So with the recent store closures of Hattons UK and ModelTrainStuff, I wanna ask if you guys think the hobby is dying or not.

I never had much history with Hattons, but I bought from ModelTrainStuff for years until they made a lot of changes, such as adding taxes and when they closed their reward system late last month. Then I found out about their closures from instagram.

What do you guys think?

I don't think I see any threads about this person on the forums aside from a few mentions. But after seeing the gap between 2002 to 2005 from Bachmann's range, I thought on making this.

For those who don't know, Captain Punjab is a user on who made this fanmade Thomas series on Sodor Island Fansite at first, but then posted it on YouTube after the series ended in 2006. It was made using mostly the Bachmann Thomas range that was out at the time (which is Thomas, Percy, James, Annie and Clarabel) and did a comedic take of the characters. Now I don't know if there was another fan series that existed before, but as Diesel puts it "Very revolutionary" as it was the first one to made for the public back in the early days when the fandom was new. As I said in another post, I was aware of the Bachmann Thomas range, but didn't care or know much about it until I discovered SIF and that series in particular. It was kinda thanks to that I was kinda interested in that range. But it wasn't until much later in late 2007 that after seeing other similar series that were inspired by that guy that convinced me to buy some to get into the hobby.

So what happened to the guy? Well, the series was in a hiatus for a while until around 2012/2013 that there was gonna be another series that he made some music pieces and even showed a clip of a behind the scenes that he was planning to do, that was scrapped and the behind the scenes video was either removed or privated. The only evidence that was left is the music pieces he created. He is involved with something else, but when I mentioned it online, he told me to remove on what he worked on as he doesn't want me to ruin his reputation on bringing that series in attention to his current career. Still you have to credit him for help inspire many people to make their own fan series.

However, one question that still lingers into mind is this; do you think Captain Punjab may've help bring the Bachmann range more attention on making more models? Because between the time the line was launched and 2005, there were no new products for a while. Then 2005 happened and Bachmann announced new products, which is around the time Captain Punjab was working on the series. So I kinda wonder if someone at Bachmann saw his content and was motivated to make more products?

So I got two of the original flatbeds with the paint drums, but the problem is that the last one I got had some scrapes on the barrels and I can't find another one without spending almost my wallet. So I wanna ask anybody if there's any decent barrel drums I can find online, on any site?

I tried looking at shapeways, but I don't know if any of them are small like the original barrels. I know that the load has 3X9 barrels and 2X6 barrels. If anybody can help me, let me know.

So I decided to get Mavis as my last engine at the moment and she runs well. However, I noticed that the pupils on the release I got her from are a bit smaller.

Here's the one I had for a while before I sold her.


And here's the Mavis I got yesterday.


I got her in the 2011 packaging, and SamsTrains on YouTube had the same Mavis with the smaller pupils. Then I saw they released her with the 2020 redesign packaging on ebay and saw that Bachmann changed the size of the pupils back to how they were before. I wonder why Bachmann changed her pupils between 2011 and 2020?



And no, I'm not upset about it (though I did wish I had her with the regular pupils), just wanna know why this happen.

So I bought Knapford a few months ago and I kept the platforms the same for a while as I don't want to take it apart as I don't want it to break. But my grandparents wanted me to put my trains away for a while due to space. So I decided to try taking apart, and my fear was true as one of the beams snapped off.

And because it's discontinued, what should I do?

Due to recent events, I thought on rebuilding my Bachmann Thomas items either I had before or didn't own. One of the items I thought on hunting down is the Flat Car with Paint Drums, which appeared in the first special "Calling All Engines".

I was lucky to find one for $30. Even though I'm happy on getting one, I'm kinda hunting for a second one. I know that they brought the flatbeds back last year, but I wanna get the plain ones. 1, because they don't have the logo. But the main reason is because in the learning segment, there was a part where Percy and Mavis were taking a load.

If Bachmann plan on bringing this item back, I would be happy to get it.

So right now I'm just looking to see if anybody has this, even if it's just second hand. The problem is how hard it is to find it. Other than ebay, I tried various sites that are still active (similar to how I'm hunting down the Tidmouth Sheds to resell), and some of them said that they don't have it in stock anymore. There were two listings on May, but they went for just about $200 and I find that a bit too steep. If anybody can help me on tracking it down, please let me know.

So after hearing Bachmann was gonna discontinued some items from their catalog, I decided to save some money to get whatever Thomas buildings were gonna be off the market. I got so far 2 Knapfords and a Tidmouth Sheds (I wasn't planning to get one, but figured so after getting it for a decent price off from a retailer.


That last building I need to get was Maithwaite. So I got it from HobbyInc, but I saw that the box had a wet stain all over it. At first I thought it would be just the box, but I saw that there was a wet stain on the bottom of the platform. Not only that, but part of the fence on broken off.

I decided to look it up on their return policy, but I saw on their policy and I'm unsure if they could replace it with another one or not. https://www.hobbylinc.com/returns-policy

So what should I do, return it or just sell it on ebay?

So I won an auction on a Bachmann Plus item for a cheap price and wanna resell it on my store, but I just wanna ask some people who had this item some questions.

1. When was this released and discontinued?

2. What features does it come with, and can it run on regular DC track?

So I got myself some paint to fix up the eyes on Oliver, but I also accidentally scraped his left eyebrow and I need help on how to fix it.


Should I just wait for Bachmann to reopen and see if they can replace it?

So with the virus outbreak happening, I thought on this thread on where you guys get your engines and rolling stock. I'll start off.

