Bachmann announce Class 69 in OO and N.

[The Black Hat]

11 minutes ago, Wolf27 said:

I can’t work out if people are happy with Bachmann announcing this or not. Seems like 50/50 reading back.

I'd say people are happy with the idea that the model will be done. People are even happy with Bachmann being the one to do it. 

What some might question is how Bachmann go about announcing items and then being able to communicate development, especially if the final production of the model is some way off. 

As I understand it now, Bachmann have been working on this a bit longer than some of us where thinking - myself included. 

[brushman47544]

3 hours ago, woodenhead said:

I still doubt GBRF signed an exclusivity agreement with Bachmann that isn't in some way time bound so if the model does not appear within say 12-18 months (or less) then they can allow someone else to do a model.

 

Bachmann know who and what the competition is, they turned out the sealed beam Peak in good time whilst Heljans is still going through it's development programme, so a quick turn around on a class 69 is possible especially with it being the loco of the moment before the class 93 arrives in a couple of years from RevolutioN.

 

How long the 69 takes will in part depend on how successful Bachmann is in persuading its parent company - and manufacturing source - of the profitability of the model and therefore how high a priority it should get in terms of development and production resources.

 

I doubt Bachmann's theoretical production time from start to finish of a model is much different to the other main manufacturers. From what I've read its that Kader wants to maximise profitability and the profits on Bachmann's British outline models are not as high as other things Kader makes, so more capacity goes elsewhere. It would be great if Bachmann could find a way round that so models did appear more quickly.

[frobisher]

2 hours ago, Legend said:

It is a pity that it is an exclusive agreement . I can see the benefit of that to Bachmann , but can't see why GBRf would want it  .Surely they would want models of their fleet spread over as large a base as possible and if another manufacturer was interested  let them have the rights also.    I think there could have been a few manufacturers interested , why would GBRf care about exclusivity? On the same basis , as this is pretty marginal to them, would they have thought to insist on the model appearing within a set time frame or exclusivity is waived?  

 

Quite frankly, if I were Bachmann and I had to purchase the rights to produce a model, I would make damn certain those rights were exclusive and so would anyone looking to secure the rights for something that is, quite frankly, not that important.  If the rights were freely available to be bought then the return from them would be minimised to GBRf.  The rights really only have value to them in an exclusivity arrangement.

 

 

 

[AY Mod]

2 hours ago, The Black Hat said:

Bachmann can be more honest about their marketing and interactions with the customers (as I said before) than all the excuses and PR spin

 

What have they been dishonest about? 

[Legend]

16 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

Quite frankly, if I were Bachmann and I had to purchase the rights to produce a model, I would make damn certain those rights were exclusive and so would anyone looking to secure the rights for something that is, quite frankly, not that important.  If the rights were freely available to be bought then the return from them would be minimised to GBRf.  The rights really only have value to them in an exclusivity arrangement.

 

 

 

We don’t know the terms of the agreement .   The rights have the value of being allowed to make the model . That should be it . Exclusivity is something extra .   I’m not sure GBRf get anything back per model, I would doubt it as it’s small beer to them .  So as I said I see the value of Exclusivity to Bachmann  but not to GBRf . If Hornby came to them saying they wanted to do a version wouldn’t that get the GBRf name into many more households, so why exclusivity ? It’s up to Bachmann  or any other manufacturer to take risk if they think the model will sell . 

[AY Mod]

5 minutes ago, Legend said:

We don’t know the terms of the agreement

 

So why pronounce that it's a bad deal for any of the parties concerned? You just don't know. 

[phil-b259]

9 hours ago, LaGrange said:

 

You obviously are unaware of who Mr R Death is........

 

From that comment I take it he is more than your average RMwebber then?

 

However in my defence we have seen it happen many times before - manufacturer announces X and a whole bunch of modellers insist its going to be easy to produce Y because they happen to share a certain characteristic or part of the tooling.

[phil-b259]

9 hours ago, red death said:

I’m not sure why you are comparing a 37 to the 69 as that is irrelevant - the key point is that the chassis for a 56 and 69 is identical because of the origin of the 69! You can use exactly the same chassis. 

 

Both the 37 and 69s  are co-co locos and I would imagine the core fundamentals like chassis block, gear towers, drivetrain can be used for both with minor tweaking of lengths and dimensions as necessary. When it comes to the bodyshell and cosmetic details like bogie side frames there are of course huge differences and it is thus not practical to use one as the basis for another. The unseen internals on the other hand..

 

 

[Revolution Mike]

20 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

From that comment I take it he is more than your average RMwebber then?

Not at all but I do own half of a model train manufacturer!

