Quote from: TrainFan97 on August 28, 2023, 02:48:47 PMIf Sidney can't happen in HO Scale because of the eye mechanism, he could be announced for N Scale and Large Scale instead. It's been several years since Paxton first came to HO Scale, and still no sign of Sidney on the cards for any scale. N Scale would especially be easy for him, since the eye mechanism isn't an issue. With that, Sidney could become the first character in N Scale that doesn't already exist in HO Scale. Hope he could be announced with N Scale Henry in the 2024 catalog. As for 'Arry and Bert in N Scale, they would need distinctive and malicious faces, so they'd sell better in N Scale than they did in HO Scale.

Honestly, I feel like it would probably be best for the line if they were able to knock out Edward and Henry before adding more Class 08 recolors, and even then, I'd hope for at least one side character who's more unique (like Duck or Mavis) before adding Sidney/Arry & Bert as well.

Thinking about it, the N scale range might be forming a bit of a pattern as well. It started out with 3 complex tooling locomotives (Thomas, Percy, & James) before landing on a simpler project (Toby). Next, they announced Emily & Gordon back to back in a surprisingly short time of 6 months, then announced a simpler tooling Class 08 with two character options (Diesel & Paxton). If the pattern could continue, we might see Henry, who already technically has a chassis design finished (since they'd likely reuse Gordon's), and Edward. Bachmann has seemed to be able to get N Scale stuff out pretty quickly so far (other than James, who had to contend with Covid and the shipping mishap), so assuming Diesel and Paxton are able to progress quickly as well, I think we could potentially see Edward and Henry both announced within the next year and a half. Afterwards, Bachmann could look into other side characters, such as Duck, Sidney, or Mavis.

Other than that, I think some plain(ish) freight rolling stock options would also help diversify the range. I'm genuinely surprised that we haven't seen a single non-troublesome variant of the 7-Plank Wagon tooling, so I'd suggest adding the Red Open Wagon and Green Open Wagon w/ Coal Load. Next, I'd hope that Bachmann could add the Milk Tanker and Tar Tanker, since they were the two tankers that have been in the show since Series 1 and have both been in the HO and Large Scale ranges. It would also be nice if we could get the Grey 12t Box Van that was just announced for HO as well, because that's a nice variant that was seen in the show, especially in the CGI era that the N Scale range is based on.

I think that Edward, Henry, and the rolling stock mentioned above could be pretty reasonable announcements for Bachmann to focus on in the N Scale range over the next 2 years or so, because we'd be able to get the rest of the Steam Team and some much needed freight stock out of it. What do you guys think?

Yeah, I think we'll get new announcements at the NMRA show this upcoming weekend.

Chaz, the new vans look great, and I can't wait to see how you modify your engines!

I suppose I should share a little more about my Thomas model. I've been trying to make him look more accurate to how he did in Series 1, as opposed to the CGI model. Other than the face, the biggest thing that needed addressing was the design of his running plate. The CGI model (and by extension, the Bachmann model) has a very blocky running plate design with very short cab steps, compared to the original design.





To change this, I designed a new running plate in Tinkercad, using Bachmann's version as a guide to make sure it would still fit Thomas' mechanism and bodyshell. After that, I was able to get it printed in resin, along with a few faces from Series 1.











The new running plate uses the buffers, rear coupling hook, lamp and lamp irons from the Bachmann one, but I chose Graham Farish vacuum pipes and coupling hook for the front, since my design didn't have the cut out for the coupling hook.
I also modified a snowplough design by @lbscthomas on twitter to suit the Bachmann N Scale model. This arrived today, and I was a bit worried about if it would fit with the bigger vacuum pipe, but it slots onto the buffers perfectly, which is really nice!



As it stands, this is where my project currently is. I need to do some final painting and repainting (trying to get a smoother finish overall), as well as adding some lining on the back of Thomas' bunker, but I am pretty happy with how he has turned out so far! I'll definitely try to update you guys once he's actually finished, and I'm also really excited to see how Gordon turned out! Hopefully we'll also get some new announcements soon, too.

Just to add to this, the Bachmann Web Store is having a Father's Day Sale where you get 25% off and free shipping in the U.S., which would mean you could get the vans and Brake Vans for around as cheap as you could from other model stores, if you don't want to wait for them to show up there to buy them.

I got my model of Toby yesterday, and I've really been enjoying him so far! He runs really smoothly at fast and slow speeds, and I love the way that his wood planking looks! Here's a few photos of him with my Thomas model, which is still a work in progress.








After Toby, I'm definitely looking forward to how Emily and Gordon turn out, and hopefully we'll see Henry and Edward get announced within the next couple of years!

The Bachmann UK Website gives an estimate of April/May, so I'd imagine it would probably be around that time frame for the US as well.

I've been asked, so I'll put my predictions in last minute. But first, let's take a bit of a walk on what Bachmann still has on the back-burner for each scale (yeah, I may have been keeping a list).
HO Scale
Ryan (painted sample)
Salty (painted sample)
Beau
Rebecca
DCC Sound Thomas & Percy
Explosives Van (painted sample)
Chocolate Factory Van
Brendam Bay Van
Figure Packs

Narrow Gauge
Sir Handel
Brake Vans (Painted Sample)
Box Vans (Painted Sample)
BMQ High-Side Wagons
Gondolas

N Scale
Toby (painted sample)
Emily
Gordon
Emily's Coaches (unpainted sample)
Toad (unpainted sample)

Large Scale
Chocolate Van (painted sample)
Brendam Bay Van (painted sample)
Toby's Museum Coaches (painted sample)

These lists use information from the TrainWorld "Thomas Tuesdays" and Bachmann's Social Media posts, and I believe the list is up to date (feel free to let me know if I missed anything). I'll be partially basing my predictions off of this list, so here we go:

HO Scale
I'm honestly not sure what to expect here, especially since it has the largest backlog of unreleased products. It would be cool if they could announce a new engine, but I'm not really expecting one, at least for the February announcements. As far as rolling stock goes, I could see the Chocolate Factory Tanker and Toffee Tanker make the jump from Large Scale to HO. Other than that, maybe some more figure packs will be announced?

