Bachmann Europe to bring Thomas to the UK & Ireland

[SomethingTrainLover]

21 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

I'm assuming you're trolling, but here goes:

 

"Such excitement" - less than a page after 24 hours. Considering the number of posts you've made, you must have seen a proper exciting thread by now. Anything less than 5 pages of comments in a day doesn't constitute excitement. 

 

"What does this have to do with the model railway hobby?" - Well, they ARE model railway items. Wheels, flanges, motors and everything. If you don't think they are model railway, what are they? 

 

I fancy getting hold of a Bill or Ben to de-Thomas it. The 009 range will be useful too. Narrow Planet does a nice kit for Dolgoch for a start.

 

Indeed, converted my Rheneas, though it didn’t become Dolgoch ;). And when I began to get out of Thomas, got more into RWS, which involves actually modeling realistic prototypes if you get my meaning, converted two of my Bill and Bens. They make lovely freelance Industrial 0-4-0s.

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

I'm assuming you're trolling, but here goes:

 

"Such excitement" - less than a page after 24 hours. Considering the number of posts you've made, you must have seen a proper exciting thread by now. Anything less than 5 pages of comments in a day doesn't constitute excitement. 

 

"What does this have to do with the model railway hobby?" - Well, they ARE model railway items. Wheels, flanges, motors and everything. If you don't think they are model railway, what are they? 

 

I fancy getting hold of a Bill or Ben to de-Thomas it. The 009 range will be useful too. Narrow Planet does a nice kit for Dolgoch for a start.

 

You're getting the hang of this modding Phil, this is much more in the style of @AY Mod

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

All I can say about the Bachmann "Thomas" himself is that the front buffer height would have been considered awkward even by Triang, and it doesn't have a front coupling to enable it to run tender first as a Tank loco should!

 

Faithful to the prototype, if you care to look at Dalby's illustrations.

 

The "not Thomas" Junior engine had couplings fore and aft, of the usual tension lock variety. As far as I'm aware, the Bachmann Thomas and Friends range in the US has tension lock couplings, though that's not the usual US HO coupling.

[adb968008]

Everyone does the hobby in different ways.

I can see the attraction of collecting Thomas, though its not my taste (i have a Thomas and Percy for my little one, though shes more interested in the real stuff).

 

I wonder though, if Bachmann will do the orange 9f in the Thomas range, I couldnt believe it was selling at £600+ on ebay !.. thats serious collecting, even on the Brass collectors scale, not sure how many kids actually get to play with that !

Edited April 19, 2019 by adb968008

[Edwardian]

This is good news.  In common with the "Junior" range, these Bachmann locomotives are lovely runners.  They are great RTR bodge-fodder in both OO and oo9. 

[Coach bogie]

It had to happen one day. My son has had a large range of the US Bachmann stuff for years. As my wife travelled to the US several times a year through work, A new Thomas item was picked up each time. With exchange rates, they were very cheap for some time, compared to UK Hornby range. They are have more fun factor, but are not particularly robust for young children. For instance there have been three Percy's bought over as it broke very easily.

 

Here is my son playing with his Thomas trains. Just to show how old this range is, he is 6Ft 2 now and 17 years of age!!!!!

 

At the back of the second shot you can see a train of Thomas Emily 6 wheel coaches which my Dad used behind his Stirling singles. One to consider for all those with Locomotion Stirlings.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2019 by Coach bogie
Image fault

[adb968008]

13 hours ago, Coach bogie said:

It had to happen one day. My son has had a large range of the US Bachmann stuff for years. As my wife travelled to the US several times a year through work, A new Thomas item was picked up each time. With exchange rates, they were very cheap for some time, compared to UK Hornby range. They are have more fun factor, but are not particularly robust for young children. For instance there have been three Percy's bought over as it broke very easily.

 

Here is my son playing with his Thomas trains. Just to show how old this range is, he is 6Ft 2 now and 17 years of age!!!!!

 

At the back of the second shot you can see a train of Thomas Emily 6 wheel coaches which my Dad used behind his Stirling singles. One to consider for all those with Locomotion Stirlings.

