bachmann products made during 1980's & 1990's

[jward]

i mean to say replacing 1980's/90's  bachmann diesel locomotive (New) as dummy for your other expensive name brand loco.  as i understand before,  the athearn dummy loco cost $10.00 while the cheap working and running bachmann loco cost $10.00 too.  why not use bachmann loco instead of athearn dummy loco?.  beside the bachmann can move around your train yard.

probably the best thing you could do with these locomotives is to bury them on a back track in the yard, and say that they are stored power. long lines of dead locomotives are common when the economy is down.

you'd definitely not want these locomotives doing yard duty. their speed control is very poor, and the are high geared. often they only have one truck powered, and won't pull much.  out on the mainline their speed curve is more like that of a slot car than a locomotive. they don't play well with other newer locomotives.

my question for you is, why would you buy one of these for $10 when you can get a much better quality locomotive like a walthers trainline for around $15? those would do much better puttering around the yard, and they're still dirt cheap. what's more, they can be converted to dcc at a later date, and their speed curves adjusted to make them even better. you can't do that with the "pancake motor" stuff.....

[simkon]

Unless you have a 2-10-4 or 4-8-4, you will not get more than $5 or $10 for any locos from the early 1980's. The freight cars, you would be lucky to get 25 cents for.

[tracy1947]

i checked e-bay.  people are still buying 80's to 90's box car around $1.00 to $2.00.  and loco at $5.00 to $10.00 each.

i also noticed that the hobby collectors seems to decrease a lot.  sellers at e-bay were too many and buyers just a few.  maybe because the young generation were focus mostly on games, internet and i-phones.  it also happen to stamps and coins hobby. we need more times to continue to introduce these hobbies to the youngsters.

[tracy1947]

i noticed that the new bachmann train set. those selling at costco.   the loco is a little bit inferior quality that if you buy a single locomotive at a hobby store.  is that right?.  any bachmann personnel can explain this for us.

sorry for asking too many questions.  cause i am out for so many years.

[jward]

it is my understanding that those locomotives and cars in the train sets are the same as those offered for sale individually. they should all be of decent quality.

as an example of what i am talking about, take the gp40. this is NOT the gp40 of the 1980s, but a smooth running model. about the only thing i don't like about it is that it lacks flywheels. but it runs so smooth that i don't see that as a reason not to purchase an otherwise fine locomotive.

the cars in the set are the big question mark. i am assuming that they all have knuckle couplers. if so, bachmann cars went through a couple of upgrades over the years. the first was the switch to knuckle couplers, usually body mounted instead of the older truck mounted couplers. later, the silver series cars added metal wheels and weight to those older cars. the silver series are among the best running cars i have, the older ones with knuckle couplers need at the minimum to have weight added. i am not sure which version are in the sets.


btw, you'd mentioned earlier buying cars for $1-2. if you want to make decent running cars out of those you must do the following:
1. convert them to knuckle couplers mounted to the body of the car not the trucks.
2. replace the wheelsets with ones conforming to rp25 standards, plastic wheels ok but metal preferred.
3.add weight to at least nmra specs.

you'll need to have the following tools on hand to upgrade them as well:
pin vise with drill and tap set for 2-56 screws
truck tuner tool, for reaming the truck sideframes to make the new wheelsets roll freely.
kadee coupler height guage
nmra standards guage
postage scale, for weighing cars.

$2 doesn't seem like such a bargain anymore does it?

[tracy1947]

a train set sold at costco cost only $48.95 plus tax.  while the maximum retail listed by bachmann is $99.00.  now the train set sell by costco is for general public and kids.  not collectors or hobbyist.  and the price is half of the max retail price.  so i assume they might have inferior quality than those single piece sell by the hobby stores.  we need explanation from bachmann.

[simkon]

The explanation is simple:
The price listed by Bachmann is the MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price), but the retailer can sell it for whatever price he wants to. The retailer can purchase the set for less than half of the MSRP so he just needs to sell it for half price to make a profit.
Also, you must never go to train show/expos, they often have gigantic boxes of old 1970-through early 1990's cars from Bachmann, Life-Like, Model Power, Tyco, and the like for 25 or 50 cents a piece and they don't usually sell very many because nobody wants them, did you ever think that half the people on ebay are idiots and don't know what they are buying and are not very knowledgeable. Just because some idiots that are not really in the hobby will pay $2 for them does not mean they are worth $2 or that even 50% of model railroaders would pay $2. Probably only 1% of model railroaders would pay $2 for those cars because after you do everything necessary to make them run-able, it will run you $6 after adding Kadee #5s, metal wheels, & weights. For $5 you can buy a modern Bachmann standard series car that only needs Kadee couplers which are $1.75 a pair in bulk, plus you won't waste all your time that could be used on adding scenery.

[tracy1947]

who are the dealers selling new bachmann at a reasonable prices?.  dealers near new york city?.

[simkon]

No one would know what the prices are of most hobby shops because most of them are not online, only the very large ones are, but there are several excellent online dealers, including one on ebay. Most local hobby shops do not sell things very reasonably compared to online retailers, asking for low prices and a local dealer does not go hand in hand. If you buy from your local dealer, you pay more because he has more overhead than an online dealer, but he can help you out with your problems and give advice and let you test things out, while the online dealer can't do these things. The bottom line is, if you want reasonable prices buy from an online dealer, if you want good service buy from a local dealer.

[tracy1947]

which online dealers you deal with?.

what is the different between standard series and silver series?.  how much it cost for a standard series box car?. and silver series box car?.  the bachmann price list have the silver series quoted.  but the standard series are not there.

[simkon]

I bought most of my stuff from thefavoritespot on ebay http://stores.ebay.com/THE-FAVORITE-SPOT/HO-SCALE-TRAINS-/_i.html?_fsub=2&_sid=13534603&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322, and Modeltrainstuff.com http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/. They both have pretty good prices, from the ebay dealer you can get a silver series freight (box) car for $8 and it is also $8 from the online dealer I mentioned, the regular series freight cars are selling for $6.50 in most hobby shops, but you have to pay for shipping for the silver series cars, which is $4 if you buy them online. So, you can get 5 standard series cars for $32 or 5 Silver Series cars for around $53.

[tracy1947]

then i presumed if we buy the set from costco.  those freight cars might only be a standard series.  not a silver series.  because those sets selling at costco are intended for general public and kids.

[simkon]

Only the Sprectrum and DCC sets have silver series cars, all the other sets have the standard series cars including the Costco set.

[tracy1947]

in this case.  what is the different between new standard freight cars and the old 80's and 90's freight cars?.

[simkon]

The wheels are of better quality, but neither are metal like the silver series, the couplers are E-Z Mate couplers as opposed to the outdated horn-hook aka xf2 couplers. The newer ones have a little more detail too. The older ones are not compatible with the newer ones and are much more likely to derail because they have talgo trucks (coupler mounted to truck instead of the body). Basically the older cars would derail more often and would require a good amount of work and money to convert. The couplers would require you purchase conversion kits and new couplers to run with a new train set. Here is the coupler that the old cars have (horn hook):

Here is the coupler the new cars have (knuckle):


They are not compatible with each other, you could make a transition car out of an Athearn freight car pretty easily though. The older cars would need to be fixed up before use for any sort of reliable running, while the newer cars could run okay out of the box with no upgrades. The silver series need no upgrades for peak running while, the standard series could use a little better couplers, metal wheels, and a little extra weight, but as is they will run okay.