Edward is definitely a shoe-in for the next N Scale loco this July, but I think the fandom would be better-served pushing for Mavis to be the next N Scale loco after Edward instead of Duck. Bachmann already knows how much the Thomas fandom loves engines 8 thru 11, so we'd basically just be preaching to the choir. It would make more sense to rally behind fan favorites that aren't as pushed as hard as they are, such as Mavis. That way we'll get a bit more variety alongside the basically-guaranteed Ducks and Olivers, ha ha.

Other than Edward, I think there's a good chance we see either the Red Coaches or the Milk and Tar Tanks announced at NMRA. I'm personally leaning on the side of Tar and Milk since we've been asking for those two ever since the initial tank car announcements in N. I've been hesitant to beg for them given that until recently we'd needed way more wagon variety first before more tank cars, but now that we have Box Vans as well as upcoming faceless open wagons and an upcoming faceless brake van, I think we've reached enough diversity in rolling stock that new tankers make sense to dive into. I think a fun alternative third option for new rolling stock would be Mail Cars, since they're one of the few things left in the TOMIX's old lineup that aren't present in Bachmann's, but with how long it's been without seeing hide nor hair of Paxton/Diesel and the Express Coaches progress-wise, I'd be hesitant to push for any projects that are more extensive than an easy retool (such as the Red Coaches).

If Bachmann felt like adding off-rail vehicles like Bertie and Harold to the N Scale line, though, I would be very happy with that as well!

I think that in the case of Duke, even if he would lack cross-pollination appeal with the OO9 kitbashing crowd, he does at least double as Bertram to help justify the cost of his tooling... It may also be that in whatever far-flung future year a Duke announcement finally happens (likely further off now that Duncan's been kicked down the road), the Kato/PECO George Englands could be discontinued and harder to acquire compared to an upcoming Thomas equivalent.

Either way, I agree that Luke, Millie, Victor and Freddie are pretty safe bets for the future. I do hope OO9 modellers get their Duncan fix someday, though...

Blue Donald and Douglas sound like nice 80th anniversary models, but I feel like a 'Railway Series' colored Toby would be a nice 80th anniversary model as well as a better test for the market on book-based models. Toby's a popular seller in the range, and a much easier investment to justify than both of the scots! His book look's blue side-plates and brighter woodwork would likely catch the eyes of children and parents who don't even know what the redeco is referencing, too... That's just my thoughts anyway. It'd probably be an easier sell for Bachmann if we rally beind 'Railway Series' Toby rather than 'Railway Series' Donald and Douglas, ha ha.

As for other redecos, the suggestions I've seen here all sound fine, but the only redeco other than a 'Railway Series' look that I'd be willing to dip into HO to get is a Pink James. I feel like having two James redecos on the market already is sort of pushing it, but James is my favorite engine and Pink is my favorite color, and that Series 13 episode sadly never had any toys based on it released in the USA. So if Bachmann would be kind enough to make a Pink James just for me, it'd be greatly appreciated, ha ha!

Repurposing the Blue Open Wagon design as a Cocoa Wagon is an excellent idea, Chaz! Between the existing unlettered Coal Wagon, the upcoming China Clay Wagon, and that, there are the makings for a perfect rake of three 7-plank wagons for the N Scale line! I would definitely like to see something like that next year...

I feel like there's a solid shot for N Scale to get LBSC Thomas next year since it'll be an anniversary year. With Edward being a certain pick for the next new tooling, I think putting LBSC Thomas in the Catalog announcements and Edward in the Mid-Year announcements would be a smart move.

I do hope we get to see vehicles like Bertie, Harold, and Cranky join the N Scale range next year as well. Especially if it leads to a near future where we can use characters that are more difficult to find an appropriate stand-in toy of in N Scale, such as Terence, Bulgy, and Jeremy...

