Bachmann Thomas and Friends in 2016

[Jacob Wilson]

Well, online I found an estimated shipping date for Bachmann Oliver on Train Sets Only that says April 5, 2016. I wouldn't count on that too hard, because it's been known to change. As for Bachmann Toad, I heard that he is supposed to be released in either April, or May.

That's quite long to be honest with you when Oliver and Toad where announced in February 2015.

[TTTEfan1992]

What does that mean?

[Jacob Wilson]

What does that mean?

Sorry, I meant April or May is quite a long wait as they where announced back February 2015.

That was the auto correction on my iPad! That is the only downside when posting things on iPad's!

[TTTEfan1992]

I agree, that is too long to wait for something to be released. At least Bachmann is taking their time to make their products look really good especially Oliver if they do. I hope they make Oliver look good like they base his scale from the classic series instead of the cgi series to make his size match with the other HO/OO Thomas locomotives. His cgi series scale is too small to match up with the other locomotives IMO. His classic series scale would fit much better with the other locomotives. I hope Oliver and Toad don't take as long to be released as Duck did. Duck was announced in February 2012, and wasn't released til July 2013.

[Jacob Wilson]

I agree, that is too long to wait for something to be released. At least Bachmann is taking their time to make their products look really good especially Oliver if they do. I hope they make Oliver look good like they base his scale from the classic series instead of the cgi series to make his size match with the other HO/OO Thomas locomotives. His cgi series scale is too small to match up with the other locomotives IMO. His classic series scale would fit much better with the other locomotives. I hope Oliver and Toad don't take as long to be released as Duck did. Duck was announced in February 2012, and wasn't released til July 2013.

Well the public having too wait this long for Bachmann Oliver and Toad to be released, they should be good models. The Red Branchline Coaches are also excellent and I love those. They are perfect, but they where late released as well. They where announced in February 2014 and released in August 2015.

I find it odd why these standard HO Gauge Locomotives and Rolling Stock where released late, yet the Narrow Gauge stuff where released on time. With last year's new announcement's, I was expecting everything to be released in 2015, except the Narrow Gauge range which surprising did get released before Christmas. Even Skarloey did, which really surprised me. I was pretty sure Oliver and Toad would be released before the Narrow Gauge, but surprisingly it was the other way around!

[Chaz]

In all honesty seeing as how some products like the red coaches, Duck, and even the sound Thomas took a long time to make, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if we didn't get Oliver and Toad until this summer. 

Narrow gauge is Bachmann's newest range and therefore would take higher priority over HO and large scale which is why Skarloey was finished before Oliver and Winston.  Basically it's Bachmann's way of "starting the range off strong" if you will since they would really need to make the sales for Skarloey popular enough to warrant the sales for other characters to join the range in the future since not as many shops sell HOn30.

Something tells me that apart from the delayed products, the exact same thing would happen which wouldn't be a bad thing since I wouldn't mind having Oliver out alongside another narrow gauge engine.

[Jacob Wilson]

In all honesty seeing as how some products like the red coaches, Duck, and even the sound Thomas took a long time to make, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if we didn't get Oliver and Toad until this summer.  

Narrow gauge is Bachmann's newest range and therefore would take higher priority over HO and large scale which is why Skarloey was finished before Oliver and Winston.  Basically it's Bachmann's way of "starting the range off strong" if you will since they would really need to make the sales for Skarloey popular enough to warrant the sales for other characters to join the range in the future since not as many shops sell HOn30.

Something tells me that apart from the delayed products, the exact same thing would happen which wouldn't be a bad thing since I wouldn't mind having Oliver out alongside another narrow gauge engine.

But if we got Oliver and Toad in the Summertime, that would make it about a year and a half wait, which is an awful long time. Products should not take this long. We are in the 21st century now. We have been for 6 years now, so the technology in manufacturing new products should be much easier and not as long time consuming wise.

That's true about the Narrow Gauge range though. A late launch in that would probably give the range a bad name, and I am hoping for Rheneas and Narrow Gauge Coaches this year!

[sean1994rail]

G scale ice cream wagon image.

http://shop.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=6022

[Jacob Wilson]

G scale ice cream wagon image.

http://shop.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=6022

The Ice Cream logo on it looks weird.

[sean1994rail]

It's the same ident as that on the HO model. It looks immaculately detailed to me.

[Chaz]

We are in the 21st century now. We have been for 6 years now, so the technology in manufacturing new products should be much easier and not as long time consuming wise.

This train of thought becomes derailed when there is a lot of time, production, and money being put into the Thomas models.  There is a lot of communication between Bachmann, Mattel, and China in regards to deciding the character, it's design the price, etc.  So if anything, considering today's economy, what you just said, you got backwards.  The technology might be there, but with how slow manufacturing and production has been for Bachmann and a few other ranges, it's understandable why most of their models take a lot more time to come out, even if some arguably should have been out a lot earlier.  It's been like this for a long time for Bachmann so it's something I and a few other users have gotten used to, but whenever a model does come out the year it's announced its always a nice plus.  Patience is a virtue.

The large scale ice cream wagon looks really nice. The tooling looks a lot nicer than the HO model, I can see it being popular with those who want to repaint it to a regular van.

[Jacob Wilson]

It's the same ident as that on the HO model. It looks immaculately detailed to me.

I do not remember the 'squares' on the ice cream cone on the HO model.

We are in the 21st century now. We have been for 6 years now, so the technology in manufacturing new products should be much easier and not as long time consuming wise.

This train of thought becomes derailed when there is a lot of time, production, and money being put into the Thomas models.  There is a lot of communication between Bachmann, Mattel, and China in regards to deciding the character, it's design the price, etc.  So if anything, considering today's economy, what you just said, you got backwards.  The technology might be there, but with how slow manufacturing and production has been for Bachmann and a few other ranges, it's understandable why most of their models take a lot more time to come out, even if some arguably should have been out a lot earlier.  It's been like this for a long time for Bachmann so it's something I and a few other users have gotten used to, but whenever a model does come out the year it's announced its always a nice plus.  Patience is a virtue.

The large scale ice cream wagon looks really nice. The tooling looks a lot nicer than the HO model, I can see it being popular with those who want to repaint it to a regular van.

Hornby have been quite sloe with manufacturing as well from around 2010 or 2011. I know manufacturing is slow, especially in model ,but I can never really understand why this is the case when Bachmann and Hornby have produced model railway products for years. I am pretty sure it has been the 1970's that the Locomotive's have used electricity for their power, so why 40 odd years later they have so many manufacturing problems? It just does not make sense!

[sean1994rail]

Could have been the size of the HO ident. After all, they did enlarged it for the G scale model.

[Jacob Wilson]

Could have been the size of the HO ident. After all, they did enlarged it for the G scale model.

Well I am glad they did enlarge the logo, otherwise it would not be easy notice it on the Large Scale Model!

[SportyPup]

Finally, a picture of the G Scale Ice Cream Wagon!!  That was what I was most excited about when the new announcements were made, even though I eventually became more enthusiastic about the narrow gauge stuff.

Narrow Gauge seems to be selling very well, so I'm sure the range will be expanded for 2016.  I wouldn't mind waiting a couple years for more Large Scale releases it if means we could get a nice well rounded Skarloey Railway going.  And as far a HO scale, other than Oliver and Toad there aren't tons of promising new toolings left, unless some discontinued stuff is brought back, but I doubt that at the moment.  I only hope there won't be MORE discontinued items