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Bachmann 94xx

OnTheBranchline

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Ian Hargrave

Ian Hargrave

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I am just wondering of the status of this model. It was announced quite a while ago and since then we haven't really heard anything and the price is still to be announced.

 

According to the latest edition of Collectors Club Bachmann Times,it is listed as a "Forthcoming Item"..that is to say it is at the back of the queue and yet to progress to the Drawing Office.Another way of clarifying the situation is to say that it is at stage 1 of a 5 stage process.

 

 Any further forecast is serendipity.A polite way of saying "anybody's guess" or asking "How long is a piece of string ?" ...or as Jose Carreras once famously sang in "West Side Story"......."Choo knows.."

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luke_stevens

luke_stevens

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According to the latest edition of Collectors Club Bachmann Times,it is listed as a "Forthcoming Item"..that is to say it is at the back of the queue and yet to progress to the Drawing Office.Another way of clarifying the situation is to say that it is at stage 1 of a 5 stage process.

 

 Any further forecast is serendipity.A polite way of saying "anybody's guess" or asking "How long is a piece of string ?" ...or as Jose Carreras once famously sang in "West Side Story"......."Choo knows.."

Also known as:

 

"We've done nothing about it, but we announced it so no-body else would announce it because we'd like to do it but there are lots of other things to do, though if anyone else does announce it we'll suddenly start work on it really fast!"

 

:)

 

Luke

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Legend

Legend

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Frankly if Hornby announced it at Warley this year ie November 2017 it would probably arrive earlier than the Bachmann one. Really they have lost all credibility. 90, V2 , 158.................

 

And as you say who knows the price when it arrives.

 

Maintaining the song motif , how about "until the twelfth of never and that's a long long time"

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tomparryharry

tomparryharry

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I'm given to understand the 94xx project is stalled due to an over-run budget. It appears the cost implications began when the 94xx project was pruned to make way for the office coffee machine. Fred, the office junior, was sent to Lidl to buy some toilet rolls, and we haven't seen him since.....

 

Of course, I could just have fallen victim to my over-fertile imagination...

 

Ian

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luke_stevens

luke_stevens

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I'll just leave this here....

 

https://www.Hornby.com/uk-en/news/the-engine-shed/a-researchers-tale/

 

 

:cry:

 

 

Jason

Oooh!

 

Interesting!

 

Clearly a 94XX! Could be a red herring. But I like the idea of announcing something at Warley and have it arrive just a few months later.

 

The article is Aug 15 and states "As I write this, I am several months into researching the new items for our 2017 range and I’m looking ahead to what we might consider modelling in 2018. ", but under the 94xx photo it states "Measuring up the locomotives and rolling stock - not all projects make it through"

 

Paul Isles says he joined in summer 14 so he'd have to be measuring up the 94xx after Bachmann had announced theirs...

 

Luke

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Thebigshot

Thebigshot

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I'm given to understand the 94xx project is stalled due to an over-run budget. It appears the cost implications began when the 94xx project was pruned to make way for the office coffee machine. Fred, the office junior, was sent to Lidl to buy some toilet rolls, and we haven't seen him since.....Of course, I could just have fallen victim to my over-fertile imagination...Ian

If Bachmann are needing financial help I'm sure they would be in touch with there investors unless they have no cash eather and if that's the case please tell them to get in contact I'm sure I can help out in some way

 

Thanks

Alan

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The Johnster

The Johnster

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Or it could be completely innocent.  If I were in his job and had spare time at the NRM, Didcot, or wherever, having finished what I'd come to do, I'd want to spend as much of it as I could measuring up everything I could get my hands on to my own standards and requirements in case I ever needed the reuslts in the future.  I imagine he has to make such information available to his employer, as it's been obtained on company time, but it is still a method of potentially saving time and effort at some future date.  And there is always the possibility that something catastrophic occurs to the real loco, so this is insurance as well.