Tangentially, I didn't want to bring up any HO suggestions since N Scale is my domain, but... I wonder if it would be possible for Bachmann to make an HO model of Bulstrode the Barge? I normally wouldn't entertain it as anything more than a pick that "would be nice if not for alleged restrictions to do with Model-only characters" but... Bulstrode is pretty famously the boat that managed to dodge this internal mentality to the point of getting into the 2D reboot without having gone 3D first, ha ha. I think for 2025, it would be a fun way to add a touch of anniversary nostalgia to the line-up, especially considering Cranky doesn't have any boat friends to work with at the docks right now!

Quote from: Cheeky_ULP on August 09, 2024, 10:42:00 PMI'm not familiar with the N scale range much; is the N scale Gordon closer to his CGI render or his HO tooling? It makes me wonder what direction they will go for Henry.

Gordon is based on the CGI references rather than the HO tooling, thank goodness. Henry doubtless be the same. I suspect there will still be chassis sharing between the two given that aspect of their show designs carries over to the CGI designs, albeit hopefully without the awful stretching and squashing the HO Henry was subjected to...

I think Bill and Ben are possible, but I would also rather have Donald and Douglas join the line before them, ha ha... I think their primary appeal points from a development perspective are adding color variety to the lineup with some much-needed yellow, and being an efficient on the budget with being small, tank engine twins. That said I feel like those niches would also be filled by making both colors of Rosie, who would also fit into the same developmental niche as Paxton and Diesel. (Wherein Bachmann has already modeled her 'CGI' form in another scale, which could make developing her in a new scale easier...) I believe she could easily be the first to migrate to N Scale after Henry and Edward make the jump, if only to provide said color variety, given how many blue and green locos would be dominating the palette of available locos at that point. Adding a second red loco and a violet loco wouldn't go amiss, in my opinion.

The other front-runners in my mind are Duck or Mavis, since both seem to be the most popular small engines being requested. Mavis would be my personal pick with her being one of my favorites of all time, but I think Duck and Rosie would be good additions as well. That said, whichever small loco makes its way in first, I think the best act to follow it up with would be Spencer. Popular character with associated rolling stock, can't really go wrong there. After Spencer would be a good opportunity to bring in one of the two 'small loco front-runners' that didn't make the cut for being first, ha ha. So say, if Rosie comes after Edward, then Spencer would come after her, then Duck after him. Then perhaps at that point Bachmann can just continue to migrate small and large projects in this alternating pattern.

As an unrelated aside, I think once the original 'Steam Team' has migrated to N Scale, it would be nice for Bachmann to experiment with adding locos to the N Scale line that haven't been seen in HO Scale yet to help diversify the line-up. Especially if they would be too big or costly to justify developing for HO first... Given N Scale's popularity in Japan, I think Hiro and perhaps Kenji would be apt choices to run this experiment with.

I don't think Bachmann "leaning more into the modeling side of Thomas" suggests that these models "for the nostalgic adults only"... There's nothing about that idea of making a model railway Sodor that is inherently age-gated... Price-gated, certainly, but given the prices for non-'Thomas' trains are much higher than what we see in the 'Thomas' line, I think that is not an insurmountable wall to climb... And as Marie pointed out, there are plenty of demographics besides us that are interested in modeling the Island of Sodor. I think specifically the 'children wanting to break into the hobby' demo will be quite happy with later characters being added. Any children who've retained interest in Thomas after growing up with the late-age 'CGI' show will be what, 9-10 years old now? That's around the same age I was when I was interested in the early days of Bachmann 'Thomas' with locos like Edward and Mavis on the horizon, ha ha... I think if those children are anything like us, they'll be very happy to have engines they grew up with represented in the lineup in the same way we were hoping for our old favorites like Duck to be announced.

Nothing about later-era characters makes them exempt from being useful for a model railway of Sodor, either? They are all 'Thomas' characters. By definition, every locomotive in the line is useful for making a model railway of Sodor, because all of them either live on Sodor already or are feasibly able to come over and visit (in the case of Beau)... It is more or less down to personal preference, and not every prospective modeler is so unreceptive to newer age characters, so personally I don't like to dismiss any of them out of hand regardless of my personal feelings regarding them...

