Hey everyone! It's official! The next TrainWorld Thomas Tuesday livestream will be on August 1st at 6pm EST, and feature N Scale Gordon fully painted. The ad was posted on Twitter earlier today: https://twitter.com/Trainworld/status/1685428968747409409?s=20

At last, we finally get to see N Scale Gordon fully painted. Toad was shown in a box, and will hopefully show up in stock by the end of the year if all goes well. Still no update on Sir Handel, and progress has been slow on him. They have the design ready for HO Scale Rebecca, and an unpainted sample may be shown within a few streams. They don't have the painted sample of N Scale Emily just yet, but that might be soon.

With the NMRA announcements coming up later this month, we can only hope N Scale Henry will be one of the announcements. I'm certainly hoping for N Scale Henry.

Gordon looks terrific! Bachmann really did a solid job with the fully painted sample and I appreciate how much of a night and day difference it is compared to the HO scale model.  It is absolutely surreal to see an official N scale Gordon model knowing that over 20 years ago I was excited for Tomix to release a model of Gordon, only to be disappointed a few years later knowing it's cancellation.  It's really nice seeing Bachmann bring Gordon into the range and I really can't wait to add him in my N scale collection. 

The NMRA is also later this month, here's hoping Henry and/or some express coaches are in the product brochure.

Gordon looks amazing, very excited for his eventual release. Toad's imminent shipment is great news as well, I think he looks very nice albeit I am disappointed by the adherence to the lettering only being on one side of his body. It is accurate to the "CGI" and "Model" versions of the character, but it would have been nice to deviate slightly for the sake of fixing the show's mistakes and add text to both sides, considering the UK version of the HO Toad apparently does feature lettering on both sides...

I do very much hope we get a confirmation for Henry in the upcoming NMRA show. Frankly I expect N Scale to get the lion's share of content from this year's show, considering every other line is quite occupied right now. Most I'd expect from the others is some rolling stock recolors. (Though out of solidarity I do hope the Large Scale modelers can get a new locomotive soon...) I don't know if we'd get a rolling stock announcement alongside a Henry announcement, but personally I would like to see some faceless open wagons of the older varieties, Red Open/Blue Open/Green Coal Wagon. Express Coaches would be nice as well but may be better suited to a catalog announcement.

With N Scale Gordon fully painted, and Emily soon to be shown fully painted, it is time to announce another N Scale engine, with Henry being the top request and the highest in demand. We may not start getting side characters until we at least get Henry then Edward. For rolling stock, I'd be okay with Express Coaches, Red Coaches, or more faceless open wagons, including the Red Open Wagon, and Coal Wagon w/ Load. The Mail Car would be perfect for Percy. Don't know if we'll get a generic brake van, considering Toad is the first brake van in the range.

Apart from Henry, other characters that can recycle Gordon's chassis include Spencer and Flying Scotsman. For side characters, the favorites are Mavis, Diesel, Oliver and Duck. Mavis would recycle Thomas' chassis like Toby. Since we're getting Toad, Oliver must be planned. Diesel would be the versatile tooling for a lot of potential recolors, including Paxton, Sidney, as well as the discontinued in HO Scale, 'Arry and Bert. Sidney has yet to be announced for HO Scale, but with no concern for an eye mechanism, he'll be much more likely for N Scale once Diesel is on the cards. Sidney or Flying Scotsman might become the first N Scale engine that doesn't already exist in HO Scale. We know Gordon is the first N Scale engine that doesn't exist in Large Scale, due to his sheer size.

After a long wait, I finally have gotten my hands on the new N Scale 'Thomas' Box Vans. I pre-ordered these wagons months before they made their way state-side, and yet my retailer of choice (who shall go un-named) took nearly two full months after their arrival to actually get my order into my hands... They were also quite slow with my Toby order, so I think I'm going to switch to someone else's service for the sake of my own sanity...

Anyway, the wagons are excellent aesthetically. All three liveries are colorful and look good in a goods train, and I think the three varieties currently available pair well with each other in a consist. I think my favorite of the liveries is the "Fruit and Vegetable" version, though the "Great Western" version is nice as well (even if it is odd to have an LNER van with GWR markings, ha ha). The white "Ice Cream" version is probably the weakest of the three, if only because its a somewhat more niche and silly wagon. But 'Thomas' rolling stock is nothing if not occasionally niche and silly, so I am glad to have it all the same. All three roll along smoothly and freely when pushed or pulled.

My only complaint about the Box Vans is that they are all very light, lighter than the 7-Plank wagons, even. It makes them feel somewhat cheap, which isn't a great impression to get from something with a suggested price of $36 a pop. Upon inspection, they use the same metal weight piece as the 7-Plank wagons, so I suppose the culprit is the van body being lighter than the open body...? Seems counter-intuitive for the bigger body to be lighter, ha ha. It's simple enough to add extra weight inside the Box Vans, but it would be nice if future releases of the vans could have a more substantial metal weight included to begin with.

That said, my overall impressions are positive. They look nice and run well, and that's what I wanted out of these.

Hey guys, here's a little update on my Series 1 Thomas project! He's nearly finished, I just need to do the clear coats on his body shell, then paint his new face. Here's a progress pic:



Edit: The picture is a lot less blurry if you click on it.