When I first got into the range, my parents used to get the stuff from a site called Boscov's (a retailer in the New England area) and they would often buy certain engines or sets. Mainly to get advantage of the free shipping whenever my mom wants to get something there. The only issue with the site is that they only have certain engines and not any of the ones I would've wanted at the time (The only engines they had were Thomas, Percy, Toby, Emily and Spencer), so I'm kinda limited about it. I know there's other sites at the time, but I was only a minor at the time and can't use money to buy unless my parents accepted it. I don't use that site anymore as they hardly have anything related to either Bachmann or the Thomas franchise.

Nowadays, I get my engines from legit retailers like Amazon as I like to take advantage on the warranty repairs incase something happens with the engines. The only times I use ebay is either discontinued engines or rolling stock.

I got Oliver, but his right pupil has a scratch of paint and I just wanna know what's the best way to fix it? I did thought on sending him to the department to fix, but I don't want to keep sending my engines to there. Plus their shipping department is closed for the rest of the month.

I'm not very happy at the moment as both the Ironworks Twins I got for Christmas (Arry and Bert) have faults in them recently and I don't know if it's just the fault with the toy or if it's from the retailer I got them from. I got them mainly due to the fact that Bachmann were gonna discontinue them and I figure getting them before they're gone, as I wanted to avoid the Salty dilemma.

I bought them from ModelTrainStuff as they had a Black Friday sale and got them a week later due to a backlog the store was having. I got both them within, but I got issues with Arry as he doesn't run the same as Bert. Mainly that unless he's going at high speeds, if he goes in a slow speed, he somewhat jitters. I tried him out on Bachmann and Hornby tracks, and he still has the same issue. I sent Arry to Bachmann a few weeks ago, but they didn't fix the problem as I still experience the same problem as before.

Then just recently when I was playing with Bert, he suddenly stopped. I never did anything bad with them, as I only play the toys at least a few times a month as I don't want to wear them out.

So I'm not happy at Bachmann as they didn't fix the issue with Arry, and also at ModelTrainStuff as they gave me faulty versions of the two characters. Because of what happened to Arry, I decided to waste money on getting duplicates just in case

I don't know, maybe I just have bad luck getting these two at the wrong time.

So I got both Arry and Bert from ModelTrainStuff and they both run differently when I start them on a slow speed. Bert runs normally, but Arry has some sort of a jump start. Like he runs, but there's a millisecond of a pause when he goes. I know twins in real life are different, but I'm kinda worried about it as I don't know if he'll run good for a long time, and because of how Bachmann is gonna stop making them, I don't know if I should get another one just in case.

So you think it's because Arry may've been bumped, or it's just how the motors are designed differently? Because there were tiny bits of paint chipped off of Arry when I got him, so I don't know if he may've got bumped and that might explain why he runs differently.

12/14/2019 Update:
So last night and this morning, I decided to clean out the tracks to see if that would fix it, but that didn't work. Then a user on discord told me to run the train at least an hour as it may've not stretch their wheels, but that didn't work either.

What do you guys think I should do; get him fix or get another Arry from a different site?

So I don't know if anybody made a similar post here or not, but I wanna start on the topic on how any of you got into the range, or just the hobby in general. I'll start with my story.

Exposure
I was into model trains at a very young age thanks to my parents getting me tapes about the hobby and wanted to try it out myself (eg. I Love Toy Trains), but my family never had the income for it. In fact, I remember when I was 3-4 years old that my parents were in a hobby store and there was a big Lionel Thomas set that I wanted it, but my parents didn't want to get it.

I may've first heard of the Bachmann Thomas range when I was in the fourth grade after one of my siblings got a Thomas magazine that showed some products such as Tomy and Wooden Railway, and I thought the Bachmann looked good but I wasn't into Thomas that much at the time. But what got me into it was during 2005 after looking at Sodor Island Fansite's content about Thomas and that was when I saw CaptainPunjab's "Thomas the Bachmann Model" series. Then again in the summer of 2007 after I got my interest of Thomas back that I saw more content using the Bachmann range and later found out about Hornby as well, thanks to the likes of DaWillstanator (when he used to be in the fandom), Trainboy7, HenryBlue and Dan Snell. It was on Christmas that year that I wanted a Bachmann Thomas set to start out, so my mom bought a basic circle set that comes with Thomas and his two coaches and also got Percy and two wagons to go along and I enjoyed playing with the train set a lot. What I didn't expect was how small they were considering I'm more used to the larger scale trains I've seen at stores and videos. Throughout the next few years I expanded some of my fleet of engines and rolling stock and enjoyed playing with them.

Decline and Re-entrance
But sadly my interest of the hobby didn't last that long for a while. It happened once the 2010s started when things went a bit sour for my family and because of it, I never had time playing with the trains like I used to and we had to put them away in storage. And because my family moved so much that I have a feeling the models (at least the engines) probably don't work as they used to. So how I got back into the hobby recently? Well, you can thank James May for that, as I watched an episode of "The Reassembler" where he took apart his Flying Scotsman model and fix it up that I was interested in the hobby again. Plus because I have some disposable income from the online tasks I do on some gig sites that I wanted to buy a HO/OO train set for my birthday.  I decided to start out getting a Hornby Flying Scotsman set before I can get into the Thomas range again. It feels good going back into the hobby, though I wish I wasn't gone that long due to the fact some of the engines are discounted during my absence.

So I got back into model trains a few months ago and I was kinda curious about getting Salty since he's one of my favorite characters. Unfortunately, I heard that Bachmann stopped him a few years ago and I can't seem to find him or the set he came with anywhere. There was one site called InternetHobbies that still has the set, but I heard some bad stuff about them and I don't know if I should risk spending money on them or not. (Update, I contacted them and they said they don't have the item anymore. At least people who have an issue with the site know they contacted me)

I personally don't know why they stopped making him considering he's still in the show. Now I wish I got him before they discontinued him. I felt like I came back into the hobby at the wrong time.