Bachmann Europe - Winter 2023 Announcements

[NSC]

Certainly pleased to see a full refurbished CEP, in NSE, make the new range. 

 

Would be nice to have a version that isn't "Kent Coast" for a change, perhaps "Sussex Coast" or "Solent and Wessex" 

 

Especially as 1512 seemed to end up on the South Western division.

 

Would fit better with the announced 3CEP.

Edited November 1, 2023 by NSC

[ThaneofFife]

2 hours ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Production slot availability from Kader is tight. What to do, use them for coaches and collect whines about pricing; or produce all singing and dancing locos which have smaller price resistance and yield more profit per piece? 

 

If we could persuade all participants not to buy any more RTR OO diesels for a decade, we'd either get collapse of the UK's £20M model railway business; or a much more interesting and useful product selection. It's in our own hands, and I feel it's a risk worth taking. As ever, YMMV, OOAA, FFTPAA.

That almost suggests we all just want locos and run a plank or depot scene and we dont want them to haul owt.

[piranha240]

I’ve got a 31-519 class 158 new tooling not sound fitted the newly tooled GWR model that’s never been run  and mint boxed brand new condition as I don’t have a layout I paid £220 for it but can’t find out how much they are worth not even on EBay, did it become a rare sought after model?, as I see they are doing a new release of it.

[AY Mod]

9 minutes ago, ThaneofFife said:

That almost suggests we all just want locos and run a plank or depot scene and we dont want them to haul owt.

 

Virtually everyone has more locos than needed for the stock they have.

[Keith Turbutt]

7 hours ago, Legend said:

I'd forgotten about the Boosters to be honest , never realised one got as far as BR Blue , so certainly interesting set of announcements . 

For anyone interested in further research into these locos I would refer you to

the 'Southern Way' publication Special Issue No11 " The 'Booster' Locos CC1/CC2/20003 " published in 2015 by Noodle Books. Copies are available on Ebay at various prices.

[Yo]

Do I spy a polybulk in the cabinet at the start of the video? Don't recall that being announced. 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Yo
Add info

[Dan Griffin]

Sorry but £550 for a four car unit. £650 for DCC sound.  They are pricing all but the most affluent people out of the hobby now with that. 
However, The price for the Booster is very reasonable for a new tooling. 

[33212]

I'll be ordering a Jaffa cep...then maybe a blue grey later, then I'll wait for the box shifters to be flogging then off at £89 like they did with the first lot back in 2011!

[Standards_in_OO]

8 hours ago, brushman47544 said:

Please let this be the end of the 37s and 40s for a decade or so…. I now have more than enough and can’t afford any more.

 

I do like the Hornbys; I too never expected to see them in OO. I know I had them for haulage on the Newhaven boat trains when I was a kid in the mid 60s but no idea which one(s).
 

 The refurbished 4-CEPs look very good but I do wonder how well they will sell with three liveries released at once. I presume it helps reduce overall production costs, which is no bad thing, but how many people will be able to afford to buy more than one at a time?

 

The big omission for me is coaching stock - again. Yes the LNER van is useful as, like most, strayed well away from the ER but what about standard Mk1s that are pretty much unavailable new and have been for some time. And the Bulleid coaches - we’ve had a 2-set in BR(S) green but what about the far more common 3-sets or coaches that can be used as loose vehicles?

 

Never mind…

I don’t think there has been any new Mk1s announced since the WCRC which were about 3 years ago and are still not available yet. Hopefully there will be more than the 3 or so in this livery next year. 

[TravisM]

I will say that I’m quite impressed with the latest announcement and it got a couple of ‘ooh’s’, but not enough to endanger the credit card.  Had there been a WCRC 47/8 and 40145 in BR blue, as it was a few years ago, it think it would have been a different story and it grabbing me warmly by the throat 

[Phil Bullock]

9 hours ago, stovepipe said:

Nose-first running was much more common in Scotland, and also seen on short trip workings around Barrow Hill, and of course in the East End of London when first introduced.

 

I'm interested in getting one of the 'Hornbys' - electric locos with steam heating boilers, very quirky.

And single 20s not unknown in the West Midlands either…. The Stourport PS job was usually a 25 but 20s not unknown …. 50% of the mileage must have been bonnet first! 

[scottrains29]

Hopefully Bachmann will produce the new 20/3 light boards as a spare to allow us to upgrade the original batch of Bachmann 20/3s.

I always thought it was odd they didn't produce the cab sidelights from the start.

It would be good if they could upgrade the 66 to also include working sidelights.

[Roy Langridge]

Well, definitely not a nothing in it for me announcement this time. Going to have to find funds for a pair of 20s, a 4CEP and possibly a blue Booster. Happy days…
 

Roy

[MidlandRed]

4 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

And single 20s not unknown in the West Midlands either…. The Stourport PS job was usually a 25 but 20s not unknown …. 50% of the mileage must have been bonnet first! 

Certainly did - Bescot had D8134-43 new, plus a handful of D804x at dieselisation of the shed - they usually ran singly on trip freights and could often be seen running bonnet first - particular duties I recall them on had previously been operated by 464xx or 76xxx steam locos. They weren’t around for very long before transfer to Toton - replaced by more class 24/25s. 

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, Dan Griffin said:

Sorry but £550 for a four car unit. £650 for DCC sound.  They are pricing all but the most affluent people out of the hobby now with that. 
However, The price for the Booster is very reasonable for a new tooling. 

 

As an impoverished pensioner I sympathise Dan, but looking at videos of exhibition layouts suggestst that there are sufficient modellers with amounts of disposable commesurate with those pricing levels to make production worthwhile, and it costs what it costs; I don't get the impression that RTR in general is a rip-off or that those whose living depends on our buying the stuff are millionaires. 