 

I've given up on Baccy as far as the 94xx is concerned; I am definitely in the market for one, at (almost) any cost, but my locomotive purchasing program is not going to be affected by this model whose introduction on to the market is 'TBA' according to their website and has been for a very long time.  I think this is going to be a ghost for the forseeable future, and while I would hesitate to accuse Baccy of doing something as underhand as deliberately and mendaciously announcing a model they had no intention of producing simply to deny the opportunity to others, as I can't see what direct benefit that would be to them, they are clearly not in a rush to admit that the 94xx is a dead duck (duck, pannier, see what I did there, oh all right...).

 

I intend to have a 94xx at some time, and it looks very much to me as though it will be a Lima body moulding, warts and all, sitting on top of a kit chassis, which will deny the sale to Baccy; serves them right for messing us about.  I am sure I am not the only one in the market for this loco who will do something similar; I will probably not be using a Baccy 57xx/8750 chassis for it as several details are significantly different, notably the shape of the frames which have more in common with the 2251.  

 

But if Hornby, or Oxford, or Dapol, or Heljan announce one, or Hatton's or Kernow commission one and can tell me with any reasonable degree of accuracy when they're gonna get it in the shops, even if it's 2 or 3 or even more years away, I'll probably wait for it and buy it!  I don't mind if it takes a while to develop and produce a model, and I appreciate that it is no easy task for a manufacturer to do more than guesstimate how long this while will be, but I'd rather see a generous timeline for development, production, and distribution which can easily be shortened if things go well (nobody minds a train that turns up early) than an uncertain situation in which you don't really know if production is ever going to take place at all.  TBA in my mind means not available, and that's that.

 

'Not all projects make it through'; fair enough, but if you announce one simply to assess demand and then shelve it because there wasn't enough and then keep referring to it as TBA or similar in your catalogue, that doesn't make you any friends, and the way the trade is going to go over the next few years you're gonna need all the friends you can get!  I am learning to be very wary of catalogues that feature pictures of the prototype and not the model with no price announced.

 

At least the 4575 is rumoured to be somewhere in the offing, and a photo of the model exists on Baccy's website catalogue, along with a price.  I am fairly confident this will appear in my lifetime.

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tomparryharry

tomparryharry

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Or it could be completely innocent.  If I were in his job and had spare time at the NRM, Didcot, or wherever, having finished what I'd come to do, I'd want to spend as much of it as I could measuring up everything I could get my hands on to my own standards and requirements in case I ever needed the reuslts in the future.  I imagine he has to make such information available to his employer, as it's been obtained on company time, but it is still a method of potentially saving time and effort at some future date.  And there is always the possibility that something catastrophic occurs to the real loco, so this is insurance as well.

 

I've given up on Baccy as far as the 94xx is concerned; I am definitely in the market for one, at (almost) any cost, but my locomotive purchasing program is not going to be affected by this model whose introduction on to the market is 'TBA' according to their website and has been for a very long time.  I think this is going to be a ghost for the forseeable future, and while I would hesitate to accuse Baccy of doing something as underhand as deliberately and mendaciously announcing a model they had no intention of producing simply to deny the opportunity to others, as I can't see what direct benefit that would be to them, they are clearly not in a rush to admit that the 94xx is a dead duck (duck, pannier, see what I did there, oh all right...).

 

I intend to have a 94xx at some time, and it looks very much to me as though it will be a Lima body moulding, warts and all, sitting on top of a kit chassis, which will deny the sale to Baccy; serves them right for messing us about.  I am sure I am not the only one in the market for this loco who will do something similar; I will probably not be using a Baccy 57xx/8750 chassis for it as several details are significantly different, notably the shape of the frames which have more in common with the 2251.  

