Thomas & Friends in 2018

[TrainandRockmusicfan97]

I can understand Donald And Douglas being too big but why would Duck be too big? Emily's alot bigger than he is and she was obviously made in G-Scale....

[AJW98Productions]

Duck in large scale would simply not be feasible due to the length of his wheelbase, which (in early seasons) was the same length as Donald and Douglas's. I'm not sure if his wheelbase is the same length now, due to the changes in the scaling of their renders by arc, when compared to the classic models. Regardless, his fixed wheelbase is too long to be viable to negotiate reasonable corners in large scale. The only reason Emily worked in large scale is because of the fact that her leading and trailing wheels aren't fixed and have much more freedom of movement.

TL;DR: With long wheelbases that can only have 6 fixed wheels that can't be hinged to negotiate corners, it makes me quite sad to say that (realistically speaking), Duck, Donald, and Douglas, are not viable candidates for the current large scale range.

Now if there's anything I missed, feel free to let me know, personally I don't own any models from Bachmann's large scale Thomas and Friends range, so I may have missed a few details or poorly explained others. I'll be more than happy to fix any errors or oversights I may have made while writing this.

Regardless of my last point, I hope this post helps,
~Alex

[TrainandRockmusicfan97]

I guess Bill and Ben have a much bigger chance of being released in G-Scale than Duck, Donald and Douglas do....

[Captain Crutch]

Maybe this is my lack of knowledge, but couldn't that just not add flanges to the center wheels? I mean I've seen a UP Big Boy in the scale and it seemed fine, they just took out the 2nd and 4th set of wheels on each set of driving wheels.

[Chaz]

Right but that's a Big Boy, these are Thomas models.  The production behind that and a model of a Thomas character is completely different.

The fact is, Duck is just too large in terms of length for large scale.  Yes he's a popular character which is why his HO model is still selling well, but again what works in HO won't always work for large scale and vice-versa (see Winston). 

[Plow_Bender]

Aright, let's clear a few things up right now.  I've lost count of the number of times I've had to explain the facts about larger engines being made in large scale.  One thing is pretty clear with Bachmann's choice of characters.  They want smaller engines, and they want engines that will work on 4' diameter curves.  This is because most modelers out there (who weren't into large scale already) most likely purchased the Thomas and Percy sets when they first came out.  I'll make my point on this later on in the post.

Now in terms of Duck, Donald, and Douglas performing in large scale, it is possible.  It would be simple for Bachmann to just make the center wheels flangeless just as they have done for their Thomas and James models.  Most likely they would also remove the flanges from the middle wheels on the twin's tenders, just as they have done with Emily and her coaches.  Relatively simple way to make the models work, but still not really a big positive for Bachmann to get excited about.

Moving right along, do any of these models have a chance of being made?  Duck I can honestly say has a chance, but it's a slim one.  Considering he is a larger tank engine (the key word being "larger"), Bachmann would probably consider engines such as Rosie, Paxton, or even Bill and Ben before they would announce Duck.  Now don't get me wrong, I'd like to see Duck in the large scale range just as much as the rest of you, but there's a big difference between what we want to see, and what Bachmann will actually consider announcing.

As for Donald and Douglas, they're tender engines and that pretty much throws their chances of being made right out the back window.  If Bachmann won't even make Edward, then it's pretty clear Donald and Douglas don't even have a chance.  Before anyone starts with "Well Bachmann made Emily!", I recommend referring to Mr. AJW98's post.  To add to that, Emily's RRP is over $400, which means the twins will potentially be hovering around the same price as well.  I will honestly say that even though I consider Emily to be one of the finest large scale models in the Thomas & Friends range and although I want to give the model credit where credit is due, I honestly get the feeling Bachmann regrets making her just because of how large the model is.

One thing I have noticed with the large scale Emily model is that although she does work on the 4' diameter curves, she performs much better on the 8' diameter curves or even the 5' diameter curves.  4' diameter curves are alright for just running trains in the living room when the family comes over or under the Christmas tree during the holidays, but these are not good for year round running.  The tight 4' diameter curves add a lot of friction to the wheels, which in turn causes wear on the track, motor, and gears.  Not to mention if you have either brass or steel allow track, there's going to be a lot of black dust that is hard to remove from your carpet under the track.  That's a mixture of brass from the metal wheels grinding away the inside of your outside rail and plastic dust from the track grinding down the plastic wheels on you rolling stock.  To put it simply, this is an issue that shortens both the life of your engines and track.

Now to finish up on what I was talking about at the beginning of my post.  As I said before, most people who got into the large scale Thomas range when it came out, most likely purchased the Thomas and Percy sets.  These sets come with 4' diameter steel alloy curved track, which they probably have and may have gotten more of.  It's common sense that larger models (such as Henry for example) would require larger radius curves which are only available in Bachmann's brass track selection or maybe steel alloy through one of Bachmann's competitors.  The real issue though is making sure whatever track you choose is compatible with what you already have, unless you want to go out and purchase all new track, which as I learned a couple years back was quite expensive, but well worth the extra cost.  I can almost guarantee that a lot of people aren't going to go out and buy more track or change track systems, just to run 1 or 2 models.

I'm hoping this post has enlightened some of you on the issues Bachmann faces when asked to make the larger engine characters for the range.  Who knows, I probably just scared everyone into going out and buying larger diameter curves to run their trains.  Anyways, I think it's time for me to finish up here and start on another post.

-Rusty

[Metal]

Gee, did anyone forget about an LS Henrietta? People were hoping for her as much as they want Edward.

[Chaz]

Probably because with recent large scale talk, people have been talking more about engines than rolling stock.

