Ok, a friend of mine told me that Bachmann was comming out with a new batch of Consolidations with sound. I looked on Bachmanns site and there wasnt a thing on it about uncomming releases. I then emailed them and got back a response that said that they would be releasing that info at a future event. Thats all. Does anyone know when approx. they are comming out with the new round of Spectrum Consolidations with sound?? Thanks
If Bachmann themselves can’t give you a definitive answer, how should anyone outside the company know any more???
Probably every new release from now on will at least have the option of sound & DCC…Even the newly released 45 ton switcher has provisions for a speaker ,so sound will probably be offered in the near future. Bachmann probably can’t set a date because they are made in China which makes shipping dates hard to predict. Most new products don’t show up until well after the announced release date anyway.
A feature that will price non-sound DC guys like me out of the new-locomotive market. I refuse to pay extra for functions that I’ll never use or could even prevent a loco from running at all on my layout unless I yank them.
Bachmann has always been tight lipped about future releases. The consolidation is definitely their most popular locomotive, so rest assured they are coming. They just won’t say when. The upcoming NMRA show is a likely date for announcements.
I wouldn’t worry too much about non-sound locos from Bachmann. They recently released the consolidation in their new “blue box” line. It includes a basic DCC decoder, but no sound unit. Street price is around $80. Sound-equipped will be in the traditional Spectrum line
Bachmann already offers the engine with ‘Sound Onboard’ - I suspect they will just be announcing re-runs of the same road names and maybe a few new one. The National Train Show in July may be the venue they make the announcement. The current engines have a modified Soundtraxx Tsunami decoder factory installed.
I see a comment about maybe only ‘DCC/Sound’ engines in the future. If the costs drop, that could be a real possibility. At least the decoder is able to run on straight DC and you can get the basic ‘sounds’ in DC mode. I have 10 ‘sound’ engines and they get lots of use. There are a numbe of ‘add-on’ power pack products that allow a DC user to access more of the sound functions.
Jim
All that means is that the locomotives don’t have to be modified to add sound to them…a location for a speaker is already provided. It doesn’t mean that there’s already a speaker or sound decoder installed. Several manufacturers are doing the same thing with their DC releases…the frames have a speaker PORT built into them so that if you wanted to, you could add your own.
I bounced this one off of a friend of mine who’s sister has a boy friend who has a cousin who’s brother has a girl friend who’s aunt has a brother-in-law who’s mother works for Bachmann and who doesn’t have the slightest idea but suspects it will be at the NTS at the Atlanta NMRA Convention in 2013!
I received my April issue of RMC just yesterday, and on the inside back cover is an ad for the HO scale Bachmann Consolidation. They’ve made it a part of their Standard Line, but it’s the same loco as the Spectrum version, but now comes with a dual mode NMRA-compliant DCC decoder with an eight pin plug. MRSP is $145.00.
I already have seven of the original version of this loco, and am generally of the same mind as mononguy63:
However, I also run DC, and if I ever needed another of these locos and couldn’t find a used one of the original version, I’d probably bite the bullet for a new one. Since the new ones have a dual mode decoder, they’ll run on a DC layout, but even the original DC versions run much better with the circuit board removed from the tender and those unwieldy plugs replaced with something more flexible.
Wayne
[(-D]
Obvious Man says go to the Bachmann forums and ask the Bachmann rep. He should know. It should be obvious. I watch the Bachmann site regularly.
Rich
Wayne, all the current Bachmann steam locos with DCC but no sound come with jumpers to allow removal of the decoder for better straight DC operation.
And, rather than removing the entire lighting board, if you simply remove the capacitors on that board that are across the motor leads the locos slow speed performance is greatly improved, the lighting still works as orginal and the locos run great. I have over 30 Spectrum steamers which I run on my Aristo Train Engineer DC wireless throttles with great results after these small changes.
The street prices of the DCC locos are about the same as the similar locos were when they were just DCC ready. Peach Creek Hobbies has those new 2-8-0’s for about $85.00.
I save up the decoders and sell them on Ebay, usually getting about $60 for a lot of 5.
Rather than change the plugs, add some weight to the tenders and on some models the drawbars can be easily modified to interfere less with the wires. The added weight will help a lot if you back long trains in addition to making the loco track better in reference to the wires.
Sheldon
Sheldon, I’ve added weight to all of my tenders, and even the shortened ones on my Consolidations tip the scales at over 6 ounces with the coal bunker only 3/4 full.
The plugs never caused any real problems as far as operation was concerned, but they were a real nuisance when you needed to separate the loco and tender. I make a point of removing the working lights on most of my locos, so the circuit board just takes up space that could be better used for extra weight or for the modelled coal bunker. As for simply removing the capacitors, I probably couldn’t tell a capacitor from a catheter. [(-D] You’re certainly correct about the low speed operation, but I’ve also noticed that throttle response is much more predictable with any of the various throttles which I use.
In addition to the simpler plug, I re-wired the locos so that they will also run without the tender connected, useful for testing when doing repairs or modifications. Some of mine had the tender trucks originally wired in reverse of the others, too, so not all tenders would work with all locos - this isn’t a problem when they’ve been put in-service with their respective numbers applied, but if you’re working on a bunch of unlettered ones at the same time and want to test run a loco, you had to hunt for the correct tender. [%-)]
Wayne