car EMUs to cost over £400 I am chuffed with the price!

 

Thank you to Bachmann and the London Transport Museum for making this amazing commission, its made my weekend.

 

Now to buy myself some Class 20s and barrier wagons!

Edited by 159220
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.

 

Again, good luck to Bachmann  and LT Museum.

 

I am interested in the " advanced low-line drive system  "

 

It is hard to judge how high the floor of the units are, but from what little we can see it does seem an advance on the intrusive motor bogied.   I wonder/worry why it needs two motor vehicles for an 8-coach train, is the low-line drive RELATIVELY low-powered due to space restrictions ??????

 

Hopefully we will see the system used on other EMUs,  e.g. 4-CORs.   (After which I suppose we could see some DMUs.)

 

I can imagine going into the LT Museum in 15 years time and finding versions of this on sale.

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It is hard to judge how high the floor of the units are, but from what little we can see it does seem an advance on the intrusive motor bogied.   I wonder/worry why it needs two motor vehicles for an 8-coach train, is the low-line drive RELATIVELY low-powered due to space restrictions ??????

It's probably down to the amount of weight that can be put over the driven wheels rather than the power of the motor itself. The current Bachmann power bogie/unit is a brute because of all the surrounding metal, but that'll mostly not be there on this new arrangement.

 

Hopefully we will see the system used on other EMUs,  e.g. 4-CORs.   (After which I suppose we could see some DMUs.)

Here's hoping :)

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It always amazes me how tall a lot of conventional motor bogies are.

(However In many cases it does not matter!)

 

Compare them to something like a Black Beetle which uses a common, not particularly small, off the shelf motor housed in the bogie.

 

IMHO A low floor bogie has been possible for some time. It just needed one of the manufacturers to take the plunge.

 

Bachmann have done just that, hopefully more will follow.

 

Keith

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Even though I struggle to find any justification to buy one this is an excellent announcement and long overdue.  I've always found it baffling that there hasn't been a model of a sub surface LT unit before now given they spend as much of their time outside as underground and run alongside and inter-work with BR/Network Rail routes.  With millions of people living in and around Greater London, many millions more working and visiting, this model is about as non-niche as it is possible to get, certainly compared to some of the models Bachmann have produced before such as the L&Y radial and Blue Pullman, neither of which can be said to have had the day to day impact on people that the Underground has had.  There's a market out there even at the price which I think is rather good.  It's not aimed at the general souvenir market but LTM has a good track record of selling quite expensive models and products to collectors and clearly know their market and customers far better than anyone here will ever do.  They clearly know these models will sell and make them a nice bit of bunce to support their activities.

 

So, niche?  Not really.  Brave?  Not at all, it's an LTM commission and believe me they could sell refrigerators to the Inuit by decorating them in Routemaster moquette.  Useful to me?  Not on your Nellie.  Positive development?  Absolutely.

 

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Guest spet0114

This looks like it will be an excellent model - congrats to both Bachmann and LT Museum for bringing it to market.

 

Not one that I'll personally be going for (much to my wallet's relief), but my fingers are very tightly crossed that it does well and is followed by some '38 stock.

 

It'll be interesting to see if this model of a distinctly modern prototype has the same appeal to the 'rule one' community (of which I consider myself firmly a member) as some of the recent steam locos.

 

Cheers

Adrian

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