I think now's a good time to end this line of conversation. Everybody's too miserable. I think Marie has the right idea in bringing back the actual point of this thread, ha ha.

I'm sorry... This is just an absurd thing to say. Just because you dislike Bachmann's model-making choices or what Mattel is or isn't willing to green-light doesn't mean they're trying to scam anybody.

If you want to talk unpopular choices for models, let's consider that Beau (maligned by many as being an odd pick, since he was only in a few minutes of one special and nowhere else in the series) was the third-most pre-ordered 'Thomas' item on Trainworld in the run-up to his release... Die-hard nostalgic adults aren't the target demographic for 'Thomas', and we aren't the only ones interested in buying model trains based on 'Thomas'. To say that we're the only ones who Bachmann or, more chiefly, Mattel should cater toward comes off to me as very childish and entitled...

Interesting that it uses the HO Thomas chassis in its entirety... I suppose the eye mechanism is excised in favor of one fitting Stanley, though. Still, quite an economy. I remember somebody suggested this exact setup for Stanley before, and at the time I thought it wouldn't happen due to the wheel sizing and placement of HO Thomas not aligning with 'CGI' Stanley in the kind of picture-perfect way Bachmann tends to prefer nowadays... This is the same company that opted to make a new tooling for N Scale Toad despite a perfectly acceptable Graham Farish 'Toad' already existing in their tooling library, after all... I'm not sure if I am glad to be proven wrong in this case since its not clear yet just how far this chassis strays from the show model, but I assume for most the exact wheel sizing and spacing will not detract from the Stanley Experience, ha ha.

It does make me wonder if Bachmann will use this strategy for other product suggestions yet to be announced... I struggle to think of any instances that hue as close as Stanley to Thomas, but then again I would have said the same about Stanley to Thomas before this reveal... Spencer's chassis recycled for a Flying Scotsman or Merlin, perhaps?

Either way, this model sample looks excellent and I am happy for fans of Stanley.

"Higher Billing" is entertainment industry lingo, clearly I need to watch my language... What it means is that she is a higher profile character, being one of the ten main cast characters from the 3D-animated show. Since nine of the ten are either already in the HO 'Thomas' line-up, it gives her a leg up on the various secondary characters and troves of tertiary characters that aren't in the series yet, at least in terms of demand and relevance of choice... Budget is clearly another matter given Stanley's announcement last year. But with the amount of obscure picks we all want to see introduced to the line, having Nia be greenlit before any of them will give them better odds in the years to come. It's easier to convince executives to greenlight a side-character once you've exhausted all your leads...

Personally I do not expect to see Iron 'Arry and Iron Bert come back this year... Between Rebecca and Stanley making great progress, and Salty's reintroduction being more troubled than anticipated... I think a new tool loco wouldn't be unreasonable for this year's HO announcements... Nia would be my choice if I were in Bachmann's shoes... With her being the highest-billed character that they can make but have yet to commit to, doing her now instead of later will open up more options for the future...

I do agree with Henry and unlettered open wagons as the optimal choice for N Scale's announcements... N Scale has also made good progress this year with the remaining 2022 models slated for delivery before the end of the year... It would be nice for it to receive some more forward momentum this year...

A construction workers pack should be an essential addition, what with Ms. Jenny being one of the most high-profile human characters... Some generic passenger packs would be good as well, for the sake of bringing a station platform to life...

I also think it would be worthwhile adapting these figures to N Scale, what with the difficulty of procuring appropriate stand-ins for Sir Topham Hatt and the like... though I do think I will pick up The Hatt Family in HO for my purposes regardless, to recreate the comedy of the old oversized HO figures towering over the engines, ha ha!

Just saw on Facebook that Henrietta's painted sample came in... She looks exquisite! Her detailing is excellent and the Fall ETA is good to hear...