 

Mike Wiltshire

 

 

 

I’m strangely drawn to your top shelf... is that a Gas Turbine 18000 ?

Edited April 20, 2019 by adb968008

[Coach bogie]

It is the Metrovic 18100 from a Silver Fox resin body with much added detail to the bogies and underframe, though I do have an 18000 from resin body produced by an outfit in Lincolnshire. I do not remember their name, but it was made to accept clip in ex Lima Western bogies which where the correct wheel base. I bought this over the Silver Fox, which stretched the bogies to suit a Bachmann class 37 power drive.

 

Mike Wiltshire

[Coryton]

16 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Faithful to the prototype, if you care to look at Dalby's illustrations.

 

Indeed...but it does limit the play factor a bit. It would be nice for Thomas to be able to run round Annie and Clarabel at the end of a branch line and be able to pull them back.

[Skinnylinny]

I've modified my Bachmann Thomas with a bent-wire-loop coupling at the front, meaning he can now run around Annie and Clarabel. This makes him very popular with younger viewers at exhibitions. From memory, the bottom of his bufferbeam is about the height of the top of the bar of a tension lock, although I might have had to bend it up by half-a-mil or so.

[Compound2632]

I had mis-remembered - the Junior Not Thomas was without front coupling; I simply supergled one under the buffer-beam:

 

 

It's a bit on the low side - not as much as 1 mm though, so works adequately. (Hook is there, just dangling down.) It wouldn't take much effort to make a notch in the buffer beam and glue the coupling on behind. The rear coupling is, I think, the one he came with. Thomas needs to have a front coupling, otherwise Gordon can't drag him off with the express.

 

For a finescale Thomas (even P4?) one would want to extend the frames all the way at either end, adding guard irons, brakes and sanding gear. I think Sodor must be a vacuum district as I've never seen any sign of a Westinghouse pump. I made the face by taking a cast of the face of a wooden Thomas, using that as a mold for a DAS copy.

 

I've got a Percyfied Junior Not Percy - his problem is that he's out of gauge over the cab footsteps (41 mm) and possibly the cylinders (36 mm):

 

 

The steps could be cut off and repositioned - a job I never got round to. I don't think that's the original front coupling but there doesn't seem to be room for the Mainline-style one with its spring pocket, I'm afraid I can't remember what I did there.

 

Here they both are, right way up and nose-to-nose:

 

 

... seriously emphasising the need for some filling-in of gaps downstairs. The red lining was from a Fox sheet, I think, though the boiler bands on Thomas were done freehand - the boiler bands aren't of very prototypical shape. Numbers are 18" late Midland / early LMS Pressfix from HMRS.

 

They're both sweet runners though Thomas sees more use, owing to Percy's obesity.

 

Edit: I just noticed the crack in Percy's cab - on investigation, I was reminded that the black blanking "wall" is part of the roof molding. The cab space isn't taken up by the motor, so with repositioning of the suppressor circuit, there's scope for a fully-detailed cab interior:

 

 

Thomas, on the other hand, has the cab cut-out blanking molded solid with the cab-side, so would require a bit more work, also part of the chassis block sticks into the cab but only at a low level:

 

 

Now that these models are going to be more readily available again, I look forward to the Brassmasters conversion and detailing kits! I've got the original "Junior" smokebox doors somewhere...

 

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2019 by Compound2632
Cab roof and interiors

[dibber25]

Fascinating how 'at home' Mavis looks on the Wisbech & Upwell......

[drt7uk]

On 18/04/2019 at 13:52, HonestTom said:

This is fantastic news - I'd been hoping they'd do this. Obviously the 009 stuff will be a huge seller, and (puts tinfoil hat on) I have a theory that the reason they're producing the comparatively unpopular character Rusty is because they know it's a prototype that will appeal to non-Thomas modellers. However, I think Henrietta and the Red Coaches will have a lot of appeal for light railway and pre-grouping modellers as well. I can also see Percy selling well by reason of that rather neat 0-4-0 chassis.