Personally I would love to see Henrietta in large scale, but it's been a couple of years since they announced Toby and if they were going to announce Henrietta I feel like she already would have been announced by now.  If we get any rolling stock in large scale I think the most likely candidates would be the red coaches or at a push the mail car.

[Plow_Bender]

I think many have just come to the realization that Henrietta isn't going to happen.  It's been 3 years since Toby came out, and as Chaz said, if Henrietta was going to happen she'd have been announced by now.  I myself had hopes for Henrietta being brought into the range, but it's pretty clear with what I've seen and heard that it's just not going to happen.  Last year I actually made quite an extensive post about Henrietta for large scale, and I'll leave a link to that below if you want to check it out.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,31790.msg237983.html#msg237983

Now sadly when you look at announcements for large scale in the past few years, it's been mostly recolors.  The big problem with Henrietta is that if she were to be made, her tooling could only be used for her.  This has been an ongoing discussion ever since the 2015 announcements were made.  The fact is that Bachmann wants to announce rolling stock (or even engines) they can make from recolors such as a troublesome truck, a van, Arry/Bert, the red coaches, Spiteful Brakevan, etc.  Sadly Henrietta's tooling can't be used for anything but herself.

I'll admit that last year and the year before, I had hopes for Henrietta to be brought into the range, but I also said (and I'll say it again) if Bachmann doesn't announce Henrietta in 2017, I feel a loss of hope for the large scale Thomas range.  I still stick by that statement, as it's pretty clear large scale is slowly going downhill.  Large scale has announced only 2 or 3 items per year compared to previous years, and once again most new items for the range are only recolors.  I'm hoping Bachmann may considering making Mavis to go along with Toby instead, but that's a topic I'll venture into at another time.

-Rusty

[sean1994rail]

I think many have just come to the realization that Henrietta isn't going to happen.  It's been 3 years since Toby came out, and as Chaz said, if Henrietta was going to happen she'd have been announced by now.  I myself had hopes for Henrietta being brought into the range, but it's pretty clear with what I've seen and heard that it's just not going to happen.  Last year I actually made quite an extensive post about Henrietta for large scale, and I'll leave a link to that below if you want to check it out.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,31790.msg237983.html#msg237983

Now sadly when you look at announcements for large scale in the past few years, it's been mostly recolors.  The big problem with Henrietta is that if she were to be made, her tooling could only be used for her.  This has been an ongoing discussion ever since the 2015 announcements were made.  The fact is that Bachmann wants to announce rolling stock (or even engines) they can make from recolors such as a troublesome truck, a van, Arry/Bert, the red coaches, Spiteful Brakevan, etc.  Sadly Henrietta's tooling can't be used for anything but herself.

I'll admit that last year and the year before, I had hopes for Henrietta to be brought into the range, but I also said (and I'll say it again) if Bachmann doesn't announce Henrietta in 2017, I feel a loss of hope for the large scale Thomas range.  I still stick by that statement, as it's pretty clear large scale is slowly going downhill.  Large scale has announced only 2 or 3 items per year compared to previous years, and once again most new items for the range are only recolors.  I'm hoping Bachmann may considering making Mavis to go along with Toby instead, but that's a topic I'll venture into at another time.

-Rusty

Not exactly, since the new character Hannah will resemble her, but at this moment, we have no image of her to visually prove it. I will refer back to my quote when an image of Hannah comes out.

[Chaz]

Not exactly, since the new character Hannah will resemble her, but at this moment, we have no image of her to visually prove it.

If you don't actually have any visual proof of what Hannah looks like, then there's really no reason for you to make that sort of a claim.

Once again I agree with Plow Bender since, unlike a large majority of the Thomas fandom, he actually uses logic and reasoning in his posts.  It didn't even take HO this long to get Henrietta out.  Again, seeing as how long it's been since they announced Toby in large scale you would think they would have announced her by now.  As much as I'm sure many want to see her it doesn't seem that likely since large scale usually goes for toolings that are simple and/or they can reuse hence why Diesel got announced this year and why 'Arry and Bert will only be inevitable for the future.

[DucktheGWREngine08]

I really think that listening to suggestions that won't fit the current pattern of how Bachmann releases their Thomas models is getting very tiresome, as Bachmann ONLY make the TV Series characters, now only the CGI characters, non of the Railway Series characters that aren't in the show right now are going to show up. Honestly, unless Bachmann make the tooling for Norman, Den, Dart, Samson, Portor, Timothy, Connor, Caitlin, Hiro, or Hugo then they'll only announce Sidney next for HO.

but Rex, Mike, & Bert are in the show.

But they'd have to do a gauge different for the Skarloey Railway characters, so it'll be a while before then.

[JLK2707]

I'm gonna have to say that I just agree with this unfortunately. Despite I don't collect Large Scale.

[NinjaCraft]

Heres some ideas that might make it into the catalog.
HO Scale.
Standard Gauge:
Engines:
*Stanley
Rolling Stock:
*Flatbed With Logs
*Rocky
Narrow Gauge:
*Sir Handel
*Peter Sam
*Red Narrow Gauge Coaches
Large Scale:
Engines:
*Edward
Rolling Stock:
*Henrietta
*Troublesome Truck 3
*Troublesome Truck 4
*Troublesome Truck 5
*Red Coach
*Red Brake Coach
I hope you all think this is a better and more realistic 2018 possible ideas. Maybe in 2019 we will get Duncan from the Narrow Gauge line but let's focus on the present.

[SethDav]

We already have Troublesome Trucks #1 thru #5...

A #6 may be possible considering Trucks' popularity with customers!