One of my local stockists has a good load of Bachmann GP38’s in stock and their certainly cheap although probebly for a reason!
One of which is below.
http://www.ehattons.com/StockDetail.aspx?sid=18401
Are the Bachmann diesels any good?
One thing that puts me off is the lack of ploughs and any brake pipes on the ends.
These are the regular bachmann units. I’ve only run one in my lifetime at a hobby store (a switcher) and it ran decently, but it wasn’t all that detailed. It all depends what you’re looking for. Obviously if you want DCC equipped locos with budget in mind, go with these, because it saves aggrivation and cost of adding a decoder. As for freight cars, I think they have regular and their silver series line. You’ll have to be more specific as to which line.
I run a lot of the Silver Series line and love them.They roll as good as any other car I have (including Atlas) If I have a choice I will But the Silver Series over any other brand. You might want to change the couplers when they start giving trouble. I for one am sold on them.
As for the diesel Locos, They are worth what you pay for them, They do not run as good as a P2K but they are a lot less expensive. Just my opinion, Mike
I saw some of these at a train show recently. Your pictures actually look better on line than they did at the train show. I passed them up because I thought they didn’t look very good. But hey, for 30 bucks…who cares? Especially if its a specific loco you’re after.
I have several of these loco’s, a GP40, a GP50 and a GP35. While not greatly detailed, they are decent runners and can be converted to DCC very easily with a NCE single function board. You can also get them with DCC already on board for about 50 bucks.
at our annual show that we have at the new york state fairgrounds…there was a vendor there selling dcc equipped diesels from bachmann for $30.00 flat…although i was a bit skeptical at first…i purchased 2 prr gp50’s…i gotta tell you this…from a performance point of view i will put these up against my atlas or proto 1000’s…any day…they run flawless…pull a ton of rolling stock…and i am even able to program some cv’s…they do lack in some simple details…but for thirty bucks i couldn’t complain…with some simple additions of some details and some weathering…whos gunna now???
i have 2 of the standard gp 40’s and one run’s excellent even without flywheel’s.the other loco run’s like crap and since i don’t have any spare bachmann part’s i can’t fix it myself as it’s out of warranty.they are very quiet and pull exceptionally well.terry…
I got to give a two thumbs up and “bang for buck” award for the silver series rolling stock. I like them, however, I’m still new and can not say how they will hold up. One other good thing is for me, I would rather learn to weather and paint on a $10 car rather than a $30… I’ve also had good luck with the Athern brand when on sale.
Can’t comment on the Loco’s
I have 12 of the Bachmann regular line diesels. All of mine were purchased new and came DCC equipped and have been bought within the last year.
As others have said, they lack in the detail department but for the price you pay $30. US they are the best bang for the buck.
I have only had one that I sent back because it was loud. They sent a new replacement within 2 weeks.
As far as how they run I can get mine to crawl extremely slow even though they do not have flywheels.
Their Silver line of rolling stock look fairly good to me and roll better than some Athearn cars I have. They come with Bachmann EZ Mate couplers but they are the cheap ones. They can be changed over to Kadees when and if they start giving you any problem. So far I have not had any problems with them. The most I paid for one is $9. US.
Give them a try you won’t be dissapointed.
Bill
Thanks for the feedback guys its certainly food for thought.
These are certainly value for money, directional lights and an all axle flywheel drive with a decoder for nearly half the money of alot of the U.K engines. Ive got a roster including P2K, Atlas, Athearn and soon to be joined by a T55 AC4400. Over in the U.K, these are abit more expensive than U.K outline diesels but their generaly better qaulity than alot of U.K based locomotives, ie, they’ve only just started to factory fit sound to U.K outline stuff here and all axle drive with flywheels has only been here for about 5-7 years! Some stuff is still sold without lights and a crude pancake motor on one truck! (in their defence, probebly aimed at the trainset market).
Anyway, back to the model in question. Its certainly very cheap, so you pays ya money and takes ya choice. I do have one of their NS GP50’s although i hav’nt run it yet. The only minor negative is the lack of brake/train pipes and no ploughs on the ends. If i could find these somewhere, it would finish it nicely.