Answering my own question: Per Bachmann, the door does not open on that end of the car therefore, no steps are needed. Not sure if that's prototypically accurate but.....Case closed.

Quote from: [email protected] on January 28, 2026, 05:59:05 AMHave the ore load available outside the set is a great idea. It would save many fans bucks. Also, I would love to have loads added in the rolling stock section of the order parts section.

Releasing individual loads would be a great idea! We already see it with the standard model railroading market. It's also a great (and budget) way for collectors to get their hands on previously discontinued items, such as the Paint can wagon. With the diesel fuel flatwagon announced, maybe we can see the paint cans released separately so collectors can swap em out. Perhaps even timber loads to go with the logging company flatwagons.

Have the ore load available outside the set is a great idea. It would save many fans bucks. Also, I would love to have loads added in the rolling stock section of the order parts section.

One idea for a rolling stock in HO Scale is a red or a green mining wagon, but with an ore load, so that the ore load no longer has to be exclusive to the Deluxe Thomas set. The blue mining wagon that's still available has a coal load. I'd also like to see the dark gray van and the orange wagon with coal load from the cancelled 80th Anniversary set being released as separate products, since we are getting the brake van from it. Though we still don't have the Chocolate Syrup or Toffee Tankers in HO Scale yet. Many people would also like to see Gordon's Special Coaches.

The blue open wagon is coming to N Scale, which is discontinued in HO Scale. Maybe they'll also bring the orange Cargo Car (also discontinued in HO Scale), or the Coal Wagon w/ Load to N Scale as well. The latter has been in high demand for quite a while. We desperately need generic brake vans in N Scale. Other rolling stock that's very much possible in N Scale are the red branch line coaches, and red express coaches. If Spencer was to be announced for N Scale at some point, that will be when they'll have to bring the Special Coaches to N Scale as well.

At some point, Bachmann may end up discontinuing the N Scale tankers and create a whole new tanker tooling, which would be better-received, by better matching the tankers from the show. The tankers at the time had to be made from a Graham Farish tooling, and that was when the N Scale range was in its infancy. It kind of still is, but things are really starting to pick up with many products on the backburner. We should soon see the first samples of N Scale Diesel, Paxton and Henry. Once they're out, possibly by the end of this year, N Scale will really be picking up.

Maybe Bachmann wasn't ready to announce Luke for Narrow Gauge yet because they need to see if he's feasible first, to avoid another situation like Duncan. That begs the question. Who will be next for HO Scale once the backlog starts clearing? The most popular choices are Whiff, Norman and Hiro. If Flying Scotsman sells good, maybe Bachmann will look into finally announcing Hiro for HO Scale. Despite the inevitably high price, I can still see Flying Scotsman selling better than Rebecca, as he was in the Railway Series, one of those Awdry characters, and one of the most famous engines in real life. As for smaller engines like Whiff or Norman, perhaps Bachmann can look into how much their toolings would cost to see if it's feasible to get into production before announcing them. The current backlog should really start clearing by the end of this year. Sometime soon, we should finally see finished samples of Sidney and Mainland Diesel.

I've heard sometimes in the past if they can't repair they ship something else so call and be very direct.

Well I was up at 3 am and on the road at 4 am for work. Got a bit more debris made when I got home, and some more out of the grey wash. Will wait till I am rested before I start to add it to the layout.  This stuff may not end up at the refinery, but it will go somewhere.

I've had the DCC sound Thomas and Percy in my possession for over a month now, and I've had enough time to digest them and come up with a verdict.

I was pleased to discover that that they kept the added weights in Thomas much like his analog sound counterpart, and he's the smoothest running engine out of the two. Percy isn't nearly as heavy, but he still has some additional weight to him. I can't tell if it's from the speaker or not though. He's also a little bit more finicky than Thomas with his function responses, which I think can be chalked up to his short wheelbase.

Obviously, these both utilize the exact same soundfile used on the G scale variants. Bachmann confirmed this would be the case early last year. That's not much of an issue except that they didn't adjust the chuffs to match HO, which makes them severely out of sync with the wheels unlike the G scale ones. I plan on eventually going in and adjusting the CVs to fix this.

Overall though, these are fairly solid releases. And I do hope to see other engines in the line get the DCC treatment too.

Rebecca is nearly $500 here in Australia, Flying Scotsman is gonna cost an arm and a leg...

I welcome the response Bachmann has made to address the issues regarding productivity and canceled items. Had a feeling that's the reason for implementing the quarterly announcements to ensure that future cancellations will be avoided. Glad to learn the prices will be paired along with the item so that consumers will have an idea of the cost before any potential problems arise. Lastly, I'm happy that the delays in production has improved to ensure that they release in a timely manner. There's a chance that Flying Scotman's price will appear at some point within the next 6 months.

Quote from: Yard Master on January 27, 2026, 09:59:24 AMHi 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.

I'm very glad that you are going to break this habit on announcing certain products, only to be canceled at the last minute. I can understand Duncan, but after the 80th set and Knapford kits canceled, I was starting to lose hope. But at least you guys will promise to not announce anything until you are very sure it'll be something you'll commit to.