The Everything Thomas Topic

[TrainFan97]

I can understand HO and N Scale not having any new engine announcements, as they both have several on the backburner, but Narrow Gauge? There's almost no backlog for that one. The NMRA for sure should announce more products for Narrow Gauge, including an engine. Most likely Luke. Guess N Scale Edward or Duck won't get announced until we start seeing more N Scale samples awaiting release.

Apparently, those at the event got to see N Scale LBSC Thomas and Origin James, and even the fully painted samples of the Express Coaches, this soon after the unpainted samples were shown off, but there are no photos of them online anywhere. I wasn't there, so I didn't get to see them.

I guess the reason why it's taking so long for samples of HO Scale Sidney and Mainland Diesel is because they had to actually fix the eye mechanism so their faces would look perfect, unlike Paxton. I know part of the reason is because they're trying to perfect Salty's reintroduction.

[RailsByRick]

With the exclusion of Knapford Station from this catalog after just being announced at NMRA, I am worried if maybe they've quietly cancelled its reintroduction. Very disappointing if so. I really hope the Yard Master can clear this up for us.

[JLK2707]

I want the Chocolate syrup tanker wagon and the toffee tanker wagon just in HO and N.

[TerencetheTractor525]

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the Amherst Train Show for the first time, and of course, one of the first goals was to head over to the Bachmann booth to converse with some familiar faces and check out the new 2026 catalog. With a fresh mind, here are my overall thoughts.

Beginning with the positives, it is good to see another announcement in Large Scale. The funfair vans offer new paint schemes that will continue to brighten garden railroads featuring the Thomas line, and they are memorable pieces from the show. The reintroduction of the milk tanker is nice as well. I reckon the paint scheme will match the HO version, with brown framing.

The other positive is the classic model era blue wagon announced in N scale. This is a favorite of mine, that has unfortunately been discontinued in HO. Mr. Jolly's Van is also a decent choice, but not one I expected at this time. And given the coal wagon with load and BR brake van have been the most popular requests for N scale rolling stock, I hope those will be announced next.

To be honest, I think the HO announcements were the weakest this time, not because of the fact that there is no newly tooled engine announced or new tooling in general, but because of the choices for recolors. I know many were anticipating the brake van from the canceled set, so I'm all for that. However, for the other two, I think a well wagon reintroduction, green china clay wagon, or Gordon's special coaches would have been more eclectic, and hence enticing amongst fans. That being stated, I'm sure there are fans who will purchase these.

The biggest disappointment is that Knapford Station is officially cancelled, due to the high RRP. To be blunt, I do find it somewhat strange that Rebecca, a controversial new computer generated character who is not a top seller received the green light as a product with expensive RRP, while arguably the most iconic station did not. Moreover, I know the engines and rolling stock generally sell better than the buildings, but the range has really felt empty with a lack of buildings in it. Even small, popular buildings such as an oil depot, coal hopper, or round water tower reintroduction, would fill that void, all of which would not be too expensive as well as work in resin or plastic.

All in all, not the most convincing announcement, but not bad either. As always, very grateful for the new announcements and optimistic for the road that lies ahead.

[GordonPacific04]

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the Amherst Train Show for the first time, and of course, one of the first goals was to head over to the Bachmann booth to converse with some familiar faces and check out the new 2026 catalog. With a fresh mind, here are my overall thoughts.

Beginning with the positives, it is good to see another announcement in Large Scale. The funfair vans offer new paint schemes that will continue to brighten garden railroads featuring the Thomas line, and they are memorable pieces from the show. The reintroduction of the milk tanker is nice as well. I reckon the paint scheme will match the HO version, with brown framing.

The other positive is the classic model era blue wagon announced in N scale. This is a favorite of mine, that has unfortunately been discontinued in HO. Mr. Jolly's Van is also a decent choice, but not one I expected at this time. And given the coal wagon with load and BR brake van have been the most popular requests for N scale rolling stock, I hope those will be announced next.

