Arre they doing the improved mechanism in N scale? I’ve got a GP40, that I bought a couple of months ago, and I’m not impressed. I got it running half way decently after cleaning all the excess oil off the outside of the frame and all the pick ups, and doing a little tweaking to loco and track. It still stalls out on occasion, during slow running. And, it’s got fricken rubber tires.
Mark, I wouldn’t have called that un nerving…maybe pleasantly surprised.
Good deal I just cant figure out why they are not going to do a Burlington anything in spectrum.Dont matter to me they have my Rock Island 2-8-0! Still would love to see a Q 4-8-4
Yeah, but… I had Bachmann all pigeonholed in the “avoid at all costs” category, and now they come out with this… not so cut-and-dried anymore!
It’s un-nerving when some company comes out and disrupts my categorization of them in this manner!! (pleasant though it may be)
I asked the comany rep when they would be coming out with Q steam under the Spectrum name. He told me the locos are too far off of USRA standard to make them profitable. If they were close to USRA, they might be able to do some with some assembly changes, but a Q loco would require too much new tooling.
I know your feeling. Can you imagine a MRRer who does the Austin Powers thing and suddenly comes back to today after 20 years? “What’s DCC?” “Life Like engines are what???”
You aint seen chit then if you’ve never seen one of their steamers. Go watch a shay run. You’ll fall in love.
I recently got 2 standard Bach locos(without decoders) for under $30 and I’m very happy with the quality for the money.Good pullers, quite, and they didn’t break the bank.
I have one of the new 70 tonners, runs good.[:)]
New as in new paint scheme, or have they redesigned them? As I recall that was their original Spectrum, that started the whole thing.
I purchased a Bachmann B23/30-7 covered wagon a few months ago. It pulls less juice than a similar Proto 1000. Maybe I should go pick up a few more. Phil
Sounds like BACHMANN want’s to move more into the hobbyist market.
PROBLEM making any prototype : The MORE prototypical they get, the narrower their market becomes. Example: re-tooling the broken Santa Fe 4-8-4 mold . A BLI they aint. An improved GS-4 is a big step.
I think the cheapo locos are designed for a little bang for the kid on the bloke that bangs it around a bit and keeps going and dont cost a lot to replace.
i have one of their b23’s and its very very quiet.no decoder in it however.was really surprised that their wasn’t much lubrication on the gears etc.i have two gp 40’s coming and hopefully they will run as nice as the b23.the flywheels are very small and when you cut the power the loco stops immediately.this doesn’t bother me though.just having a quiet loco and one that pulls well suits me.im using the mrc cm 20 and the engine really creeps well.hopefully bachmann will continue to make improvements on their lines.