I say that because when my 8 year old son wants an engine for his layout at the LHS, I can turn to Bachmann Engines and know I won’t be breaking the bank. I got him a GP with DCC for $45 and he’s happy. There’s nothing like the smile on his face when I show him an engine at that price and he’s more than satisfied. I also get him Bachmann’s with sound that have good quality. Don’t get me wrong, I too have Bachmann engines. But when you have two layouts and your son is always wanting to go to the Hoppyshop, you can feel good that Bachmann is there with good products at a good price. It also goes a little deeper than that as well. When you have a young one who enjoys the hobby and starts recognizing the brand like Bachmann, he’ll tend to stick with that brand when he gets our age.
What seems kinda funny is that Bachmann can build engines in qunity and the LHS can keep them in stock and there is NONE of the PRE-ORDER stuff with them!
YET they just keep on selling their engines and the OTHER MFG are sititng on thie hands wondering if they will get enough PRE-ORDERS to make the run!
And each time Bachmann comes out with a new engine the detail is getting just a bit better.
Keep up the good work Bachmann - you know how to run a business!
And this crap abput detail and such.
Once both engines hit the floor - one can not tell that much difference in how much detail they both had!
I bought a Bachmann standard line GP7. Yes it doesn’t have the details like a P2K, Athearn, or Atlas, but with the cost of the loco and sound decoder, it was still a lot less expensive then the mentioned brands. I also like that Bachmann put a space for a speaker in the fuel tank. I stripped off the paint,added grab irons,and a bell and repainted it. It runs great… Joe
My son wants an N scale Bachmann EM-1, just like daddy. He just might get one! I have been pleasantly surprised about Bachmann’s quality lately. I had an HO scale 2-6-0 sound-equipped steam locomotive that I bought for him at a hobby show for $50, and it sounded amazing and ran well. I recently sold it for $70 more than that!
Not only does Bachmann make great engines at reasonable prices, they also stand behind their products. I had an N Scale 2-8-0 die on me and they replaced it at no charge.
I’d have to say the new Bachman offerings the GP-7/9, FA’s ,Sharks, F’s and Alco switchers are the 2013 equivalent of the old Athearn Blue Box models. No grab irons , scale width hoods, nice sound and so far on my rr great long term running qualities. Price is affordable enough to allow modelers to add details as we did back in the past. One nice thing is no need to replace motors and wheels as was required on the older Athearns. Great to see the improvements over their older production models. Hope they continue to produce additional items. I’d love to see a PRR E-44 using the E-33 mechanism. ----- Ken
As I am mainly into steam the last Bachmann steam engine I bought was their low driver 4-6-0, this is one of their Spectrum with sound on board. I have three of these engines, one high driver and two low driver models.
Every month or so I am asked by one or more of the members of the local model Railroad club if I would sell one or two of these. I have promised them that if I ever run across any on E-Bay I would notify them so they could bid on any of these engines.
I just finished checking E-Bay and like most weeks there are no Specctrum HO 4-6-0’s available. In fact there are relatively few Spectrum Steam engines listed.
I have also checked with the Bach man at the Bachmann site who assures me that at some point the 4-6-0’s will indeed be available again.
I have never run across an engine that has interested so many people and am at a loss as to when Bachmann is going to realize it is time to produce another run of that engine.
I admitt Bachmann is great for the price. However I like my Athearn RTR GP38-2, it has great detail, and runs perfectly. It is about $100, and would be a bit hard to convert to DCC.
I want to know were do they put the weight if the fuel tank is hollow. In my locomotive the frame and fuel tank are metal, leaving only the motor and lightbulb taking up space in the shell. There would be plenty of space to put a speaker in under the shell.
Bachmann fan here!.. I own several. In fact I have two brand new Alaskan GP-40s laying here on my desk that arrived in the mail today. My favorites of course are their Spectrum line of steam locos. However, I really don’t care for most of their rolling stock because in my opinion it’s a bit cheesy except for the fact that they use metal wheels.
I am in in N scale and have the Bachmann 44 ton and a 70 ton for my steel mill as well as 2 of their new DDA40X;s. All are DCC equipped and run like a dream. Quiet, smooth with a creep equal o any other manufacturers locomotives. And as stated in an earlier post, they are undercutting Atlas, Athearn and Kato in price. Keep it up Bachmann.
Although I go for the most detail as possible, I wanted an engine to bring back and forth to the club without fear of damaging it. The GP38 w/ DCC has made many trips with no damage what so ever. Way better than the Bachmann I started out with!
I bought 4 of their GP9’s and upgraded them by adding grabirons and swapping out the factory orange headlight LEDs with Miniatronics YeloGlo’s. They do the “heavy lifting” on my longer trains since they have all that weight in them; I usually consist two of them with one of my sound-equipped Genesis geeps.
I’m quite pleased with them, excellent running locos for the price. This makes it possible for new people to enter the hobby without sticker shock.
My Bachmann Spectrum Heavy Mountain with sound is my favorite loco. It runs smooth on step 1. Also, I agree that most of the Bachmann freight cars are a bit cheesy but the Silver Series hoppers aren’t too bad, I’ve got 18 of them.
I’m a Bachmann fan, too, with a bunch of Consolidations and a USRA Light Mountain. I also have a couple of the high-drivered Ten Wheelers, but they still need to be painted.
I have 15 DCC OnBoard HO locomotives. 14 of them are Bachmanns!
I also have several N scale Bachmanns for the 70s. They just got “out away”. No special treatment or anything. HWne I opulled them out 7 years ago, They WORKED FINE!
I always wanted HO and so I go t into it. Bachmann Locos were nicely in my price range, AVAILABLE {on the shelves} and all 14 but 1 runs flawlessly. The one only “growls” at slow speeds.
I think if Bachmann can make locos, keep on the shelves, have good quality and I heard they have a FANTASTIC service dept., WHY can’t other manufacturers do the same???
17 posts about Bachmann andnot even one hint of a bash.Well lets add one more to the list.I am quite happy with my Bachmann locos even the ones I bought 20 years ago.[:D]
I too am a Bachmann fan. I have over 60 HO engines and almost half are Bachmann, many with sound/DCC. Their new sound equipped steam and diesel engines are great, inexpensive and reliable. Their customer service is probably the best in the industry and I say that from experience. I had a K-4 replaced with a brand new DCC one for $25 and they sent a replacement cab for my Berkshire because one window glass was missing (no charge, no questions!). Neither of these engines were new, both Ebay purchases. All manufacturers should follow Bachmann’s lead on this.