OFFICIAL 2018 ANNOUNCEMENTS

[JLK2707]

It is weird Streak, but maybe this could just be a reference for those who want to make Ulli or the other midland diesels.

[jleight]

I am very disappointed in the offerings but I probably understand the reasons. With the trade war with China the production isn't what it could be.  At least this way they are offering some new items.  There are a lot of new possibilities that would be great to bring out but I suspect we won't see anything really new for a while until the dust settles and the production comes back to the USA.

[AJW98Productions]

Not to discredit the idea of a "trade war", as a person who's very political in his personal life, I'll try to dodge politicised topics here. However, I was under the impression that Bachmann's Thomas range was always produced in China. I'd say it's not necessarily where the production is occurring, but instead that production costs are rising.

That's what I'm given to understand though. And I dare not go further down that rabbit hole, as knowing me, political comments will come to the surface rapidly, if I continued that tangent, and (from memory) delving too far into politics is something that's prohibited under the code of conduct. Regardless, I'm open to being wrong, but to my knowledge, any "trade wars" (wow that sounds like a lame Star Wars parody ) is fairly disconnected from what's occurring right now. It's more due to rising production costs...which may arguably tie into that concept, but again, that rabbit hole goes too deep for me to go over here, and if I'm wrong, I'm fine with that. I just thought the "lacklustre" announcements were mainly due to rising production costs, plus most of the engines Bachmann can make a profit off of, have been created already.

Bachmann has to tow a hard line, one that appeals to younger and older fans, and cannot keep up with just how much other ranges can put out (see Trackmaster and Learning Curve), so most of what they believe they can probably profit off of, has been made. So...how to keep the range afloat? Recolours, I think, must've seemed like the best option to them, and the higher ups at Mattel which have influence on Bachmann's announcements.

Anyway, sorry if this seemed rambley, I'm currently very unwell, so this is far from my most concise, or well thought-out post. Sorry everybody, hope you all have a lovely day/night/whatever time it is for you currently

~Alex