 

But if Hornby, or Oxford, or Dapol, or Heljan announce one, or Hatton's or Kernow commission one and can tell me with any reasonable degree of accuracy when they're gonna get it in the shops, even if it's 2 or 3 or even more years away, I'll probably wait for it and buy it!  I don't mind if it takes a while to develop and produce a model, and I appreciate that it is no easy task for a manufacturer to do more than guesstimate how long this while will be, but I'd rather see a generous timeline for development, production, and distribution which can easily be shortened if things go well (nobody minds a train that turns up early) than an uncertain situation in which you don't really know if production is ever going to take place at all.  TBA in my mind means not available, and that's that.

 

'Not all projects make it through'; fair enough, but if you announce one simply to assess demand and then shelve it because there wasn't enough and then keep referring to it as TBA or similar in your catalogue, that doesn't make you any friends, and the way the trade is going to go over the next few years you're gonna need all the friends you can get!  I am learning to be very wary of catalogues that feature pictures of the prototype and not the model with no price announced.

 

At least the 4575 is rumoured to be somewhere in the offing, and a photo of the model exists on Baccy's website catalogue, along with a price.  I am fairly confident this will appear in my lifetime.

Might I suggest that a Great Western tank locomotive is a long way away. It happened when Hornby announced the 42xx. They were pasted left, right & centre. It happened when DJM announced the 48xx. It seems that, as GW modellers, that all sorts come out of he shadows, and pour scorn upon the hapless producers. Sometimes, it's well deserved: Sometimes not. I would shy away if I was decided which Swindon based model to make. My Little Pony suddenly gains great appeal to the product managers.

 

Ian.

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great northern

great northern

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Frankly if Hornby announced it at Warley this year ie November 2017 it would probably arrive earlier than the Bachmann one. Really they have lost all credibility. 90, V2 , 158.................

 

And as you say who knows the price when it arrives.

 

Maintaining the song motif , how about "until the twelfth of never and that's a long long time"

Staying with the song motif, how about "cracked record"?

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The Stationmaster

The Stationmaster

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Also known as:

 

"We've done nothing about it, but we announced it so no-body else would announce it because we'd like to do it but there are lots of other things to do, though if anyone else does announce it we'll suddenly start work on it really fast!"

 

:)

 

Luke

 

Strange you should say that ;)   

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tomparryharry

tomparryharry

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I'm working on on too. As you've done it's better to match up the from axles with the splashers and have the rear stick our, so to speak.

 

Do you have any front / smoke box shots?

 

I really must finish mine.

 

Luke

 

I'm working on on too. As you've done it's better to match up the from axles with the splashers and have the rear stick our, so to speak.

 

Do you have any front / smoke box shots?

 

I really must finish mine.

 

Luke

There's a couple of shots of the front end. Sorry they're not very good. I must get about and finish it off. Hopefully you'll get an idea of where I was trying to go.

 

Ian

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The Johnster

The Johnster

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That looks quite a lot like a 94xx, Tom; I'll be more than happy if I can turn out something like that.  I'm guessing that you're hiding a motor protruding into the cab with the crew, a sensible compromise on this model where there is not much space available if you want to put it anywhere else, given that on this loco it is particularly vital to preserved daylight beneath the tanks and boiler, and that the cab is so small and difficult to see into anyway.  IIRC Limal help by moulding the sliding side sheets in the position shown.

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brushman47544

brushman47544

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Also known as:

 

"We've done nothing about it, but we announced it so no-body else would announce it because we'd like to do it but there are lots of other things to do, though if anyone else does announce it we'll suddenly start work on it really fast!"

 

:)

 

Luke

 

I'm sure it wasn't Bachmann's intention when announcing this and indeed the other long-awaited models that it would take so long in gestation, but despite the good intentions to allocate additional design staff in China, many models still seem to be stuck at an early stage in the design and development process. This cannot be doing Bachmann's reputation much good, but it does make you wonder if it isn't time for Bachmann to change its strategy for announcing new models and only do so once they have progressed to cutting metal, so it should at least appear in the following 12-18 months.

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