12 Ton Van Thread

[Toad139]

I know that the new announcements came out quite a while ago at this point, but I have been wanting to give my thoughts on the HO scale 12 Ton vans, especially because I feel they were a bit overshadowed by some of the other products Bachmann announced. Understandably, most people were more excited by new characters over some basic rolling stock, but as someone who is really interested in the different types of rolling stock seen throughout the show, these wagons being made in HO is a dream come true.

This was the part where I was going to go into great detail about the history of these wagons on the show, but I realized that unless you are obsessed with minor rolling stock details like me, it probably wasn't very engaging. So instead I will give a very brief overview.

Some people may not even realize this, but the new 12 Ton Vans are going to be new tooling when compared to the existing vent vans. The HO vent vans are based on 12 Ton GWR vent vans, and while this vans did exist on the show, they were not as common as some other wagons. However, this new vans will be based on LNER 12 ton vans, just like the G and N Scale models.

The 12 Ton LNER vans first appeared in the Series 2, four of them were made for the show using Tenmille kits. In Series 7, many more were made, this time they were scratch built resin models. These new models would become the de facto vent van seen until the end of the HiT era. When the show went to CGI, the LNER vans would also be the only vent van model to survive the switchover, making them the sole vent van representation until the end of the series.





I have always wanted these wagons in HO, especially after they came to the G and N scale ranges. They were much more prevalent in the show when compared to the GWR 12 ton vent van model the HO scale had. However, I figured Bachmann would never go out of their way to introduce a new tooling when they could continue simply repainting what they already had, and I am very glad to have been proven wrong on that.

All this being said, there is a reason I find the Bachmann iteration of these vans to be so interesting, and that is the fact they are based on their model series counterparts, despite these vans being so prominent in CGI. This can easily be recognized by their vent sizes. Both the G and N scale models have small raised vents, a feature that was only seen on the Series 7 models. When Nitrogen modeled these wagons in CGI, they actually used an original Tenmille model as reference, meaning that it has a larger vent on each end. Even the colors of the original three vent vans introduced in G scale were based on the three colors the Series 7 vans were painted(Grey, Green, and Brown).





I find it very interesting that Bachmann is still able to use model series reference sheets when it comes to rolling stock. Although a CGI image was used for the promo in the announcement, Doug Blaine said that these wagons will be the exact same wagons seen in G and N scale ranges, just scaled to HO. This makes me hopeful that the same references are being used.

I personally really want the smaller vent variant to be made, because I feel I would give Bachmann the perfect opportunity to make a new Troublesome Truck in the future. Although crew members on the show have never outright stated it, many believe the Series 7 vans were given the modified vents in order to fit the large scale troublesome truck faces, which could not fit on the original models. Unfortunately, this never got to happen on screen due to the HiT Entertainment takeover. Some of those faces are iconic, and would make for a great troublesome truck. To me, this wagon would be the best way to make use of one of those faces. 







Here are some recent photos of the props, showing what a troublesome 12 Ton Van could look like, and some other potential faces. Although, it is worth noting that the specific reference sheet I posted does not contain every large scale van face on it. 

I would love to hear what other people think about these new wagons. I enjoy getting an excuse to talk about stuff like this, so hopefully some of you found my discussion of rolling stock interesting.

Also, I would like to shout out @LewRaccoon on Twitter for most of the photos.

[Awesometrain77]

12 tons vans are cool I plan on buying a few such as the mr.jolly chocolate vans , or the funfair ones that are announced , maybe one or two blue ones for the flying kipper. These are really cool and underrated .

I hope they make more of these maybe a brown one with the iconic face 26 on the reference sheet it's a funny face and has done so much in the show from bullying  Oliver to yelling Henry's spooked . THIS SHOULD 110% be troublesome truck number 8 . It would also have no vents .


I also want them to  bring back the ice cream vans I would for sure buy them . As G and N has them but no HO why did they retire them I hope they bring back the OG Bachmann 12 ton van .

