Quote from: dutchbuilder on January 26, 2017, 05:15:08 AMBut 60 bucks for a lot off enclosed air is a bit steep in my humble opinion.

Mail order will be much cheaper, I'm sure, when they come out.

Quote from: dutchbuilder on January 26, 2017, 05:15:08 AMAre these the last 0n30 twitches from Mr. B.?

I can't tell. I've talked with the Bachmann people at the "World's Greatest Hobby" tour and the Portland NMRA convention and while I think on an individual level they still strongly support On30, I think the passing of Lee Riley might makes things difficult as I understand he was the strongest proponent of On30 within the company.

Quote from: Flare on January 25, 2017, 05:14:20 PM
Why are they listed as freight cars?

You're guess is as good as mine...  

Quote from: Flare on January 25, 2017, 05:14:20 PMI wouldn't mind showing my respects by getting Mr. Riley's car as well, but I really want the yellow version with silver roof; should go well with my D&RGW set.

Fair enough.
If I get one, I'd probably paint it grey and put some Army markings on it, as a lot of stateside rolling stock during WW1 and WW2 was actually grey more often than not until late in WW2, into the Korean war era.
This shows you similar cars being used by the military:

I was at the WGH show in Puyallup WA this past weekend and saw the prototypes for the On30 excursion cars.
Man, they look great.
If these had been for sale at the Bachmann booth, I'd for sure would have bought one as I think I could justify one for a troop transport car (which were common on stateside RRs around Army bases in WW1 and WW2).

I talked with one of the Bachman guys I'd remembered talking On30 with at the Portland NMRA convention. Real nice guy and I think he said he's also going to have an article in the On30 annual this year.
The cars aren't out yet, according to this link: http://shop.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=487_688_1067
Though I only want to run stuff that makes sense for my layout (and nothing that isn't appropriately weathered), I'm tempted to get one of the Lee Riley ones, as-is, out of respect for what he did for Bachmann and On30 in general...

Quote from: John Tumolo on January 20, 2017, 03:06:55 PM
Orders are now being taken for the new 2017 edition.  I just ordered mine at https://shop.whiteriverproductions.com/products/on17

Cool, my layout is the "Tweetsie-Inspired On30 Layout" mentioned in the highlights! 

Quote from: John Tumolo on January 20, 2017, 03:06:55 PM
I just wish it came out more than once a year................

Yeah, a quarterly would be great for folks like us, but in all fairness I doubt there'd be that big a market for it. On30 is, like it or not, a fringe element among the hobby itself.

They sure would make for a great model to freelance for the non-Disney types.
I'd think you could even use the existing 4-4-0/4-6-0 On30 running gears Bachmann already makes, even though the wheelbase would a little off?
I took this shot on the steam shop tour in 2011...

It's not even being edited yet. I submitted an article to this one, and the editor told me he was starting editing this month and it goes to the printer in mid-March (and the print dates usually are hard timeframes for most publications). The first ones go out to the pre-order folks.

Quote from: scarpi on December 28, 2016, 11:18:22 AMI wouldn't call it the luck of the draw when three out of three new 4-6-0s have issues.

It's certainly luck of the draw if others have run their ten-wheelers lots of times and never had any issues. I know several people with large layouts who run them regularly and have had zero issues (many have problems with the gears on Bachmann On30 shays, though and the railcar gear problems are well known).
I agree it seems odd that you're not the only one with problems with most of a similar class but others haven't. The only thing I can draw from this is maybe there were batches that had problems?

I used Micro Engineering On30 track as the ties looked decent for On30. If Peco had made their turnouts a little longer, I may have gone with their stuff instead as their track appears to be far sturdier built than the ME stuff is. Their turnouts are very fragile, as I had two points bars snap dead in half when installing the blue point connecting rods into them. Replacing both of those took a while as everything had been soldered into place before then. Nothing held them together, not ACC nor resin.
That annoyed me so much, I made this 'advertisement' of their products:

But once everything was in place, their track looks good. I had to use two Shinohara curved HO turnouts and those are very obvious as HO ones...

Odd. Luck of the draw, I guess.
I have 4 of the ten-wheelers (it's all I run) and none of the issues you've named when they were new (don't have to knock on wood that way).

Wow. I once thought of making a layout in G that was for a US Army RR unit, and one end would be them training stateside and the other end would be a defeated Germany looking a lot like this.

On Bachmann coaches, the roofs come off if you're careful. Taking some of those cheap ePay Chinese passengers with their feet cut off above the ankles, you could use some long-nose pliers to place them into seats with ACC.
I took the entire car apart because I didn't like the lighting, and I tossed the lighting later. But the roof can come off. You'll have re-solder something into place no matter what you do to be able to get passengers inside them.

Quote from: ScottyB on October 11, 2016, 06:47:55 PM
I do think this is the area which has led to the slowdown of the on30 market. On30 freight cars used to be very prevalent, and most importantly, inexpensive. Three cars for $39 was the norm for over a decade.

If Bachmann can reintroduce more freight cars and bring back the geared engines that got most of us started, I think you would see a great resurgence in the on30 market. After all, on30 was supposedly the "poor man's narrow gauge." The market needs to have the eye candy (i.e shays and Climaxes) that draws in new modelers.

Yeah, I remember buying Bachmann freight cars for about $20 each everywhere I went. I started buying a few here and there every time I found some, long before my layout existed. I'm SO glad I did that now, as the prices have gone up considerably. Ironically, the locos are cheaper now than when I first bought mine...
Beats me on this "chicken or the egg" concept, as I can't tell if the market subsided causing Bachmann to scale back, or if general interest in On30 is allowing down at all or if Bachmann simply has lost interest in this gauge...

Quote from: Dbarefoot on September 30, 2016, 06:51:46 PM
I could modify the engines to look like ET&WNC #1 and #2

Hmm. I hadn't even thought of that. I model the ET&WNC in the 40s, but yeah, you make a very interesting case for that.

Quote from: Kevin Strong on October 03, 2016, 02:00:09 AM
I think there's definitely a market for locos like this, especially with these colorful paint schemes. When I think of the folks who run their On30 among Dept. 56 villages and the like, these colorful Victorian-era paint schemes would be an absolute perfect fit. Likewise, for those modeling rural narrow gauge around 1890s - 1910s, I think they'd fit in very well as well. I'm not sure the colorful paint would be quite the right fit for the Duct Tape & Bailing Wire-type of backwoods railroads, but there's no reason Bachmann couldn't do a "basic black" version as well.

Very good points here. Maybe Bachmann might pay heed to them. Heck, they could always release a 'dressed up 18th century' version of their 4-4-0, as well?

Quote from: dutchbuilder on September 25, 2016, 02:12:17 PM
This feels like a business opportunity for someone.
After-market parts for model trains.

There's an entire industry devoted to the Lionel stuff for extra parts. I know a guy who's made a very nice living doing only that.

While I do have a soft spot for 2-6-0s for a reason I can't explain, I think any good representation of a 19th century-looking loco in On30 in any class/wheel arrangement would probably be welcomed by modelers.