 

11 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Both the 37 and 69s  are co-co locos and I would imagine the core fundamentals like chassis block, gear towers, drivetrain can be used for both with minor tweaking of lengths and dimensions as necessary. When it comes to the bodyshell and cosmetic details like bogie side frames there are of course huge differences and it is thus not practical to use one as the basis for another. The unseen internals on the other hand..

 

 

 

The fact that a 69 is a co-co like a 37 is completely unhelpful in terms of using the internals from one to the other. The point is that the internals of a 56 and 69 (with a bit of thought) can be identical - close or similar are no use!

[phil-b259]

5 minutes ago, red death said:

Not at all but I do own half of a model train manufacturer!

 

 

The fact that a 69 is a co-co like a 37 is completely unhelpful in terms of using the internals from one to the other. The point is that the internals of a 56 and 69 (with a bit of thought) can be identical - close or similar are no use!

 

From a model perspective the internals on a 56 or 69 are not just similar - they are identical! Things like bogie pivot points, bogie wheel base and even the height / length of the chassis block are identical.

 

However, I grant that given the nose of the 37, perhaps a better comparison to have made would have been a 47 - which Bachmann already produce.

 

In that you have a chassis block with a Co-Co wheel arrangement and a chassis block with an outline eminently suitable for a flat fronted diesel like the 69.

 

(Its also possible that things like the wheel spacing and bogie pivot points are identical - but I am not a diesel modeller so cannot be sure on that).

 

So coming back to cost to produce - if Bachmann already have an internal chassis to pinch from another model but have to work up the design of the body from scratch where is the majority of the costs in developing the model going to lie?

 

Furthermore if they do subsequentially go on to make a 56 pretty much the entire cot of the project will be the bodyshell.

 

Wrap all this up and what you come out with is that the cost of working up the internals is going to be pretty small compared to the costs of the bodyshell - and as we know its the latter part with all the printing and detailing which takes up the most time / labour in the factory.

 

 

 

 

[Stu from EGDL]

33 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 The unseen internals on the other hand..

 

 

Hi Gang;

 

Quite a few of the internals of a Class 69 can be seen through the side grilles. As some of these are not present on a Class 56, it 'could' be feasible to use a block designed for a Class 69 within a Class 56 body. Would be an enterprising move!!

 

At first glance yesterday, I was not a fan of the livery on 69001, but it is growing on me. However, I feel that the inward facing flags would be better facing outwards as it presents a bit easier on the eye.

 

later;

Stu from EGVN

[Monkersson]

12 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

From a model perspective the internals on a 56 or 69 are not just similar - they are identical! Things like bogie pivot points, bogie wheel base and even the height / length of the chassis block are identical.

 

However, I grant that given the nose of the 37, perhaps a better comparison to have made would have been a 47 - which Bachmann already produce.

 

In that you have a chassis block with a Co-Co wheel arrangement and a chassis block with an outline eminently suitable for a flat fronted diesel like the 69.

 

(Its also possible that things like the wheel spacing and bogie pivot points are identical - but I am not a diesel modeller so cannot be sure on that).

 

So coming back to cost to produce - if Bachmann already have an internal chassis to pinch from another model but have to work up the design of the body from scratch where is the majority of the costs in developing the model going to lie?

 

Furthermore if they do subsequentially go on to make a 56 pretty much the entire cot of the project will be the bodyshell.

 

Wrap all this up and what you come out with is that the cost of working up the internals is going to be pretty small compared to the costs of the bodyshell - and as we know its the latter part with all the printing and detailing which takes up the most time / labour in the factory.

 

 

 

 

The class 69 bogie wheelbase is different to a 47.  69 is  - 6'4"+7'0" (plus fractions) 47 is 7'3"+7'3"

 

Bogie centre are also different - 69 is 37'8" vs 37' for the 47

 

I'd reckon that the only bits they could take from the 47 is the motor and some of the gears

Edited June 15, 2021 by Monkersson

[Monkersson]

14 minutes ago, Stu from EGDL said:

Hi Gang;

 

Quite a few of the internals of a Class 69 can be seen through the side grilles. As some of these are not present on a Class 56, it 'could' be feasible to use a block designed for a Class 69 within a Class 56 body. Would be an enterprising move!!

 

later;

Stu from EGVN

If I remember correctly, SLW designed the chassis block for their 24 with further variants in mind - I believe the details that can be seen through the bodyside windows on a late body 25 (which they are now producing) are present on the 24 chassis block.

 

So if a 56 is being planned down the line, then a chassis block with cast details to represent the innards visible in a 69 will suit a 56 with no modifications

[phil-b259]

2 minutes ago, Monkersson said:

The class 69 bogie wheelbase is different to a 47.  69 is  - 6'4"+7'0" (plus fractions) 47 is 7'3"+7'3"

 

Bogie centre are also different - 69 is 37'8" vs 37' for the 47

 

I'd reckon that the only bits they could take from the 47 is the motor and some of the gears

 

Directly yes.