[Toad139]

12 tons vans are cool I plan on buying a few such as the mr.jolly chocolate vans , or the funfair ones that are announced , maybe one or two blue ones for the flying kipper. These are really cool and underrated .

I'm excited for the chocolate and Brendam Bay Shipping Company vans as well, however, those are actually based on the existing vent van tooling, not the new 12 ton wagon tooling. I don't think many people even realized the 12 ton vans are going to be completely different models. I edited the post to hopefully make this a bit more clear.

[Chaz]

I'm definitely a fan of the newly announced 12 ton vans, especially because they are likely going to be new toolings.  I've always liked the vans in N and large scale, so it'll be nice to see a similar equivalent to that with HO with some liveries and decals that were not present in any of the other scales prior.

In terms of Troublesome Truck #7, while I wouldn't rule out the 12 ton van being the the tooling they use, I do think a model era face would be nice.  Not only are model era faces more expressive but they're also more distinctive from each other.  The CGI faces all look almost exactly the same from each other, with even more minor differences. 

While I do think them going the CGI route is inevitable, I feel that the faces that were shared earlier are much better candidates.  Given that Mattel seems to care more for CGI designs as of late though, I'm not going to get my hopes up. 

Then again, if Mattel approved a season 4 face on one of the Trackmaster toys a few years ago, then what do I know.  I'd love to be proven wrong.

[Awesometrain77]

The CGI mandate makes no sense since the show ended 3 years ago and Mattel is marketing something that Bachmann will never touch

[TerencetheTractor525]

Thanks for taking the time to start this thread, Toad139. The 12 Ton Van tooling from the large scale line entering HO was certainly one of the highlights from this summer's new product announcement, and definitely deserves its own thread. With that, I wanted to take the opportunity to mention some additional product suggestions with this tooling for the future.

One right off the bat is a reintroduction of the Ice Cream Wagon. Just for some context, the original release of the HO Ice Cream Wagon used a single vent tooling. However, the tooling as a whole was inaccurate to what was seen on screen, given its detailing and rather flat roof, verses the rounder roof as seen on the large scale van tooling and prop from the show. Hence, I would love to see a rerelease of this piece of rolling stock, using the more accurate 12 Ton Van tooling that will be used for the upcoming van releases from this past summer.





Another variant of this van I would love to see, which others have already mentioned is another troublesome truck, namely Troublesome Truck #7. Troublesome Vans were often featured during the television series and the new 12 Ton Van would be the perfect tooling to accomplish a Bachmann model. That being stated, for it to be very well received from fans, I highly encourage going with a model era face. As others have stated, the CGI Troublesome Truck faces truthfully aren't as interesting, and I know several fans, including myself, were somewhat disappointed with the outcome of Troublesome Truck #6 for this reason. These are the faces I would highly recommend:




Furthermore, as Chaz mentioned, let's remember that Mattel recently produced a trackmaster pack that included a tanker with model era face, which is baffling, considering one would expect them to use a CGI face for that. Thus, I have zero doubt that a model era face could be a possibility for a Bachmann troublesome truck as well. The most important thing will be to not resort to the first image that pops up on the wiki, as that first image is not technically the most well received from fans.




Lastly, I would not mind seeing additional simple paint schemes of this van. As a matter of fact, I was surprised to see a simple gray variant get announced. Hence, why not announce a red oxide variant to go with it? Simple, yet effective

Altogether, I am very excited about the new 12 Ton Van tooling finally entering the HO line after years of hope, and I look forward to hearing additional thoughts on this new tooling.

[Awesometrain77]

After a long time of looking at these vans Bachmann has yet to make a fireworks van - they make the explosives vans but no fireworks van
Ice cream van rerelease - a new n scale release but the HO one is retired for some reason Bachmann please bring this back .
Lei is a Chinese van who could be seen not as troublesome truck 7 but a release sorta like scruffy I guess .

I also think Troublsome truck 7 needs to be a van prob a brown or orange one

[Awesometrain77]

Well, we saw that 12 ton new tooling look nice