Bachmann Thomas & Friends in 2020

[Rodimus Supreme]

Well now that we got what we asked for next year here's my expects for 2021:

HO Scale
Ryan, Stanley or Sidney
Explosives Van

Narrow Gauge
Sir Handel
Green Narrow Gauge Coaches (The only rolling stocks I think of for narrow gauge)

Resin Buildings
Ffarquhar
The Watermill

There's also Brakevans for Narrow Gauge.

[TerencetheTractor525]

Well now that we got what we asked for next year here's my expects for 2021:

HO Scale
Ryan, Stanley or Sidney
Explosives Van

Narrow Gauge
Sir Handel
Green Narrow Gauge Coaches (The only rolling stocks I think of for narrow gauge)

Resin Buildings
Ffarquhar
The Watermill

Where's Stepney? 

[Chaz]

I'm thinking at this point with how long it will take Bachmann to release Peter Sam and Daisy, they probably will not introduce a new engine tooling for those ranges until they are released.  It's especially evident in the fact that Peter Sam got announced just two months after Rusty did.  So in some ways if it means waiting as long as we did for Oliver and Rusty to get two high quality models and future announcements like Stepney and Sir Handel, I say it's worth the wait.

The good news though is that now that the coaches are going to be released in November (or possibly December), I have a feeling that we could get some new narrow gauge rolling stock toolings in the next Toy Fair, considering the timeline between Rusty's release and Peter Sam's announcement.  So if the only narrow gauge announcement is just brake vans and everything else in HO is nothing but recolors then that is perfectly okay on my end.  We're clearly getting good quality products of things we have been requesting so I am more than okay with them keeping things minimal in Toy Fair 2020.

Of course I'm more curious what toolings they will use for narrow gauge brake vans if they get announced at the 2020 Toy Fair but that's a discussion for another day.

[TTL]

At most, I expect maybe a Narrow Gauge Brake van, maybe 2 variants but nothing more from the NG range in 2020

[Sodor Engineer]

I got some more ideas for Bachmann,
 HO SCALE
    Stepney,Sidney,Stanly,green Thomas and black James
    explosives van,HECTOR,flat beds
 N SCALE
   James
 narrow gauge
    Sir Handel
    brake vans and green coaches.

[Chaz]

All right, I might as well talk about what's probably the only thing I want in the Toy Fair 2020 announcements: Narrow gauge brake vans.

It's common knowledge that there are four liveries for narrow gauge brake vans on the show.  Red, blue, brown and gray.  But what is even more interesting is that there are two different options for toolings that Bachmann Trains could work with while making brake vans for the narrow gauge range. There are a number of different ways they can be pulled off, so, rather than just talking about each individual color, I am going to talk about the offerings with each of these brake vans.


The first and probably most obvious tooling I would expect them to go for is the Talyllyn Railway's tool van no. 6 design with added ticket windows to both sides of the van just like the show.


The television series has used all four liveries mentioned above with this basis.  Interestingly enough, only the brown one made it to CGI.

My only personal hope for if they use this tooling is that they actually do follow up with adding the ticket windows on both sides of the brake van to match television series accuracy and not go with the Talyllyn design and and darker brown livery for this one.  Especially because a lot of people do like the classic charm these would bring like how the blue narrow gauge coach did.


With the first tooling out of the way, it's time to talk about the second tooling which is the Talyllyn Railway #5 guards van.  

After seeing how the coaches turned out, it really would not surprise me to see this tooling make its way into the Bachmann range.  It would seem appropriate given how the red coach was basically a Talyllyn coach, a red brake van with this design would basically be a Talyllyn brake van.


Now seeing as how there is only a red one in CGI in this basis I figured I would just throw this one out there, but there is also a blue one they could potentially do to go along with the blue coach as well if they wished.


So for the big question.  What are the possibilities we are looking at?  Well here are a few I came up with that I would hope gets considered in the process if we are to get brown blue and red brake vans in narrow gauge (leaving out the gray one since I don't recall it being as popular as the other three):

Option 1: The simple and easy possibility is to do brown blue and red with the #6 tooling with added ticket windows earlier to match what's on the show and save Bachmann money and resources to just rely on one tooling.

Option 2: Making a brown brake van in the television series design and have the red and blue brake vans be the #5 tooling.

Option 3: Making the brown and blue brake vans with the television series design and only have the red brake van be the Talyllyn brake van #5 design.

Personally, I would be perfectly fine with either of these scenarios but I am more hopeful for options 1 and 3 for again the nostalgic reasons.  

Either way I would like to hear thoughts on these.  Which of the options that I mentioned earlier do you like the most?  Or do you have any other ideas?  What would you do differently?

[TerencetheTractor525]

As always, I enjoyed reading your thoughts very much, Chaz. There's no doubt that brake vans are the next thing that the Bachmann Thomas Narrow Gauge line needs. As for what they choose to base the brake vans on, I would personally prefer the original television series design from the model series, but Option #3 would be interesting to see too. The main thing that's important to me though is that the television series brake vans are shorter than the carriages.

[Angelob6660]

I like the brake vans with the ticket window being blue and red matching the carriages. While the brown one is use for freight service.

[Rodimus Supreme]

I prefer Option 1 because I just prefer Model series for designs that originated there. Although, I wouldn't mind Bachmann producing that red Brake van later on for use with the red coaches, as modelers who bought Skarloey to turn him into Tallyllyn would absolutely buy that up for use with their custom Tallyllyn model and unmodded Red Narrow Gauge Coaches on their layouts.

[Chaz]

Definitely interested in seeing these responses so far.  Hopefully Bachmann takes the suggestions into consideration if they decide to announce brake vans in the next Toy Fair.

[JLK2707]

What do you think the chances are of bachmann announcing Stepney?

[Sodor Engineer]

slim but let just hope.

[JLK2707]

So, in other words, just wishful thinking or optimism?

[Metal]

For NG rolling stock I was personally thinking about these

Regular Trucks/Narrow Gauge Open Wagons or however you like to call them.


As seen on the second half of Sir Handel's Train


As seen in CGI.


Even though they're generic wagons they would really help build NG goods trains.

I would happily welcome these.

What do you think?

[JLK2707]

I think that they just look great!