Bachmann Branchline announcements for 2015/6

[Black 5 Bear]

Refering to post 425, I've got all 4 S&D 7Fs, but 3 had to go back for various reasons.  On the last one, the rear set of driving wheels didn't touch the rails.  If you attempt a repair yourself on a new item you may invalidate the guarantee !, but returning things is often a pain, and there's a postage cost to be incurred ! 

Another modeller who has experienced poor quality, I rest my case !!!!!

[84A]

 

V2 upgrade

 

jpg54.jpg

 

Benefitting from a new DCC compliant chassis in 2012, it is now the turn of the body moulding to receive new tooling.

31-566                   V2 Class 2-6-2 No. 3645 in LNER Black

31-567                   V2 Class 2-6-2 No. 60881 in BR Lined Green with late crest

 

 

Hmmm. Bit of a kick in the teeth to everyone who bought one after the chassis upgrade then? Their model is essentially superseded by this one - for the life of me, I can't understand why Bachmann didn't just announce a complete retool, as thats essentially what has happened. Bad form really...

 

Otherwise, a fairly good catalogue - once again, the obvious omission of a Thompson Pacific is baffling, but if Bachmann feel they can produce within the stated timescales, then that should be respected.

[84A]

Another modeller who has experienced poor quality, I rest my case !!!!!

I've owned four 7f's, and never had an issue with any of them. My only gripe is the stupid wire connection between loco and tender, but its easily removed if you know what you're doing.

[Black 5 Bear]

I've owned four 7f's, and never had an issue with any of them. My only gripe is the stupid wire connection between loco and tender, but its easily removed if you know what you're doing.

Strangely enough one of the items I returned was in fact the L/C 7F. Poor finish and waddled like a duck, lol.

I must be very unlucky or extremely picky, but then again when you are spending £125+ for this item I think I'm completely justified..... 

[Andy Y]

Hmmm. Bit of a kick in the teeth to everyone who bought one after the chassis upgrade then? Their model is essentially superseded by this one - for the life of me, I can't understand why Bachmann didn't just announce a complete retool, as thats essentially what has happened. Bad form really...

 

 

Forecasted sales meant that any uplift in sales probably wouldn't have paid for the retooling so it was done in stages. Better that than no upgrade.

[Ozexpatriate]

Box vans last year where around £8.95, now £15.95 a price rise of £7.00,that is far more than the 15% price rise they said they would be putting on.

I thought we were advised that prices would increase (over time) by 100%.

 

I recall a comment to the effect that prices should be expected to double over five years. 

 

Original Bachmann price increase thread.

[Ozexpatriate]

Bachmann appear to be really pushing the envelope to see what they can get away with IMHO.

I disagree.

 

Obviously they need to make a profit , what intrigues me is that they never say how many items are made or what their profit is ?? If that information was announced ?? That way everybody then know if they are getting turned over on prices?? The detail must be somewhere because Hornby losses/profits are always announced.

Bachmann Europe Plc is a subsidiary of Kader Holdings.

 

Kader reports all their financials just like Hornby does. You can find them here.

 

In their most recently published results, for the six months ending June 2014, they made a loss of HK$71,874,000

or about £6M.

 

They typically have a better second half than their first half but if you lost six million pounds before July wouldn't you start doing business differently?

[micklner]

Hmmm. Bit of a kick in the teeth to everyone who bought one after the chassis upgrade then? Their model is essentially superseded by this one - for the life of me, I can't understand why Bachmann didn't just announce a complete retool, as thats essentially what has happened. Bad form really...

 

Otherwise, a fairly good catalogue - once again, the obvious omission of a Thompson Pacific is baffling, but if Bachmann feel they can produce within the stated timescales, then that should be respected.

They said last year that Thommo's wouldn't sell . Sadly at £160 or more a time they maybe right.

[Combe Martin]

I seem to recall they said the average rise would be 20%, but given that some items were being sold at a loss they would obviously incur a much bigger price rise.  About £9 for a box van seems very cheap to me.

[brushman47544]

Forecasted sales meant that any uplift in sales probably wouldn't have paid for the retooling so it was done in stages. Better that than no upgrade.