 

But, as regards the bogie centres, its not going to be that hard to remove a few mms from the coupling shaft from the motor / flywheel to the bogie tower is it?

 

Similarly some tweaking of gear positions / sizes might allow the two outer wheelsets on the bogie to be moved inwards / outwards as required. This is of course harder as altering the gears will affect the speed / power ratio

 

In both situations the fundamentals of the design are not new and in the first example the actual motor / flywheel bit remains unchanged.

[Monkersson]

Just now, phil-b259 said:

 

Directly yes.

 

But, as regards the bogie centres, its not going to be that hard to remove a few mms from the coupling shaft from the motor / flywheel to the bogie tower is it?

 

Similarly some tweaking of gear positions / sizes might allow the two outer wheelsets on the bogie to be moved inwards / outwards as required. This is of course harder as altering the gears will affect the speed / power ratio

 

In both situations the fundamentals of the design are not new and in the first example the actual motor / flywheel bit remains unchanged.

They would have to create a new mould for the chassis block as it also has the bogie pivot locations cast in, and possibly, if they are planning to represent the 69 innards that are visible through the bodyside grilles, make the chassis block a narrower that the 47 block.

[Wolf27]

I would have thought that Bachman, or any other manufacturer would produce a whole new set of tools for pretty much everything other than common parts, of which we do not know are. Otherwise there is the potential to disrupt a production line of other models. But only the people making them will know that. This argument is pretty pointless anyway and serves no further purpose in this topic. 

[rob D2]

An interesting development - anything super contemporary seems to be popular which is an encouraging sign of the demographics.

 

Once they have the chassis I’d expect a 56 within 3 years - and it’ll be good for Hornby to have some competition on that front 

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, Monkersson said:

They would have to create a new mould for the chassis block as it also has the bogie pivot locations cast in, and possibly, if they are planning to represent the 69 innards that are visible through the bodyside grilles, make the chassis block a narrower that the 47 block.

 

That is accepted - but if for arguments sake all they have to do is chop say 2.5mm off each side of an existing design then thats going to be quicker and more straightforward than creating the entire design  file from scratch.

 

Naturally the more tweaks you have to do the more design work there is and ultimately a start from scratch approach might be desired - but even here there will be the opportunity to simply copy certain dimensions or mechanism parts from other suitable models.

 

Doing the same is of course theoretically possible with the external bodyshell visible parts but the pressures to get the look 100% correct strike me as making it a less suitable approach than the innards.

 

Diesel and electric locos are intrinsically more flexible in this regard than steam as their 'box' shape provides more room and space to fit things inside and consequently I would imagine there is more scope for one basic design of mechanism to be tweaked for use on many locos

[adb968008]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Directly yes.

 

But, as regards the bogie centres, its not going to be that hard to remove a few mms from the coupling shaft from the motor / flywheel to the bogie tower is it?

 

Similarly some tweaking of gear positions / sizes might allow the two outer wheelsets on the bogie to be moved inwards / outwards as required. This is of course harder as altering the gears will affect the speed / power ratio

 

In both situations the fundamentals of the design are not new and in the first example the actual motor / flywheel bit remains unchanged.

Time to stop digging.. your hole is quite deep.

 

using any old EE/ Brush co-co chassis with the 69 except a 56... is quite simply 1980’s hobby thinking.

Fortunately Bachmann's track record of tooling the job properly is better than some.

Edited June 15, 2021 by adb968008

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, Wolf27 said:

I would have thought that Bachman, or any other manufacturer would produce a whole new set of tools for pretty much everything other than common parts, of which we do not know are. Otherwise there is the potential to disrupt a production line of other models. But only the people making them will know that. This argument is pretty pointless anyway and serves no further purpose in this topic. 

 

That is indeed what happens - a complete tooling suite will be created for each model.

 

What we are talking about however is the CAD design work - and there is no reason why a designer cannot copy or use previous design work to speed up the process and shorten the amount of design work necessary compared to starting from scratch.

 

This is how we get, as described on another thread, 4 different part numbers issued by Hornby for what is (design wise) identical LMS tender chassis used on 4 different models.

 

The grater the number of person hours needed to work up the design, the more costly it is to design the model. The more you can 'crib' off other designs the shorter and cheaper it is. With something like the class 69, nicking bits from other designs for the innards is a definite possibility where as getting the outside right is going to need the bodyshell etc done from scratch (particularly as Bachmann do not currently make a 56) - and as such its likely that is where the bulk of the design costs will be incurred.

[adb968008]

14 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

That is indeed what happens - a complete tooling suite will be created for each model.

 

What we are talking about however is the CAD design work - and there is no reason why a designer cannot copy or use previous design work to speed up the process and shorten the amount of design work necessary compared to starting from scratch.