Narrow Gauge
I could possibly see Duncan getting announced soon, since it's been a year since they announced Sir Handel. As far as rolling stock goes, I'm not really expecting much for these announcements, but a Brown Brake Van & Box Van would be pretty easy recolors for them to do. As far as the future goes, it seems like Bachmann is pretty willing to do any narrow gauge stock (looking at the gondolas), so I'd definitely like to see Bachmann tackle the Brown and Grey Open Wagons from Series 4 in the same sort of style as the Box & Brake Vans at some point, along with some Talyllyn-style tipper wagons.

N Gauge
Henry has to be next; they've got his chassis design, and he's been just as requested as Gordon. I'm surprised they weren't announced together, to be honest. As far as rolling stock goes, I'm hoping for a Milk Tanker, the Red Open Wagon, Coal Wagon w/ Load (original version), maybe a Tar Tanker, and Express Coaches for Gordon. These would really help the range feel complete, and shouldn't be too difficult for them to do (they seem to be very quick with getting physical models in this scale).

Large Scale
Although I don't personally collect Large Scale, I do want to talk about it. Since everything unreleased has painted samples ready, the range is in the perfect spot to announce a new engine. I'm personally hoping for Edward or Mavis. As far as rolling stock goes, I'm not sure what we could see, but Bachmann seem to be good at finding recolors. It would also be cool to see a rerelease of Thomas' Snowplough.

Quote from: Terry Toenges on January 21, 2023, 01:12:24 AMHere's a pic of my Thomas Christmas train from last year.
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That's a very nice looking Christmas train! Great job!

Great to see the forum and some familiar people back online! It'll be great to talk about announcements and such again soon!

This is a great idea!

I honestly am not sure what direction HO Scale will take from now on, as I don't see much that they haven't done. I would like to see Stepney and BoCo, but, like everyone else, I don't expect them next year.

I've already gone into depth about what I'd like to see in N Scale: https://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,35036.msg277513.html#msg277513 so my thoughts will be brief. I 100% agree with TerencetheTractor525's ideas on the next rolling stock, those are probably the things the range is missing the most at the moment.

I would like to talk a bit more about narrow gauge, however.

Locomotives
I think that Sir Handel is the best choice for next engine.

He completes engines 1-5, and has the best render of the two classic characters left. I also really like him from a design standpoint, and think he would sell really well, just like Skarloey and Rheneas.

After Sir Handel, I believe there are two options for the next narrow gauge engine:




I feel like both Duncan and Luke have a great chance of being after Sir Handel. Duncan is a classic character (and one a lot of people love), but he doesn't really have a great render, and after how Rusty turned out, Duncan could be a turn-off for a lot of people if he matches his render. On the other hand, Luke has a great render, which matches the other engines' renders pretty well as far as detailing. As far as I know, Luke was also one of the more successful newbies as well, especially with Season 17, although I don't know how that would translate to sales, considering he's a CGI only character. He would also go great with Yellow Rheneas. To sum up, I think both are good characters to consider. I know that I would probably buy both, but both are gambles in their own right (Duncan's awful render/Luke's Miller-era debut).

With that, I have a question for you guys. If you knew for certain that Duncan would match his CGI render if he were made, would you prefer him over Luke, or would that be a deal breaker on a Duncan model?

Rolling Stock
As far as rolling stock goes, there are only a few things that I personally would want to see. First off, I think new, more accurate open wagons would be a great choice! I'm hoping that, if they do make new open wagons, they'll do what they did with the carriages, and release two different toolings. One for the Brown Open Wagon, as they were more common in Series 4, and the one that Chaz suggested, because that was also in series 4 (both can be seen in Skarloey's train). I feel like both would be nice as well, because Bachmann has had a fair focus on the classic series stuff alongside CGI stuff.


I also think that, for the Brown Brakevan to really make sense as a future release, having something that would fit with it's colors would make more sense than it by itself.

Another item of rolling stock I would like to see are the Blue Mountain Quarry trucks, fitting the slate theme, and with Yellow Rheneas and Luke (if he's announced).

If they were released, I'd hope that they would be in the darker variants of the green and red liveries. One plus is that they also have a real-life basis!

If all of these rolling stock options were released over the next few years, I would definitely look into purchasing 2-3 of each item.

I think that everyone's suggestions for the large scale stock are great.

I'm probably one of the few people who actually kind of likes Rheneas in yellow, but I think he looks great! I never would have asked for Bachmann to make him, but since he exists, I may have to purchase one one day.

Hopefully soon we'll be able to see a prototype for Peter Sam. As far as aesthetics go, the only thing I'm really hoping for is that Peter Sam's front bufferbeam is more accurate to Edward Thomas, and not the CGI model, so that his buffers will be at the correct height. As far as operation goes, I hope that his rear wheel will either pivot or move from side to side, so that he doesn't have the same design quirk as Skarloey where the middle wheel moved to either side. My Skarloey suffered in the pulling power department because of it.

Does anybody know if there were any updates on Thomas stuff in the presentation today?

I don't think it would be a good idea for them to make anything based off the reboot. It probably wouldn't sell, and would be a loss for them.

It's most of next week, and I think there might be Trainworld's Thomas Tuesday on top of that, unless it was canceled for the show. Either way, I think we'll know the announcements by Friday. That seems to be the day they're always announced.