To be honest, I think the HO announcements were the weakest this time, not because of the fact that there is no newly tooled engine announced or new tooling in general, but because of the choices for recolors. I know many were anticipating the brake van from the canceled set, so I'm all for that. However, for the other two, I think a well wagon reintroduction, green china clay wagon, or Gordon's special coaches would have been more eclectic, and hence enticing amongst fans. That being stated, I'm sure there are fans who will purchase these.

The biggest disappointment is that Knapford Station is officially cancelled, due to the high RRP. To be blunt, I do find it somewhat strange that Rebecca, a controversial new computer generated character who is not a top seller received the green light as a product with expensive RRP, while arguably the most iconic station did not. Moreover, I know the engines and rolling stock generally sell better than the buildings, but the range has really felt empty with a lack of buildings in it. Even small, popular buildings such as an oil depot, coal hopper, or round water tower reintroduction, would fill that void, all of which would not be too expensive as well as work in resin or plastic.

All in all, not the most convincing announcement, but not bad either. As always, very grateful for the new announcements and optimistic for the road that lies ahead.

I generally agree. Not every year has to have a bunch of new groundbreaking announcements, so I'm cool with bachmann having a catch-up year.

Knapford station getting canceled is a big loss in my opinion, as I know several fans were anticipating it's reintroduction.

I do like the new Ffarquhar Quarry cars, love that they're doing RWS inspired rolling stock now. The other two don't excite me as much. I agree that I want the well wagon to return and would LOVE to see Gordon's Special coaches.

[MrNormalDraws]

The biggest disappointment is that Knapford Station is officially cancelled, due to the high RRP. To be blunt, I do find it somewhat strange that Rebecca, a controversial new computer generated character who is not a top seller received the green light as a product with expensive RRP, while arguably the most iconic station did not. Moreover, I know the engines and rolling stock generally sell better than the buildings, but the range has really felt empty with a lack of buildings in it. Even small, popular buildings such as an oil depot, coal hopper, or round water tower reintroduction, would fill that void, all of which would not be too expensive as well as work in resin or plastic.

Oh, that was canceled? I was kinda hoping to get it as I actually like the colors on that version of Knapford instead of the original bright red colors. I guess I'll hold onto my old ones for the time being.

[Awesometrain77]

Okay so a bit to take in here are my thoughts before I read everyone else's

New items
So the Thomas 80th thing is the brakevan . I saw this coming but I had my doubts as it is not 100% a repaint .

The fuel tanker is one I should have seen coming but I thought they would do the cream tanker but regardless they are doing the CGI fuel tanker which may be out at the same time was the Milk and Tar . Honestly a good pick overall

The Ffaquarr quarry wagon is a good pick that I sorta saw coming but did not think we would see it so soon . I also thought it had happened it would have had the quarry stone load . But it did not .

The blue open wagon I did not see coming and I honestly thought the only reason why they did not announce more open wagons in N scale was because they wanted to do the ones with the coal load but I got proven wrong as they just announced more this year that don't have the load . The blue wagon is retired in HO so it was a shocker but nice to see none the less .
Mr Jolly's chocolate wagon I did not expect to see but I am not surprised it happened . It is a good seller in HO scale and I'd imagine it will sell well.

The fact we got more large scale stuff is crazy .
The funfair vans are cool to see . I am not shocked they did them .Id imagine these will sell well .
The milk tanker coming back was a shock.


Okay as for the retired products .
Tar tanker is one that I am shocked lasted so long in G scale but it is gone. The Peco NG wagon took a long time to be finally retired but it is gone now.
The raspberry tanker is retired which honestly again I am shocked it lasted this long . But I wish they retired the diesel co tanker instead of it .
The sodor co wagon was a shocker but I could care less for it .
Nothing major was lost but something huge was cancelled .
Knapford being cancelled is such a let down . Please Bachmann if your gonna announce something actually commit to making it . This is the fourth time this has happened in the past three years and honestly, I'm getting sick of it .