 

This is how we get, as described on another thread, 4 different part numbers issued by Hornby for what is (design wise) identical LMS tender chassis used on 4 different models.

 

The grater the number of person hours needed to work up the design, the more costly it is to design the model. The more you can 'crib' off other designs the shorter and cheaper it is. With something like the class 69, nicking bits from other designs for the innards is a definite possibility where as getting the outside right is going to need the bodyshell etc done from scratch (particularly as Bachmann do not currently make a 56) - and as such its likely that is where the bulk of the design costs will be incurred.

Its worth pointing out Hornby has 3 different chassis configs to its class 56’s... none of which fit each other.

 

1. The old railroad tooling.

2. The XS series used with LED fittings and different circuit board, which in turn changes the chassis shape

3. The slightly older but still used DCC version.

 

Simple things LEDs, but can drastically change under the hood as well as above the hood.

 

i learned the hard way, by trying a simple body swap... actually I was figuring on converting a 56 to a 69... Ive needed to hack the 56 chassis block, just to get my donor 56 body to fit.

 

its worth pointing out that a Bachmann 55 bogie is not the same as a Bachmann class 37 bogie.. despite both being “identical” under the hood, and in some certain circumstance they could be the same outside too.

Ive noticed a change in motors on newer Bachmann models, and upgrades, in some senses the 47/57 is quite old. I’d be surprised if they started with that at all.. imho its too narrow in width for a 56 for a start. Even a 56 from a 69 will need a different chassis frame, look at the side buffer beam fairings... 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by adb968008

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, adb968008 said:

Time to stop digging.. your hole is quite deep.

 

using any old EE/ Brush co-co chassis with the 69 except a 56... is quite simply 1980’s hobby thinking.

Fortunately Bachmann's track record of tooling the job properly is better than some.

 

So you are telling me the designer in the 69 is going to shut themselves in a little box and come up with everything from scratch then?

 

What rubbish.

 

Any design engineer, be it of model trains, or real trains, real cars, home appliances, houses, etc is going to look to see what else the company may have in its inventory to assist the process - it saves the company money and leaves time for the designer to concentrate on other areas of the product where fresh original design work is needed.

 

The fundamentals of the mechanism needed to produce a good all wheel drive RTR Co-Co diesel do not vary regardless of the class you are making!

 

Flywheels? Yes

All wheel drive via bogie towers and flexible shafts? Yes

Die cast metal chassis for adhesion? Yes

Space for a  good quality speaker? Yes

Space for a decent sized circuit board to handle DCC and lighting requirements? Yes

etc

 

Bachmann have produced many such models over recent years and although there are obviously many differences - they ultimately all derive from that standard concept

 

Its effectively a case of altering a standard concept drawing to accommodate the things which do naturally change between classes like bogie centres, cab shapes, bogie wheelbases, chassis block width, etc. Subtract a few mm from the drive shafts, move that mounting point, etc. 

 

Each one of changes is likely to be far quicker to undertake than the task making sure the compound curves of the cab roof on the bodyshell (something D&E modellers get very particular about)  is 'right'.

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by phil-b259

[Wolf27]

What is the point you are labouring to make? 

[phil-b259]

42 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

 

2. The XS series used with LED fittings and different circuit board, which in turn changes the chassis shape

 

 

A question - when you say the new board changed the chassis shape' - how much did it change exactly?

 

I bet Hornby didn't tell its designer to sit down and dream up another chassis from scratch - more likely the designer took the previous CAD work and altered it to fit the new arrangement. Far quicker and just as effective in terms of what Hornby wanted to achieve.

 

48 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

Its worth pointing out Hornby has 3 different chassis configs to its class 56’s... none of which fit each other.

 

1. The old railroad tooling.

 

 

The old railroad tooling , being a ringfield motor bogie was effectively beyond salvaging!

 

As with all such models they are a symptom of a poor mechanism design and quite naturally are not going to be of any use whatsoever when a good mechanism requires a solid metal chassis with all wheel drive etc...

[phil-b259]

2 minutes ago, Wolf27 said:

What is the point you are labouring to make? 

 

That when it comes to designing a RTR loco, the bulk of the designers time will end up being spent on the outside of the model rather than the mechanism / chasis.

 

As such being able to 'share designs' between models (i.e. the innards of a diesel or the tender of a steam loco does) not massively cut the cost of developing another model.

 

Thus the implication from some that Bachmann producing a 56 to follow on from the 69 will be 'cheap and easy' is not borne out be the realities of where the bulk of the design costs will likely fall and in reality the amount of design work needed to produce a 56 is not going to be significantly less than a 69.

 

That in turn will feed into the commercial decision on whether going for a 56 would represent a good business case for Bachmann.