Hey guys, I finished painting Thomas' snowplough, so he's ready for winter now! Overall, I'm really happy with how he and the plough turned out!

As I said in the Facebook group Kempton, Thomas looks great and I love how your snowplow turned out.  Keep it up!

On that note:



Looks like Toad's official image has been posted.  Looks like he's getting closer to being released!

Wow, he looks really good! I always love seeing the official product pictures get posted for the first time!

Hey guys, Toad is in stock on Bachmann's webstore now, which means he should be with other retailers soon as well!

https://shop.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=8746

Begging your pardon, everyone but the N scale Toad has arrived.  A bizarre statement that I wouldn't have guessed I'd be saying over a year ago before his announcement for sure, but here we are.  Unlike most rolling stock announcements, there's a lot I have to say about the N scale Toad so I'll share my thoughts. 


Looking at this model, all I really have to say is, wow!  Part of me is still in disbelief that we have an N scale model of Toad the Brake van of all things.  I remember when this got announced last year feeling, while excited also a little confused.  I thought this would just be a Graham farish repaint with a face slapped on at first since that was the only possible reason I thought they would do Toad.  Especially he was announced alongside Gordon.  Once the engineering sample was revealed and it was a new tooling, I was even more stumped, but at the same time all the more excited.  So how does this model hold up?


The N scale Toad, in my opinion, is the new best rolling stock addition in the range by a landslide.  The tooling itself is perfectly proportioned with that of the CGI render, and the paint that is applied onto Toad looks wonderful.  The decals are placed on one side of the body and not the other, with the latter being shown in this picture. But the model is so small it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it did with the HO model. 


The face on Toad was captured beautifully and matches that of the CGI design perfectly.  It's also one of the few face designs that doesn't stray too far away from the model era face either so it would look great regardless of whichever era of the show you prefer to model.


The separately added tail lamps have to be my favorite detail of the N scale Toad.  I love how these turned out, especially with the red paint for the LED light.  It was a detail that was completely missing on the HO Toad and a missed opportunity for sure. 


Speaking of the HO model, I want to talk about that real quick.  The difference between the HO and N scale Toad models are night and day.  The HO Toad is made of a light plastic that's not fully attached to the chassis all that well, has no real weight to it and the paint in some areas (particularly the silver on the buffers which I repainted black) feel like they were splashed on.  It feels like they made Toad in a rush, which feels questionable considering that they went with a Bachmann branch line tooling this one and only time instead of the usual mainline tooling.  Not only that but the quality of Toad was just not there compared to the N scale one.  It honestly makes me feel like the HO modelers REALLY got robbed of a good Toad model in terms of quality and overall accuracy when you compare it to the N scale model.


But going back to the N scale Toad, it's clear that this a winner in the range and a very fun piece of rolling stock in the range.  Aesthetically, it really exceeded my expectations.  Considering it's a model of a character who seems odd on the surface to add to the range, it manages to hit the right areas of accuracy and fits in with the rest of the range nicely.  I wish I could say the same for the N scale tankers though...


As far as performance goes, Toad runs very smoothly behind any N scale goods train. It handles tighter radiuses pretty well too and I think it's clear as day that it works as a nice placeholder for the time being until Bachmann adds more brake vans in the near future to their Thomas range.  I see more of an urgency for those to happen sooner than Oliver to go with Toad, if I'm honest.  As a stand-alone rolling stock announcement though, Toad is a lot of fun for your N scale Thomas collection.


Overall, the N scale Toad, while an odd choice on the surface, really is an outstanding model and gets a huge thumbs up for me.  Whether you're a fan of the character or collect the N scale line, I highly recommend picking this one up for sure.  Bachmann continues to deliver excellent quality with their N scale models and I am looking forward to further updates on several other projects that we have left to anticipate.  Hopefully the next model that arrives in stock will be the N scale Gordon!

Nice review, as always, Chaz! Now here's to hoping we'll be getting a Bachmann N-scale Oliver soon.

Awesome review and photos as per usual, Chaz! I'm now all jazzed up to get my N Scale Toad.

The OO model is quite frustrating, and now with the release of the N Scale model, it seems to be clear as to why. It appears that not a lot of effort was put into it (the UK version tries to rectify this, somewhat) for all the reasons you stated, but also for the fact that the grey for the body is much too light and makes it look like a cheap knockoff. It seems Bachmann themselves realized this and decided to put things right and make a dedicated new tooling for the N scale model. I'm looking forward to running him behind Percy and maybe James. It's obvious why James because of "Toad's Adventure", but I also feel he and Percy would get along quite well for some reason.

Yes, considering how fast they moved on Toad, let's hope Emily's coaches are next! Now those will look pretty rad behind James until Emily is out, for sure.

Hello all, a quick question for all N scale Thomas modelers:

A former student of mine and his dad are building an N scale Thomas layout.  They'd really like to add Cranky onto their layout, but obviously Bachmann has no plans to do Cranky in N anytime soon. So I'd like help finding alternatives for them in the meantime.  What would you guys recommend? And if possible, I'd love to see a side by side comparison of Cranky next to the Bachmann N scale Thomas (not Tomix, please).  This could be either the ERTL, capsule plarail or any other brand that has made Cranky that could work with N scale.

Thanks in advance!