[RailsByRick]

Very disappointed to hear that Knapford has been cancelled. It's becoming a very bad habit of Bachmann's to announce a highly anticipated item only to cancel it a few months later.

Bachmann, please stop announcing new items unless you are 100% certain they'll be arriving to market. It is very tiring to constantly get our hopes up and then get let down shortly after. You are damaging your customers' faith.

[really called Thomas]

Very disappointed to hear that Knapford has been cancelled. It's becoming a very bad habit of Bachmann's to announce a highly anticipated item only to cancel it a few months later.

Bachmann, please stop announcing new items unless you are 100% certain they'll be arriving to market. It is very tiring to constantly get our hopes up and then get let down shortly after. You are damaging your customers' faith.

Indeed.

I was about to post something similar - I am ok with a quiet year of announcements to allow the backlog to clear; I don't want another Duncan situation whereby everyone gets excited just for it to be cancelled due to technical issues. Do the R&D, make sure a product is feasible, commit to manufacture, then announce it. I would rather wait 6 months for something that is certainly going to happen, than 2 years for a nope!

[Armada Starscream]

Given that Bachmann is willing to go into Railway Series rolling stock, first with the China Clay Wagon and now the Ffarquhar Quarry Wagon, maybe they would be more willing to recolor Donald and Douglas into Blue Donald and Blue Douglas.

Its good to see that Bachmann is releasing the 20-ton Brake Van from the canceled Anniversary set. I would hope that they would also release more variants of it like the gray livery that was previously intended for the brakevan from the anniversary set, so that way they we have more options than just a variant of the Spiteful Brakevan.

With the upcoming 77410 Milk Tank and 77422 Fuel Tank being based on the CGI series designs of the tankers, something I really appreciate Bachmann doing is releasing them as separate items than the already existing 77048 Tidmouth Milk Tank and 77039 Sodor Fuel Tank, which have the Model Series design of the Tankers. That way, both the Model Series and CGI Series versions of the Milk Tanker and the Fuel Tanker are available at the same time, so modelers can choose which versions they prefer: Model, CGI or Both!

Another idea for Rolling Stock I would like to see in the future would be Blue Gordon's Special Composite Coach and Gordon's Special Brake Coach, repainted from 76034 Gordon's Express Composite Coach and the 76035 Gordon's Express Brake Coach, with the corridors on both ends so that they can fit seamlessly into already existing Bachmann Gordon's Express. I know it is not screen accurate, but I would prefer that they match up. I will even admit that I prefer the Corridors on Bachmann and Hornby Thomas Express Coaches.

Something else I would hope that Bachmann do is update their 76044 Annie and 76055 Clarabel to rectify their gray chassis with a correct black chassis, like the UK Annie and Clarabel have. As well as update the gray lamps irons, dummy coupling hooks, and tender chassis on their Henry, Gordon, and Toby to the correct black. They have already done this with the Thomas, James, and Percy, with Percy recently now also having a his incorrect gray coal bunker updated to the correct black color as well.

[TrainFan97]

Products getting cancelled is really starting to become an issue for Bachmann. It's not making the company look good. Instead of announcing products, getting everyone hyped up for them, just for them to be cancelled, maybe it's better they don't announce it unless they are CERTAIN it will be out. Better that something doesn't get announced for several months, and have it released, than to wait a year or two for it to be cancelled.

Many are really disappointed that the Knapford Station reintroduction was cancelled, yet they still got Rebecca out there, despite having such a high price.

On the more positive side, it may only be a few more months before they have an unpainted sample of Flying Scotsman to show. Don't know if he'll be out by the end of this year though.

So the 20-Ton Brake Van from the cancelled 80th Anniversary set is what celebrates 80 years of Thomas as a character, and is being released as a separate product. Would've liked to have seen the dark gray van or the orange wagon with coal load as well. Maybe they'll get separate releases at some point.