Now, with the exception of the Diesel 0-6-0s and Express Coaches, all of the currently undelivered project for N Scale 'Thomas' have a decorated sample and are seemingly expected to come out within the year... You love to see it...

The way myself and the modellers in my circle see it, it's easier to sort new locos for N Scale 'Thomas' into tiers of priority rather than a hard numbered ranking... Mostly because the demand for Henry and Edward is so suffocating that it is more or less impossible to talk about any other characters without the proviso of "after Henry and Edward, of course"...

Tier 1 would be Henry and Edward, naturally... They're the final two classic main characters... Both are very popular and frequently requested... Henry specifically has the benefit of sharing a common driving wheels and motion with Gordon, which means that the only requirements to create him are to make a new loco shell, tender, and front wheelset to surround the main chassis... Edward would almost entirely be new tooling (albeit likely using the same wheel pattern as Thomas, James, and Toby) but his development cost would be easily justified by how popular he would be upon release...

Tier 2 and below are more subjective and nebulous... I think these would be a combination of popular secondary loco characters from the HO Scale 'Thomas' line and general popular requests for the N Scale 'Thomas' line specifically... At time of writing, I would put four characters into this category; Duck, Spencer, Mavis, and Oliver... Duck and Oliver fit the bill for both criteria... Mavis has been getting a lot of support for N Scale (including from myself)... and Spencer is rather popular in HO Scale despite that model's shortcomings, so I believe he'll make the jump sooner rather than later...

Tier 3 is every other engine that is currently released in the HO Scale 'Thomas' line. Rosie, Donald and Douglas, Daisy, Ryan, Bill and Ben, and Salty... Salty may be cheating slightly since his reintroduction isn't on the market yet... But he is in the catalog, so I count him among these regardless, ha ha... Not much to say about them, I believe all of them will come to pass in due time...

Tier 4 are the characters that are either extremely new or currently discontinued without a plan to be reintroduce... Beau, Rebecca, Stanley, and Iron 'Arry and Iron Bert... The only characters I can see 'jumping the line' as it were are the Iron Diesels for being based on Paxton and Diesel, or Rebecca solely because she is a main character in the legacy 'Thomas' series... Beau is complicated by Bachmann's Old-Time 4-4-0 being a discontinued tooling, and in all honestly would be better off using an updated model as a base... Meanwhile Stanley feels too recent of an announcement to consider placing any higher... That said in a year or two, he and Rebecca would likely move up to Tier 3 once their HO Scale models make it to market, and their places will be taken by whatever new loco characters are announced...

Rolling Stock is a lot less interesting to make a priority tiering for in the same way, since most of it is just a laundry list of essentials... More 7-Plank Open Wagons, more versions of the Tank Cars, Cattle Vans, the Spiteful Brake Van (or other BR 20 Ton Brake Van recolors, if possible), Red Coaches, Toby's Museum Coaches, Red Express Coaches, et cetera... I may have missed it if somebody has posted it, but I feel the Mail Cars would be a good pick for the line as well. It's another piece that was present in TOMIX's 'Thomas' line that isn't currently represented in Bachmann's N Scale line, and comes in at least three colors... Red, Green, and even Live Lobsters if they want to have some fun...

Needless to say, the annual catalog's offerings for N Scale 'Thomas' are very disappointing... I don't entirely understand why we couldn't have gotten some Open Wagon or Tank Car recolors for N Scale instead of the Narrow Gauge Slate Wagon recolors in HO... The HO Narrow Gauge line is already plagued with a backlog of wagons in the development pipeline, meanwhile the N Scale line is fully up-to-date in terms of wagon releases.

It feels like Bachmann have misplaced their priorities... That said I think it is a good idea for them to not bother with any new tooling in the catalog this year... And, I don't doubt NMRA will yield better developments, given track record of the past few years... But the lack of updates in this catalog seems to me like a major hit to the forward momentum built up by the last two years of announcements.