I still can't believe it:

Two magazines on hobby shop shelves at the same time with articles I have written; the March/April 2018 Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette and the 2018 On30 Annual!

It's out now. I found a copy of a hobby shop in Portland Oregon on Saturday.
Looks great, lots of good stuff this year!

Quote from: jkemp on March 26, 2018, 06:27:29 PMInteresting you mentioned PDF copy.  Do you just get a copy of your article, or the whole annual in PDF format?

Just my article. It's a proof so that the author can see exactly what it'll look like.
I've written for a few other magazines that do PDF proofs, but they're not very common and the On30 annual is the model train one I've written for that does them.

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,34550.0.html

Quote from: Jhanecker2 on March 27, 2018, 08:26:05 PM
there are regions in Europe that have never been cleaned up from  World War One . 

I have been to Ypres, possibly one of the most heavily shelled areas on the planet (even to this day) as they fought over that town almost non stop for the duration of the war.
Even to this day, a century later, famers daily dig up unexploded artillery rounds in their fields. They stack them in the ditches and call the Belgian EOD unit to come dispose of them when the stack gets tall enough. The call it the "Iron Harvest". Signs on the approaches to the town warn not to touch them, in several languages. A farmer there told me it was illegal to dig with mechanical means in most of the town and surrounding area, as you'd likely set off an explosion from WW1 ordnance otherwise. People die every now and then there and around other former WW1 battlefields in Belgium, France and other places.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/first-world-war-bombs-still-3862370

People can't grasp how truly horrific WW1 really was. WW2 eclipsed it in size and shock value later, but the Great War was utter butchery. A literal meat grinder that gutted Europe of an entire generation.

Quote from: fred lundgren on March 27, 2018, 05:58:50 PM
That is a very interesting song. I do not think it was very popular at the officers club at happy hour.

Definitely something the soldiers sung in the trenches or going back to/from the front.
I was lucky enough to talk to some WW1 vets many years ago (1998) and one of them sung this. Oh, how I wish I'd had a video camera. It might have been the last time anyone ever sung that who'd done so in the Great War...

Haven't heard anything, I don't think they're being shipped yet. I can wait, as I have long had a PDF with my own article, but I'd like to see the rest of it soon! last years, I think, didn't get out to people until April, and I wouldn't be on a timeframe earlier than that this year.

Quote from: jkemp on March 26, 2018, 03:16:05 PM
I just purchased my NG & SL Gazette, March/April 2018 at my local hobby shop.

Page 11, Coronado Scale Models has the "On30 2018 Annual" listed for $19.95.

Funny, I just noticed that, too.
Funnier still, the local Barnes & Noble never carried the Gazette before, but they started with this issue. I was happy for that, as my article is in that issue and I still haven't gotten my author's copy, weeks after the subscribers got theirs.

Quote from: USAF_Andy on March 18, 2018, 10:34:00 PM
I use as an example of the LGB version...  They have sold bajillions of them in a bunch of different variants.  Bachmann could make sets to sell them at the gift shop to all those cruise passengers...  As for one paint scheme road using them, I reply with "So?".  Far be it from Bachmann to slap a non prototype paint scheme onto one of these.  Plausible, Durango and Silverton, Cumbres and Toltec, SP and D&RGW.  A little far fetched, EBT or Tweetsie.  If it was designed with a fairly easy conversion to On3 possible, I think it could really do well.  I know it won't happen, I am fine with that.  I just think that it could really rock the market.  They have made some really random stuff over the years.

Two issues with that:
1. LGB sells a bajillion of just about everything, world-wide. Bachmann's On30 has nowhere near that kind of customer base.
2. WP&Y doesn't sell everything offered to them. I've talked some vendors of RR stuff that thought they'd market their stuff through the Skagway gift shop, and even got tooling underway, then got a big, "Nah, we're not interested," in response. It happens more than you'd think for items that people like us would assume would sell.

Quote from: BIG BEAR on March 11, 2018, 06:12:39 PM
I noticed a $5.oo increase in regular price from last year's $19.95.

I think White River's production costs went up from when Carstens was publishing these, but I didn't ask the editor about that (I intend to write an article every issue if he'll let me, so I won't have to buy one...  )

I think this will be good one (even though I have an article in it again tis year, a conversion article on taking a beat-up Bachmann 2-6-0 tender and turning it into an auxiliary water car). The editor suggested to me that it'll be out around the same time last year.

Quote from: USAF_Andy on February 25, 2018, 08:59:30 AM
[He said the market wouldn't support it.  I disagree...

I don't. A WP&Y diesel is a very specific piece of rolling stock, and very large (in a On30 market where many want stuff as short as possible).
Hey, I've ridden the WP&Y twice and would love to have a On30 version of one of their locomotives (though it'd never fit in the theme of my WW2-era ET&WNC layout), but I agree with the Bachmann person who told you it wouldn't sell.
"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if they made..." usually translates to, "I want one, so shouldn't a bunch of other people?"
No, there are so many other things that'd sell better than a WP&Y diesel would in On30 (or any other scale, for that matter).

Okay, the rotary is at about 9:43 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjv-vWFLhRA&feature=em-uploademail
Self-propelled rotaries were very uncommon, especially in the US. I seriously doubt there'd be a market for something like that in On30, as who models anywhere with snow?
Frankly, I'd rather Bachman stay with the more realistic and plausible models and not go off the deep end with stuff like this.

Yeah, I have no need for a 0-6-0 but I like that they made one as I think there's a good market for something like that.
Let's face it, a lot of On30 modelers are all about the smallest stuff they can run over the tightest curves. That's most of what I hear when talking to other On30 modelers; they want shorty stuff. When others see the 24"+ curves and 4-6-0s on my own layout, many of them are shocked that I'm not pushing the envelope of as tight of curves and the shortest rolling stock possible.
Bachmann, I think, flooded the market with On30 for a while. You could find most cars for $20 or less online, but not anymore. I think the market has flattened to a degree and now that Bachmann is making conservative advances in On30, this makes sense to me.

Apparently like all of Bachmann's steam engines, all the wiring (and thankfully, some extra length of electrical pickup) goes through the tender. A pain, yes, if you're wanting to ditch the tender for a conversion (would you even have room for sound in such a case?), but I've noticed that the overall length of the pickup really helps for dead spots of dirty track. My ten-wheelers never flicker or sputter in sound when I'm going around my layout. The only time there's a gap in lights or sound is when they break the 180-degree arc on my turntable, which I can live with. Heck, I don't even need to wire the frogs on the turnouts, for the length of pickup you get with one of those.

Quote from: JRT on February 05, 2018, 10:55:21 AMSure would be nice if Bachmann released a WP&Y diesel to go with those cars.

That'd be new tooling, for a prototype that hardly anyone else ever had.
Now, they could easily get an authentic WP&Y locomotive out there tomorrow if they wanted, by re-lettering one of their 4-6-0s as a WP&Y locomotive, either #10 or 14. Both came up from the ET&WNC in 1943 and worked one winter there, before being shipped back to the NP shops in Tacoma for a complete rebuild. Both were heavily damaged in a roundhouse fire at the end of the war, though.

I must admit, it does look like a slightly modified 2-6-0 they already had with the 4-4-0s tender...
Still, anything in On30 shows that Bachmann hasn't given up on the gauge like so many people say they have.