[Cheeky_ULP]

Very disappointed to hear that Knapford has been cancelled. It's becoming a very bad habit of Bachmann's to announce a highly anticipated item only to cancel it a few months later.

Bachmann, please stop announcing new items unless you are 100% certain they'll be arriving to market. It is very tiring to constantly get our hopes up and then get let down shortly after. You are damaging your customers' faith.

Considering the amount of products Bachmann has cancelled in the Thomas range's entire 20+ year history can be counted with one's fingers, combined with all the outstandingly high quality products they've been outputting lately such as Ryan, Daisy, Stanley and Sir Handel, I think they're doing pretty decent in terms of customer satisfaction. Bachmann is a business, and sometimes things just don't line up the way they hope they would for a product. Things have been especially volatile in terms of manufacturing and exporting this decade so far. A lot of it is simply beyond Bachmann's control.

[travel_is_fun]

I honestly thought the cancellation of Duncan back in Oct '24 was a one-off. But, it is slowly becoming frequent as the months go on. Learning that Knapford station will not happen did come as a surprise even though the Bachmann webpage still has it listed. I do share the same feelings that it is never a good idea to announce items without committing to it. This make me concerned about future new toolings not materializing due to these factors. If it becomes a habit, then it begins to alienate certain consumers. To this day, I still find it hard to understand the reasons for releasing Rebecca, a product with a $300 msrp. I think the new timeline of releasing products will happen 3 years following its announcement, rather than the 24-27 months from past releases.

I'm trying to stay positive upon these revelations, but I cannot become numb to the bad news. Let us hope the implementation of quarterly announcements put some of our disappointment to rest by a degree.

[Yard Master]

Hi everyone,

We want to apologize for the cancellation of Knapford Station and other items- it's just as disappointing to us as it is to the fans.

In trying to keep up the rate of new product announcements and releases from years past, our engineering team and factory were not able to keep pace and over the past few years, the length of time for them to study a project and submit a tooling cost and retail price increased. Compounded by tariffs and the general state of the economy, when we did receive costs, they came back higher than expected.

To elaborate more on Knapford Station: We made the new version half the size and half the number of parts as the first release with the goal of reducing the price. The cost we were given by the factory was higher than the last time we sold it, for a kit that was half the size- It wouldn't be economically feasible for us, nor would it be fair to the consumer to raise the price that much.

We think that this year the production delays have stabilized, and that we will be able to get costs much faster than we have the last 2-3 years. And we are no longer going to announce products until we receive a final cost from the factory, so that we are not announcing projects only to cancel them when they are not feasible.

[TrainFan97]

Hi everyone,

We want to apologize for the cancellation of Knapford Station and other items- it's just as disappointing to us as it is to the fans.

In trying to keep up the rate of new product announcements and releases from years past, our engineering team and factory were not able to keep pace and over the past few years, the length of time for them to study a project and submit a tooling cost and retail price increased. Compounded by tariffs and the general state of the economy, when we did receive costs, they came back higher than expected.

To elaborate more on Knapford Station: We made the new version half the size and half the number of parts as the first release with the goal of reducing the price. The cost we were given by the factory was higher than the last time we sold it, for a kit that was half the size- It wouldn't be economically feasible for us, nor would it be fair to the consumer to raise the price that much.

We think that this year the production delays have stabilized, and that we will be able to get costs much faster than we have the last 2-3 years. And we are no longer going to announce products until we receive a final cost from the factory, so that we are not announcing projects only to cancel them when they are not feasible.

Good to know for future reference. Now we know why the Knapford Station reintroduction was cancelled. Being half the size, it was actually going to cost more than it did before, which just simply was not economical. We've had several products being cancelled over the past few years, so to prevent this from happening again, it's best that you're no longer going to announce products unless it's certain they will be out.

The days of product cancellations will now be in the past. That way, we no longer have to worry about being hyped for a product, only for it to be cancelled.