 

May be less stressful to thing of the cost of a train length, rather than a locomotive or multiple unit.  £550/650 for a 4-car EMU, 12-wagon coal train of similar length with loco and brake van, £360 for wagons plus £40 for brake van is £400, £150/250 ballpark for an average loco, and we're equalling out a bit!

 

If I were in the main line game with trains of realistic length I'd be priced out of it, but I doubt that people like me figure particularly strongly in RTR production project market research, nor should we.  If you think of it in terms of the number of items moved, then the chap who can buy a hundred or so coal wagons clearly has more influence on matters than me, who has thirty and doesn't need any more.  Taking notice of my wants and needs is a sure way to the recievers' moving in on you, and it is better for me if I am ignored, which will more likely result in successful trading and viable profits for the manufacturers and therefore a healthy supply of such items as I can afford while still having enough to eat on the day before pension day...

 

Now, this is a philosophical sort of approach, but it work for me!  Despite my limited and fixed income I have a layout that I enjoy and can, admittedly not always easily but can, afford to buy locos, stock, and ancilliaries for, and it was designed with this aim in mind.

[Covkid]

13 hours ago, keysan said:

I cant decide whether you where lucky to see a single class 20 heading a train or unlucky not to see them in pairs! how did that happen?  

 

13 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

Class 20s were rare as hens teeth around here. It was mostly Class 24s and 25s. But by the 1980s they were on the way out. Heavier trains were always 40 or 47 hauled, sometimes a Peak.

 

I think they occasionally worked the Fiddlers Ferry MGR trains in pairs, but not much else.

 

Jason

 

I moved to Bescot in 1980 and remember our target 16 and target 17 being diagrammed single class 20s.  These were engineers trips for moving traffic around the Birmingham area.    I may be wrong but I think T16 was an S&T departmental trip based around Wolverhampton Crane St.

 

Another job which was occasionally a single class 20 was the sandite car, this being a converted DMU trailer fitted with hopper, pump and water tank. This job was fully crewed with the guard working the sandite equipment in the trailer whilst driver and secondman crewed the loco. In certain circumstances the loco propelled the sandite car. 

This was in the days before high intensity headlights, and twin tail lights.     

 

[BachelorBoy]

14 hours ago, Legend said:

 

Which was my point . It looks less expensive than using Kader

Not necessarily. Bachmann might have priced them lower because market research suggested that poeple wouldn't pay more for those locos. 

 

[97406]

58 minutes ago, BachelorBoy said:

Not necessarily. Bachmann might have priced them lower because market research suggested that poeple wouldn't pay more for those locos. 

 

 

I have a fair number of the latest Bachmann releases and I haven't paid the RRP for any of them. The longer I'm prepared to wait, the lower the prices as residual stock lingers in the shops.

[NIK]

50 minutes ago, BachelorBoy said:

Yes, perhaps Bachmann do want us to express our railway modelling through the medium of dance.

New Channel 5 TV show? - Strictly Come Railway Modelling.

[Phil Bullock]

3 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

Certainly did - Bescot had D8134-43 new, plus a handful of D804x at dieselisation of the shed - they usually ran singly on trip freights and could often be seen running bonnet first - particular duties I recall them on had previously been operated by 464xx or 76xxx steam locos. They weren’t around for very long before transfer to Toton - replaced by more class 24/25s. 

D8035-39 IIRC from series 1. D8138 tried to mate with D7038 at Hartlebury …video here

 

D8138/D7038 smash

 

York also used their D83xx singly particularly on Foss Island branch trips. 

[Southernman46]

B&G & Jaffa re-furbished 4-CEP AND Class 70's in Black and BR Blue ................. I am so ***** excited 🤸‍♂️

 

Going to sell a kid or a kidney or both 🤣

 

They're already on the boat !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   🤸‍♂️

Edited November 2, 2023 by Southernman46

[Dunsignalling]

20 hours ago, 31A said:

Nice to see the Thompson Full Brake announced; I thought it was strange that they omitted it from the original range of re-tooled models.  I can throw my old one away now!

My worked-over maroon BG has got somewhat tatty and has been repurposed as a T/L-to-Kadee translator van, so the new  one is very welcome. It can now get a body off one from my "pending" stack to make it look a bit more respectable.

 

My similarly "got-at" BG in plain crimson (my favourite livery on the Thompson vans) will get a stay of execution until Bachmann fill that gap! Fortunately I hadn't got round to more than the two upgrades.

 

The remaining three in my overflowing to-do cupboard will be moving on at the next swap-meet.   

 

John

[BachelorBoy]

1 hour ago, NIK said:

Yes, perhaps Bachmann do want us to express our railway modelling through the medium of dance.

New Channel 5 TV show? - Strictly Come Railway Modelling.

Haha!

 

Perhaps India got there first

 

 

[Southernman46]

20 hours ago, woodenhead said:

Tinsley!  🤣 What's it's name?????

Useless fact,

 

The internal steel frames & "springing" in the rock hard seats fitted to the re-furbished 4-CEPS  were made by "Tinsley Wire"

[BachelorBoy]

1 hour ago, 97406 said:

 

I have a fair number of the latest Bachmann releases and I haven't paid the RRP for any of them. The longer I'm prepared to wait, the lower the prices as residual stock lingers in the shops.

 

Some companies used a marketing technique called "skim pricing" to maximise profit. The idea is that some people "just gotta have it" and aren't particularly sensitive to how much they need to pay. So the company makes a lot of profit from them. 

 

Later, once all the price-insensitive customers are sated, then the company drops the price so "normal" people with smaller budgets can afford them. Obviously the profit falls. But the company makes more profit than it would have done if it had sold the item at the "normal" price at launch