That's perfectly understandable, but then if buyers expect that a body upgrade will follow after a couple of years they may not buy the chassis upgrade version and Bachmann wouldn't cover their costs anyway.

[Great Western]

Has this one dropped under the radar ?

 

Mine is ordered!

 

Great Western

[micklner]

I disagree.

 

Bachmann Europe Plc is a subsidiary of Kader Holdings.

 

Kader reports all their financials just like Hornby does. You can find them here.

 

Their most recently published results - for the six months ending June 2014, they made a loss of HK$71,874,000

or about £6M.

 

They typically have a better second half but if you lost six million pounds before July wouldn't you start doing business differently?

        Thanks for the info. Never seen the figures mentioned before.

 

      Sadly up their prices to the point were they will become unsaleable to many, it isn't going to assist very much with their financial position either. Perhaps they will have to start to concentrate on lower priced items and/or items which are not a only a one off buy item e.g Inspection Coaches.

      Most of Bachmann customers nowadays are modellers and/or collectors. How many people will be willing to buy the products for children to play with nowdays?  I would imagine very few. A Railroad type range would be perfect but appears to be ignored by Bachmann and other manufactures. At a guess Hornby don't sell much Railroad? therefore ignored by other companies?

      A simple build your own kit of parts, pre painted and perhaps part assembled would at a sensible price be a big seller IMHO. The advantage is labour cost savings , as Bachmann seem to be blaming most of the price increases on this. I think this is a valid way forward.  

[TheSignalEngineer]

i'll be the first to admit im not on a low income but my spending on model railway items has massivly reduced because of the price rises, a lot of my modelling this year is merely catching up on things such as chipping up my locos, finishing projects, and actually doing some work on the layout using 'cheap components' such as wiring up point motors

 

i cant justify £25-£30 on a single coach no matter how much i earn, i wanted to get a rake of maroon mk1s last year but that would have cost me £250 plus, thankfully the hachette coaches were released so i got a rake of those and had the fun of modifying and detailing them instead

For a number of years I didn't have the time and space for a layout, so I decided to build up a rolling stock collection. As money was short at times I scoured second hand shelves and scrap boxes at model shops, club sales stands and internet sites for bits and pieces. I built up enough stock for a complete layout with not many new purchases, most of those being when discounted for clearance. 

My stock of 10' WB vans now numbers 30, from several recycled kits, hybrids from damaged wagons, second hand items and only about half a dozen brand new items. Looking back at my notes the whole lot including replacement wheels, couplings, vac pipes, etc, a few transfers, plasticard and weathering cost me less than £200 not counting the amount recouped on recovered wheels, couplings and spare parts that I sold on.That would put the average cost of the finished wagons at about £6 each They wouldn't satisfy rivet counters but on the layout at normal viewing distance they are perfectly adequate for my needs and I don't worry if the grandchildren manage the odd derailment. 

[Ozexpatriate]

Obviously (Bachmann) need to make a profit , what intrigues me is that they never say how many items are made or what their profit is ??

You couldn't trust the profit information even if you found it Mick.  Bachmann is a multi-national with ability to move profit from one layer of the company to another as they see fit.

 

I am not suggesting Bachmann do this ...

I have a couple of questions for 'teaky':

• Why would you automatically distrust a company's financial numbers as reported by a reputable financial auditor?
• A Hong Kong toy company is not in the same league as the Apples, Amazons, Googles or Starbucks of the world, why would you presume them to behave the same way?

[Silverstreak]

Hmmm. Bit of a kick in the teeth to everyone who bought one after the chassis upgrade then? Their model is essentially superseded by this one - for the life of me, I can't understand why Bachmann didn't just announce a complete retool, as thats essentially what has happened. Bad form really...

 

Otherwise, a fairly good catalogue - once again, the obvious omission of a Thompson Pacific is baffling, but if Bachmann feel they can produce within the stated timescales, then that should be respected.

 

Not surprising really as they have been doing that with their Diesel modeI outline models for years. The Class 37 and 40 comes readily to mind.  As far as the V2 is concerned they get to screw the customer three times over.

