My Climax came with the adapter board in the parts bag while the "dummy" board was already plugged into the mother board. My R/C Battery conversion allowed me to leave all of that intact so that all I really had to do was remove the track pickups from the trucks, add on-off switch, fuse, charging jack and then connect my receiver board power to the mother board. Still a tight fit adding yet another circuit board under the oil lid. The batteries, which are 14.4 vdc 4000 mAh and only 1.5 x 1.5 x 2.8 inches are for a robot vacuum cleaner. Only place I could reasonably fit them was standing behind the backhead between the engineer and the fireman. I wrapped them in black electrical tape and now they are practically invisible in that location, yet still easily accessible!

I suggest that Bachmann retire their Beau model & replace it with an HO Nia.

Gordon & Henry will likely be retooled & shipped in 2029, whereas James & Edward will be retooled & shipped in 2028. I know what you're all thinking..."Why does Edward even deserve to be retooled? His HO model is perfect the way it is." HELLOOOO!!!! Edward has to match his CGI counterpart!

Quote from: DustyMarie53! on August 04, 2026, 02:21:30 PMI'm in agreement with Chaz. The coal car inclusions are bizarre especially since the sodor coal one was discontinued in HO this year, surely the generic green would be better?

Engines make sense, hope we see edward in winter.

Narrow gauge is the thing really throwing me for a loop. The lack of a new engine makes me wonder if they're waiting for the market to be better to drop right into Duncan. I wouldn't complain about this outcome but do want to see Luke

I'm on the edge of my seat for the next loco in narrow gauge. I'd assume they're just waiting to figure out their solution for their "best of both worlds" Duncan. I do hope we get Luke at some point as well as Victor. Victor is also a prime candidate for a repaint, but I don't know how many yellow NG engines Bachmann wants to put out there.

Of course I'd love Millie, but she's low on my list unless Bachmann brings out Stephen.

At this point, I would say if they were able to make an investment, and just like Henrietta and Hannah in Large Scale, they could very well dabble in doing Norman and Dennis as new toolings. HOWEVER, there's some factors to consider: considering that Dennis himself hasn't shown up past a cameo appearance in TGD, it'll be something Bachmann would have to think long and hard about because Norman, while relevant thanks to the CGI era, is also different in not only paintwork, but also his detailing like his face and buffers. Just like Diesel and Paxton, they'd have to create Dennis after Norman since he's the one that showed up more than Dennis, as well as them referencing CGI-based renders, in which Dennis's face would be completely different in size. HOWEVER, if they do say "ehhh screw it" and just slap Dennis's face onto the CGI model of Norman, I wouldn't be too surprised. Plus it'll somehow tie Dennis into the lore of being "Norman's Twin" only heard from magazines or something like that. I think this is where the dillema is the same for Splodge: is it worth it? 

BB1, if you go to the Bachmann Parts/Support section, in the N scale section and look under Gas Mechanical, you will find a document for the the Doodlebug called the Locomotive Chassis or something similar. On that drawing in the lower left corner you will see that that PCB (Printed Circuit Board) contains an 8-pin jack that is currently jumpered for DC operation. Remove the jumpers (perhaps take a picture for future reference) and insert the plug from the Digitrax decoder and you should be all set. If you go to Digitrax's website and use their decoder selector, they will show you which decoders will fit your application.

Here's a link to the document:
https://shop.bachmanntrains.com/documents/N_Doodlebug.chassis.pdf

Hope this helps.

I've got a 44 Tonner, and it has broken gears on the drive axles. Replacements for my model are made of unbotainium apparently. Repacement listed in the parts section have bushings on the axle, which mine does not. Does anyone know if the axle set is the same other than the bushings? And, does anyone know of someone who has 3d printed replacements for older 44 Tonners? I saw a repair here where someone put sleeves over the edge of the gear to strengthen it. I'm going to try that and see what  happens. JUst looking for other options.

After Diesel 10, the next new tooling for HO Scale could be Harvey, Norman, Whiff, or Hiro. We can now safely say that Harvey is definitely possible for HO Scale, and will be in many wishlists. His crane is not as complicated as the claw on Diesel 10. Just swivel 360 degrees, and turn the cogwheel to raise and lower the hook.

I'm sure Norman would be worth the tooling investment since there's also Dennis, another engine that can be made from the same tooling. Two engines, one tooling. Bachmann likes models whose tooling can be used more than once. Dennis would appeal more to model series fans. Norman would basically get his third ever piece of merchandise. He may not have had that many speaking roles, but at least he's a CGI character.

With all the sweets-themed rolling stock, we could get Chocolate Covered Percy with the retooled model.

Percy will go from being the worst model in HO Scale, to one of the best. I never owned the original HO Scale Percy model, and it doesn't look like it's worth it at this point.

Thomas won't look so weird next to Ryan, or other recent models anymore.

It's possible we may see Gordon and Henry get updated as well, with them getting thinner side rods, CGI faces, black dummy couplings and pony trucks, and correct tender height, especially for Henry.

Quote from: RailsByRick on August 04, 2026, 09:13:47 PMThanks for bringing this up. It's one of those things that once you see it you can't unsee it. I hope Bachmann keep this in mind in the design process.

And just to piggyback- some more accurate wheels for Thomas and Percy would be much appreciated. The Edward driving wheels I'd say are acceptable for Thomas, but Percy needs newly tooled wheels to be accurate. Percy's wheels lacked the counterweight in CGI. This detail was also reflected on the N scale model.

Percy's drive wheels having counter-weights is a detail I would not mind seeing Bachmann deviate from, since they're usually very faithful to the CGI models. Percy's CGI model only doesn't have counter-weights because Nitrogen based it on one of his duplicates from the model era that erroneously excluded them.