davebem

I would of thought that Bachmann had to plan/schedule these releases a lot earlier than when they knew about Hornbys TT range? They probably been reading this forum (and others) and knew it was a long standing frustration. Plus they have upped the runs/variations of most items recently, e.g. I think I lost count of the different 08s and 37s that got released. I can remember during the 1st covid lockdown it was hard to get hold of anything in N so Im not complaining. The only thing thats slightly annoying though is Hornby can do their TT Mk1s for £32 and TTAs for ~£20.

Oh yes, rerun of mk2fs, and blue and grey BG and EFE clay tigers in N, going to be an expensive summer for me!

The renders look great, I thought the Hornby 60 (even with its 223.99 rrp) had been part of the 'untouchables' but it goes to show another superior model can come along..

Im looking forward to the 47s although the tooling only just holds up these days, they would sell more if sound was now an option and I guess the profit margins are a lot more with sound fitted which may justify the chassis retool? Judging by the large runs of 08s and 37s recently and livery artwork available for its new larger scale brother, I hope in the summer announcment there are some more livery variations, Intercity swallow and a GWR150 I would pre order!

I agree that you cant please everyone. But for many (myself included) one of the biggest benefits of N gauge is longer scale/realistic length trains possible meaning more stock needed. I think there was some missed opportunities in some of the last runs where they favoured niche liverie rather than the most common liveries, examples include no bog standard blue GUVs/ blue and grey mk1 BG/mk2a TSO were missing, but these had a recent-ish production run.

There was a time during the pandemic you couldnt get any n gauge locos, now we are almost inundated with 08s, 37s, plus 20s, 31s, 60s and 90s (although Id take 25/3s over 31s anyday ;-). The regional exclusive method is a good idea if it means more livery options and its helping support the local/smaller model shops. They must be focussing on the stock now for 2023. I remember when the mk2fs were released they barely touched the shelves, I think I purchased the very last TSOs for sale that I only was able to get as the shop closed during one of the lockdowns when they came into stock. I replaced my mk1 putting them on ebay and they sold for the same price i bought the Mk2s for. There is hardly any Blue and grey Mk1s on ebay now. The Mk2f seem like a basic model to produce compared to Mk1 so hopefully they are in the pipeline and a quick porfit win for Bachmann.. As for MCC in hinckley, if your in the area you have Rocket Railways in Coalville and Signal box in Anstey, can try your luck with the 2nd hand bins! Ive just managed to get a TPO coach to go with the recently release BGs!

It looks like these are just hitting the retailers, does anyone have one, wanted to see what the paint finish was like?

N gauge VAA/VBA/VCA/VDA wagons, I thought Sonic might do them to go with the VEAs but no such luck so far. I think revolution may have filled their production slots for a couple of years so anything announced now maybe a long wait?

Having started my collection about 15 years ago and seeing the prices on the boxes from back then its suprising how everything has gone up so much. I beleive another manufacturer started to think that some models would be better off/more commecially viable selling direct which has upset retailers. I think that bachmanns approach is better?

Not a bad announcement, anyone else find themselves now pricing up catenary! Also I think n gaugers will be ok for 08s for a long while! A run of mk2fs must be in the next one, they sold out in record time when first released. You can kind of guess now that there will be lots more liveries for the crewe cut 47s as they appear to be doing bigger batch runs of loco releases.

I started another thread about fitting stay alive to my 08. After lots of prodding and thrashing it around was able to get it completing a full lap of my long layout. After an hour running in both directions i found the wheel pickups were contaminated with grease, cleaned these and the wheels and its a lot better now, not perfect though over points. Its a great model though.

Looking forward to seeing these on your excellent website. How is the coupling system with the electrical contacts?

Ive got one of the new dcc ready Farish 08s running on my layout with dcc (no sound), however its stalling randomly on points. Im thinking of taking the speaker/assembly out and replacing it with a stay alive, but it would need to be a really small unit that sits in the nose of the new chassis, approx 6mm deep by 6mm wide and 15mm tall. Is anyone else considering this or already fitted one they can recommend? Would a stay alive this small be that reliable? e.g. https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/3-wire-small-stay-alive-for-zen-black-blue-decoders/

Excellent news, need to think of a suitable match truck to do with it..

Hi, is it possible to check what min curve radius these are designed for? I have some curves that are 249mm radius (1st radius is 230 and 2nd is 265).

It looks like the latest batch that did the round trip from China and back (to replace the pcbs) is about to hit the shops. I hope this includes the GBRf pair and the fiftyfund Glorious too. Rails have them in stock today and 149 is showing a yellow background nameplate and acceptable shades of grey?

Re 37142, I think it will be quite popular, not everyone wants celebrity/named logos or popular liveries. Id certainly buy bog standard workhorse plain livery, e.g. BR Blue with headlight/ orange stripe 31/37/47s if they did them, especially as the sector era seems to be popular in N. They are due 12X different 37s and 9X 08s (including the kernow one) by august now, cant complain at that (well if you dont model steam)!

Nice to see them using the regional exclusive idea to have more variety, I might have to get 37502 to accompany 37506. Also great to see the B4/Commonwealth bogies sold on their own, I can bring my Mk1s into the late 80s/early 90s :-)

My red parcel BGs that were released fairly recently have black wheels that look plastic. The axle is normal blackened metal we are used to, then the wheels look like they are painted satin black (or plastic), they are indeed metal.

They only did 1 run of the 4CEP which was 10 years ago, I always thought it was strange they didnt do another in more liveries, did it not sell well? Does anyone know when the next Summer announcement is, I guess the same time the club members are due their next magazine?

My dad has the GWR green one and although on DC the lights in the unpowered unit only come on around 75%-100% power. Its been to Bachmann who had it 2 weeks and it was returned no fault found. However he also has an older one in First livery and this works fine, perhaps theyve changed something in the pcb?

Oh no I saw the pictures on Rails as they came in stock and assumed they had reversed the images but when i look again the strathclyde logo is correct so the BR arrows are certainly wrong!

It looks like the dcc ready 03 and 04s will be in the shops by end of week. Still on the fence with ordering one, if someone finds another decoder that fits other than the recommended (£50) one then please let me know!

Train trax fan and user here, I spent a few hundred ££ on Unitrack during lockdown and always got a good service. Im glad it will still have a presence and I still think that Kato has a lot of potential in the UK market. I also think that Unitrack in particular is underated, its awareness profile needs to be raised more somehow (e.g. advertising campaign etc), to a lesser extent Unitram too!

Impressive they got sound in the 08, I will be having one of those. Bachmann seem to be chassis upgrading previously announced re-runs/reliveries, but then adding a few more variations on to the already announced batch. Some 37s due in the summer...