 

I predict in another 5 or ten years there will be a third incarnation of the Gresley V3. Unfortunately, by then there wont be enough people around who remembers the real thing. I'm surprised Hornby has not done a really accurate V3 

[Ozexpatriate]

      Sadly up their prices to the point were they will become unsaleable to many, it isn't going to assist very much with their financial position either. 

I think they took that into consideration when they raised their prices. No manufacturer wants to be priced out of the market.

 

Simplistically, profit = volume x (price - cost) and volume is certainly a function of price.

 

There are only two variables - cost and price. Given where they are, cost can really only be reduced by making an lower quality product - which is what Hornby tried. Most companies will set their price just high enough to balance the margin they need without throttling volume.

 

They don't have much choice here.

[coachmann]

Hmmm. Bit of a kick in the teeth to everyone who bought one after the chassis upgrade then? Their model is essentially superseded by this one - for the life of me, I can't understand why Bachmann didn't just announce a complete retool, as thats essentially what has happened. Bad form really...

Using your words, Hornby has been kicking folk in the teeth for years with it's upgrades from Tender-drive. A motorised loco chassis with the old body was the next stage just like Bachmann. Later on a fully revamped body followed.....Just like Bachmann. Some are still at the intermediate stage (GWR County 4-6-0 for example). I don't happen to see it as a kick in the teeth, as doing upgrades in stages is normal marketting.

[great central]

Absolutely, and the train that was booked for a replacement loco at some point during its journey, but no loco is there causes some of the odd things.

One well-known one is the Hall booked for a return summer holiday express off the WR onto the GC main line. It was due to come off at Leicester Central. No problem so far, this was the booked working and Halls often reached Leicester. However on this occasion, no relief loco, crew asked to take the Hall through to Nottingham Victoria, where Annesley will have provided a fresh loco. Still no problem, Halls were cleared to run to Nottingham. But again, no relief loco, will you carry on to Sheffield and we'll wire Darnall for a loco. Now things are getting murky as it is doubtful anyone has checked clearances north of Annesley shed, but on the loco goes. Of course, there's still no fresh loco at Sheffield, and finally the loco ends up on shed at Huddersfield, with dented cylinder covers and damaged platform edges between Penistone and Huddersfield due no doubt to L&Y clearances as against GC.. "Please explain" letters all round, and a week later the loco is worked back, very gingerly, via Manchester as the shortest route to ex-GW territory.

 

Peddant mode on:

It was actually 6858 Woolston Grange as clarified in this thread:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/26012-how-far-north-and-east/ .

Pedant mode off. 

 

I've recently seen a picture of said loco at Huddersfield, darned if I can remember where though!

[Dominion]

When might we know which diagram Bachmann intend for the new Mk1 FOs ? 

 

 

There's a picture now on Bachmann's website.

 

On the newly announced Mk1 FOs, someone said earlier they thought the current picture may just be the current RFO model with the restaurant branding removed and so did not indicate that was necessarily the one they would do. So I was just wondering when those specifics normally become clear.

[Legend]

I think they took that into consideration when they raised their prices. No manufacturer wants to be priced out of the market.

 

Simplistically, profit = volume x (price - cost) and volume is certainly a function of price.

 

There are only two variables - cost and price. Given where they are, cost can really only be reduced by making an lower quality product - which is what Hornby tried. Most companies will set their price just high enough to balance the margin they need without throttling volume.

 

They don't have much choice here.

Actually cost can be reduced by making products more efficiently or reducing cost of components. As I said earlier no where do I see any mention of the fact that oil prices and therefore the price of plastics is down. In fact most RMs are down at the moment as China has proven not to have stimulated demand as much as anticipated. Most companies have to seek better, low cost ways of ,making things and extract the maximum purchasing power against suppliers. Bachmann have no incentive to do so. Just increase the price and we will all trot along and buy the model anyway. Sadly to an extent that's true, but just look back at this thread and spot the comments like" well I would have bought three but I'll only have one now"

 

Bachmann are pricing themselves out of the market already. They just don't know it yet!