Agree! Have just this weekend made a J70 tram (i.e. Toby) so the Henrietta coach will be great to have.

[Jeff Smith]

As a matter of history I wonder where this range was originally, and currently, designed?  Considering it is probably closer to 4mm than 3.5mm and has tension lock couplings.  It is incompatible with knuckle couplings so cannot really mix with normal HO (US) but is sold here as HO.......

[Compound2632]

15 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

As a matter of history I wonder where this range was originally, and currently, designed?  Considering it is probably closer to 4mm than 3.5mm and has tension lock couplings.  It is incompatible with knuckle couplings so cannot really mix with normal HO (US) but is sold here as HO.......

 

Some of the rolling stock is repurposed ex-Mainline and similar - e.g. "Gordon's Coaches" which are the LMS Period 1 57 ft corridor composite and brake third - at $62 somewhat overpriced as second-hand examples of the originals can be had for £10 - £12!

['CHARD]

43 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Some of the rolling stock is repurposed ex-Mainline and similar - e.g. "Gordon's Coaches" which are the LMS Period 1 57 ft corridor composite and brake third - at $62 somewhat overpriced as second-hand examples of the originals can be had for £10 - £12!

 

Sounds like a great opportunity for modelling!  Don't think I've seen a thread on here where TTTE stock is wrangled from swapmeet donors, but I'd be delighted to be proved wrong!

[SomethingTrainLover]

Mmm, quite a running joke how the original release express coaches were so overpriced. Most were trying to sell them for over a hundred bucks, absolutely ridiculous. Even the brand new vrelease this year, same tooling but updated paint, are a bit overpriced. Most I’ve seen from retailers are about $42-45, which can get you a proper, modern Maunsell coach. 

1 hour ago, Jeff Smith said:

As a matter of history I wonder where this range was originally, and currently, designed?  Considering it is probably closer to 4mm than 3.5mm and has tension lock couplings.  It is incompatible with knuckle couplings so cannot really mix with normal HO (US) but is sold here as HO.......

And yeah, it is 4mm. No idea why Bachmann US decided to make it OO, figured that they thought Hornby would eventually give up the license soon, which obviously they did, and/or the fact they planned to reuse older Mainline and later some older Branchline toolings. 

[BernardTPM]

Commercial British outline H0 doesn't have a particularly glorious history. Even when height and length are right, width is nearly always wrong, even on diesel locos, let alone steam outline. Lima came pretty close and most of their rolling stock is correct (if basic by modern stanards), but their Class 33 was wider than the coaches (slightly narrower than the coaches in real life) while their 4F was almost 00 width, making it look distinctly odd, perhaps a bit like Irish 5' 3" outline. Fleischmann's coaches were slightly widened to match the slightly wide Warship (Marklin/Hamo had done a Warship before that definitely fitted the 0/H0 'scale', depending on which direction you measured). The Joueff/Playcraft range was all noticeably too wide. The little North British diesel shunter body is for all intents and purposes 00, though the chassis is entirely wrong, like Triang's 'Dock Shunter'. Rivarossi's Royal Scot stock looked good but fluffed the issue by using 1:80 scale (as British Trix did in the '50s & '60s).

Obviously Bachmann didn't feel it would be worth facing up to the challenge of producing accurate (if fictional) British Outline H0, especially when they had access to the old Mainline tooling.

[Jeff Smith]

2 hours ago, SomethingTrainLover said:

Mmm, quite a running joke how the original release express coaches were so overpriced. Most were trying to sell them for over a hundred bucks, absolutely ridiculous. Even the brand new vrelease this year, same tooling but updated paint, are a bit overpriced. Most I’ve seen from retailers are about $42-45, which can get you a proper, modern Maunsell coach. 

And yeah, it is 4mm. No idea why Bachmann US decided to make it OO, figured that they thought Hornby would eventually give up the license soon, which obviously they did, and/or the fact they planned to reuse older Mainline and later some older Branchline toolings. 

A quick bit of research of Bachmann on Wikipedia suggests that Kader probably does the design and can call on both it's US HO and British OO designs in China.  Thomas being British, and already owning the old Palitoy/Mainline tooling probably made OO the obvious choice but labelled as HO for familiarity in the US......

