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Bachmann Trains announces new sales and marketing senior vp
Where is Lee Riley hiding? I hope Bachmann will improve the selection and quality of their starter sets in HO scale. Athearn and Tyco had better sets for the beginner in the early 60s! Two and three unit diesels for power and 7 or 8 freight cars were the norm!
Lower the prices too. A typical middle American earning the minimum wage or fiex income retirees can’t afford to model railroad in 2013!
Item: In 1961 I converted from Lionel 027 to HO with the Athearn Hustler freight set that included two cars, a caboose, and a circle of Atlas 18" radius curved track. MRC offered a small “king size box” power pack. For less than $25.00 retail, I was in HO!
Try that today. 52 years later the unrealistic over inflated retail prices demanded by the GREEDY manufacturers of imported HO trains have priced the hobby out of the hands of blue collar workers and retired senior citizens on fixed incomes like myself!
Japan’s Kato is the exception with high qualiy products at affordable pricing in HO and N scale. Thank you Mr. Kato!!!
I agree wholeheartedly with Joseph Toth!!
We’re being priced out of the hobby!! 
Yes, they’re smoother, yes they have sound… And ANYONE like me who hates wiring blocks LOVES DCC!!!
But there HAS to be a way. Athearn’s “value added” new corporate policy is out of touch with the blue collar base, or the fixed income guy (like me, injured in Desert Storm).
BRING BACK THE BLUE BOXES!!!
Give us the option! Still sell those high-priced gems, they’re awesome!
'ol Irv Athearn had it right. Those cheap, rugged decent Blue Box models MADE the company, and pushed the hobby to it’s highest point!
Please! Use the same old tooling, and Bring Them Back! Charge no more than 1995 prices for them, and watch them fly off the shelves!!
Back on point - Bachmann’s getting it right! “Sound Value” is an absolute Blessing, to us guys with high standards, and low income!!!
You NEED to address your quality issues - particularly with slipping, cracking drive gears in HO, On30, and Large Scales. You CAN do better!
Also, a lot of us model our own freelanced Railroad. We need Undecorated, Unassembled versions of your diesels! 
If not, please one or two of these things…
Make the handrails and headlights easier to remove. They break. I realize they’re glued in, because your company also caters to the Toy market…
Leading back to the undecorated, unassembled bodies!!
The second option - make handrails, headlights, horns, Windows available as spare parts!
Bachmann, your rolling stock has improved tenfold in the past two decades!
Your locomotives have improved, in appearance, performance, and value DRAMATICALLY over the past two decades!
I’m posting this here, for the exposure - to see if maybe more agree with where we want our Great Hobby to go.
I’ve been in this great hobby since before Gordon Odegard’s debut at this magaz
$25 in 1961 would be worth $192 today (http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm) Last time Athearn did sets (Iron Horse Express in 2010) there was a loco, 3 wagons, a caboose, an oval track and controller for…$180. And you got a lot better quality now than you did then. No-one is being greedy.
I wholeheartedly agree. I attended th National Train Show and noticed one thing. By far the average age of the attendees was 50+. Did not see much stuff being purchased but a lot of browsing.
I do agree: Most Moder Railroad products are of much higher standard these days. Bachmann, Athearn and all the others have improved quality dramatically. Having just switched to DCC I especially like Bachmanns new Sound Value engines. Granted, the prices are higher too. For me personally that means buying with more thought, saving my bucks a little longer before I am able to purchase. I would appreciate a Blue Box product now and then myself though. I think manufacturers should consider offering cheaper products as an alternative. It just may open new markets and win new customers.
Bachmann should consider offering a $99.00 HO scale starter set using their new GP7, three cars and a caboose, oval of EZ track and pack without DCC and sound so the average American middle class wage earner can start their kids in model railroading. A discount coupon to order an additional car, two sections of straight track and a catalog would be a great incentive too!
The World’s Greatest Hobby is slowly becoming The World’s Richest Hobby by not providing economical starter sets with quality products for the minimum wage earner and fixed income retired senior citizens. We have been forgotten and this is very poor marketing stragedy on their part to boot!
The Athearn Hustler set is what got me started in HO scale in 1961. It, plus the handsize MRC power pack together, cost me less than $25.00. I earned the money drawing root beer and making milk shakes at a drive-in in Texas. I made 75 cents an hour. Not bad wages for a 15 year old teenager.
It was an economically priced set which included an oval of Atlas 18" radius brass track. Perhaps it lacked the super detail that the over priced starter sets do today but it WAS Quality!
Irv Athearns Hi-F drive (rubber band) powered diesels still run today and if reintroduced would still provide middle class wage earners and fixed income senior citizens the pleasure of model railroading just like it did me 53 years ago.
It is time that the manufacturers listen to the cries of the underdogs who can’t afford sets with DCC and sound. If sheer PROFIT (Greed) is their top line then I will stick to armchair model railroading because that is all I can afford!
I’m glad that Irv Athearn can’t see what has happened to his marketing stragedy to provide quality model railroad products at an affordable price to all age groups. This should be the priority of The World’s Greatest Hobby. Sadly, it had failed!
I just wish that Bachmann U,S would talk to Bachmann Europe, so that we in the UK can get a better deal. The price we pay compared with the US is not good, I would love to get a couple of the latest C19 G scale BUT not at the price over here.