 

Why are there no new wagons this year? People won't pay increased prices for them. I've said before, I would have bought the new pipe wagon to add to the variety of my wagon fleet, but not at £17.95 discounted (mrp now> £20). Press flows no more,Covhops not at that price. Grain wagon @£19.95, my Dapol weathered ones will do just fine thanks

 

It's not across the board though. Some of the steam locos are still reasonable value . The new Pannier seems ok at about £69 discounted. The Crab seems unusually cheap compared with other tender locos. Don't know why.

[teaky]

 

I have a couple of questions for 'teaky':

• Why would you automatically distrust a company's financial numbers as reported by a reputable financial auditor?
• A Hong Kong toy company is not in the same league as the Apples, Amazons, Googles or Starbucks of the world, why would you presume them to behave the same way?

 

The point I was trying to make is that profit can be recorded anywhere within the layers of a multi-national or in fact any group company.  If, for example, tax in China lower than the UK then it would make sense for the finished products to be "sold" to Bachmann UK at a fairly high price thereby reducing the profit made by the UK part of the group.  The opposite could also apply.  None of this is illegal.  None of it affects an investor's decision whether or not to buy Kader shares since the investor would look at the group as a whole.  However, it would prevent Mick or others getting an accurate picture of the profit built into a model sold in the UK.  So without Bachmann actually telling us what their profit margin on a UK model is we're stuck.

 

The choice of Starbucks as an example was made on the basis that it was a well known example.  With hindsight, perhaps I ought to have used the energy company example on its own since Starbucks etc. come with baggage.

[Ian J.]

Another modeller who has experienced poor quality, I rest my case !!!!!

 

While it's a disappointment for me, especially after having to struggle to put together the cash, I always try to give benefit of doubt where I can and I know that all the maunfacturers suffer these quality control problems sometimes. Let's see what Mr. Bachmann can do re a replacement axle gear. The model is lovely otherwise, and from what I can tell the rest of the mechanism seems perfectly fine and smooth.

[jjb1970]

I think it is easy to give collectors a bad rap. Collector is often used as a bit of a pejorative term by modellers yet the collector market is significant in many hobbies and does a lot to sustain new product releases. If the collector market vanished from model railways then the manufacturers would take a hit and modellers of all types would suffer as a consequence. I'll admit that I collect high end North American models which exist in display cases and I get as much pleasure from them as I do from playing trains on my layout (trainset really).

[robmcg]

I agree with above, and enjoy buying or collecting models if I think they are beautiful.

 

To that end I have bought a Bachmann C1 Atlantic (weathered BR version, delivery in a few weeks) and pre-ordered both versions of the LBSC Marsh H2 Atlantic. If they are as good as say the LMS Compound then they will be worth every penny.

 

I have made this virtual image of the southern H2 version in BR guise, on order. Does anyone have any information about progress in production of this model? ..and the olive green SR version..?

 

https://www.facebook.com/brsteamphotos/photos/a.378493222316349.1073741838.203786143120392/433081050190899/?type=1&theater

 

Cheers,

 

Rob

[Guest 40-something]

Box vans last year where around £8.95, now £15.95 a price rise of £7.00,that is far more than the 15% price rise they said they would be putting on.

.

So if this continues with the price rise they way it is going, I wonder how many will just walk away from this hobby?, Since the price rise has come in I have hardly brought anything in the last year, How much longer can the market sustain these price rise for, Until the bubble burst?.

I am not looking for rock bottom prices , but a fair and reasonable prices, where I feel I not getting ripped off, I feel in the end the direction things are going model railways will become an elite market and a lot of modellers will move away from this hobby and find something else to do. 

If the next price increases in another15% then where be paying over £18.00 for a box van, so if Bachmann said that they will be adding 15% for the next five years, we will end up paying over £28.89 for a box van!.

I was in my local shop last week and even he is moaning about the price hike on models and said that people where not buying  much and his sales have dropped right down.

I know for one thing that the I will have to have a long hard think if I wish to continue in this hobby the way things are going.

Darren

You could always build a box van kit if you really wanted one, Parkside (no connection) amongst others have large ranges and at 9 quid a pop are cheaper!