[SomethingTrainLover]

11 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

A quick bit of research of Bachmann on Wikipedia suggests that Kader probably does the design and can call on both it's US HO and British OO designs in China.  Thomas being British, and already owning the old Palitoy/Mainline tooling probably made OO the obvious choice but labelled as HO for familiarity in the US......

Well yes, that last part is well known ;P. And like i said earlier, there were hints to this for years, which is how i found out about OO scale and started getting into it and British modeling, it was cause I noticed it said HO/OO gauge on the packaging and I got curious.

[Jeff Smith]

You may already know that there was a US OO 1/76th scale but running on 19mm track......still included in NMRA tables!

[LNWR18901910]

On 18/04/2019 at 11:05, AY Mod said:

Bachmann Europe Plc Licensed for Fun with New Thomas & Friends™ Range

 

 

On 17th April 2019, Bachmann Industries, Inc. announced that Bachmann Trains USA and Bachmann Europe Plc have expanded their licensing agreement with Mattel through which Bachmann has been granted rights to distribute OO/HO scale Thomas & Friends™ products in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

 

Bachmann Europe will be launching a range of OO gauge Thomas & Friends™ models in 2020 and work is currently underway to ensure that the models selected for the initial launch conform to European standards for toy safety. The models will be packaged for the UK market and once produced, will be available through Bachmann Europe stockists.

 

The initial range will include train sets, locomotives, rolling stock and accessories and will be formally announced at the London and Nuremberg Toy Fairs in 2020 – we look forward to presenting these exciting new products to our customers at these events.

 

About Thomas & Friends™

Thomas the Tank Engine™ was created over 70 years ago by a British clergyman, the Rev W Awdry, as a storybook for his son. That story quickly grew to become the award-winning global brand franchise it is today, enjoyed by families in more than 150 territories and in over 40 languages across multiple touch-points and formats, including: 400+ original TV shows; 12 feature-length films; 14 websites in nine languages; apps; toys (ranked number one property in the pre-school toys category in the UK and Australia and number two in the US); consumer products; publishing; live attractions and much more. Thomas & Friends has scooped prestigious accolades including a Parent’s Choice Award, a Webby and a Licensing Award for Best Classic Licensed Property. The famous and cheeky No.1 blue engine and his friends invite children to enter a world of imagination through the tracks of a train. Together, the children and engines embark on timeless adventures while experiencing valuable yet fun life lessons of discovery, friendship and cooperation. Thomas & Friends™ is viewable on more than 30 world-class broadcasters including PBS KIDS® in the US, Super RTL in Germany, and on Five’s Milkshake! and Nick Jr. in the UK. Downloadable episodes are available through iTunes, Amazon and Google Play.

 

For more information about the wonderful world of Thomas & Friends please visit: www.thomasandfriends.com, www.facebook.com/thomasandfriends and for bonus material and exclusive content www.youtube.com/user/thomasandfriends.

Ain't it grand, marvellous and wonderful? About time, too. No more import duties or E-Bay searches from now on...

[PaulRhB]

On ‎19‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 10:28, Ron Ron Ron said:

So much excitement about a kiddies toy!

 

I'm confused.

What does this have to do with the model railway hobby?

Because many of us grew up with the Thomas books and it led to modelling, no doubt you have fond memories of childhood too?  

 

 

 

 

The 009 range won't be released as the real locos as there's a license issue with the scans being locked into the TtT range, Discussed here

 

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

Nope. Never bothered with Thomas the Tank Engine. It wasn't really a thing in the 1970s I seem to recall.

 

It was all about Sammy The Shunter and Ivor The Engine when I was a kid. Ivor was on TV and Sammy books were found in all the preservation society shops possibly because they were published by Ian Allan. Never saw Thomas books anywhere apart from the annuals.

 

 

 

Jason

 

 

[Edwardian]

I learnt to read on the Railway Series.  I was doomed from that point.

 

Those glowing colour illustrations had a magic that my 1970s rather lacked.