HO Spiteful Brake Van Shipping to Dealers

[InsideTrack]

The HO Spiteful Brake Van (Item No. 77010) has just arrived in our warehouse and orders are now shipping to dealers. It should be available through your favorite hobby retailer shortly.

Bachmann Trains

[sean1994rail]

Great! Going to get him!

[Chaz]

Finally!

[TerencetheTractor525]

Thank goodness  .

[Streak]

Hooray! Just in time for Christmas! Now other than Rusty and the Express Coaches, Bachmann pretty much all caught up with releases! Hopefully this will continue with the Febuary announcements next year.

[Angelob6660]

I was going to reserve right now, but I decided not too. Just in case he gets sold out I'll be waiting for backorder.

[Chaz]

Merry Christmas everyone! Look who arrived in the mail today!


The HO scale model of the spiteful brake van. As usual, here are my thoughts on this new addition:


If there was any issue I had with the 2017 announcements, besides the lack of narrow gauge rolling stock, it was the fact that the spiteful brake van was only announced in large scale. Clearly though, responses from fans on the forum were strong, as well as constructive enough, to persuade Bachmann into making the Spiteful brake van into HO.  Only a year later, the Spiteful brake van finds itself announced in the 2018 announcements being one of the few gems in the new lineup.


That aside, it is amazing how a character, who has never even been seen, used, or even mentioned or even had a following outside older fans, in over 30 years since his episode first aired.  The fact that Bachmann made this at all, especially in both scales, really shows that Bachmann is willing to pull through for the older and nostalgic fans.  I'm hoping to see more "nods" like this in the future if they are recolors, like clear silver tankers, a season 1 styled troublesome truck, or maybe even a green Thomas and black James from the Adventure Begins.  If there is any takeaway from this, it's that Bachmann knows nostalgia sells.  Whether it's the majority of the range being classic characters, classic stock, even classic designs for resin buildings, it's clear that Bachmann isn't slowing down on these choices anytime soon. 


Going back on topic with the spiteful brake van, how does the model hold up?  The first thing I want to talk about is the livery. Ever since the large scale brake van came out, fans wanted to see this exact livery on the HO scale model.   HO modelers really got screwed when they got their first brake van in 2005.  For some people, it looked incomplete.  It's like Bachmann didn't even bother to paint it which is why to some, it looked so bland.  For the Spiteful brake van, Bachmann in a sense killed two birds with one stone on this one as fans can not only buy this for the character, but also for having additional brake vans in their collection (face included or not) to add to their collection.  All the more props to Bachmann to making this happen. 


The next thing I want to talk about is its design. While the livery itself looks nice, it's overall design is definitely a hybrid. The face as well as the brake van basis, are both based on the television series, the livery clearly came from the Railway Series. This is the first time Bachmann has actually made a hybrid in their models.  I've heard fans say that Duck was a hybrid of model and CGI, and obviously those who have said that have no idea what a hybrid means (Bachmann Duck's design is clearly 100% based off the model era, no questions asked).


And finally time to talk about the face, and to be frank, I feel like this is literally the most accurate face Bachmann has done... ever.  Not just for rolling stock, but even compared to engines Bachmann hit the nail with the hammer on this one and I appreciate the fact that Bachmann went the extra mile on this one and made the face as accurate as they did.


Overall, this is easily one of my favorite pieces of rolling stock in the range, top 5 easily.  It gives me genuine hope, that despite all the constant negativity from Thomas' future in BWBA/season 22 and decline in toy quality as well as some of Bachmann's announcements that they can at the very least pull off decent models like this in the process.  The Spiteful brake van is a must-buy.  Whether you own the Donald and Douglas models or not, or even are a collector or just now getting into the range, this is easily one of the first pieces of stock I would recommend.  Thank you Bachmann for making this happen, and I look forward to sharing my thoughts on Rusty as well as the narrow gauge coaches when they arrive!


Say Bachmann, since we are on the subject of brake vans, perhaps now is just as good of a time as any other to remind you that maybe next year, the narrow gauge range can have brake vans too?  Something tells me they could really benefit from having brake vans right about now...!

[sean1994rail]

Very informative and detailed review of the spiteful brakevan, Chaz.

[Streak]

The Spiteful Brake Van looks amazing! Hoping we get more great rolling stock in the future like Henrietta with a face, Old Slow Coach, Bradford, and more. (Maybe someday even Fred Pelhay and Rickety)

Great review and Merry Christmas!

[Plow_Bender]

A very nice look into the HO Spiteful Brakevan, Chaz.  Bachmann really pulled off a nice model, and the face is what sealed the deal with this model, no doubt about that.  This is definitely a piece of rolling stock I'd be interested in getting if I were into the HO range.  Since I'm not, I went ahead and ordered the large scale model (along with the Great Western Van), but this was back in November and yet I still don't have either of them.  Both are currently on backorder and the retailer I purchased them from said mid December.  Now they say they have no idea when they will be shipped and this makes absolutely no sense as both models are in stock on Bachmann, so what's the hold up?

Anyways, although I'm not into HO, I'd still recommend the Spiteful Brakevan after seeing your post.  Definitely a model that does not disappoint, and is a nice change compared to what Bachmann served us up back in 2005.  They've certainly come a long way since then, and I too can agree that even with the downhill decline of the Thomas & Friends franchise itself, at least Bachmann continues to make gems like this to keep up with what the older fans want to see.  Maybe in 2019 we can also expect to see some new additions to help put the breaks on HOn30 as well.

-Rusty

[Chaz]

Thanks guys for the responses to my thoughts on the Spiteful brake van, it truly is a great model.

Just a heads up to everyone on here, I did preorder more from Trainworld but they told me that they sold out on their models very, very quickly to a point where they sold out before getting the rest of the preorders out (which were two I ordered for friends, which I had to cancel the orders from).  In other words, this is a really strong seller already from Bachmann and eBay sales have been flying out left and right, so if you want a spiteful brake van model and don't have one already, I would encourage you to order one while you still have a chance.

[Angelob6660]

I ordered the HO Spiteful brake van on eBay yesterday. With a few more cars. I got him at a decent price of $34.98 with shipping included. I can't wait until he's shipped out.

You did a good job on the review Chaz, one of the reasons why I was looking to buy him right away.

[Cheeky_ULP]

A bit of a manufactures hiccup coming out the box, but it was fairly easy to put back in place. Bachmann should definitely do a bit of quality control at the assembly lines though, considering this happend with Toad, as well.

Anyway, the face is definitely the highlight of the Spiteful Brakevan. It looks dead on to how he looks in the TV series, and no doubt about it. The tooling itself is still the old Mainline brake van tooling. For what it is though, it does the job for junior modellers. The paint job is clean and crisp. The design, an invention of Bachmanns, is derived from the Large Scale brake van, which in turn was derived from mixing the TV series and Railway Series designs of the brake vans, and is a welcome addition to the HO/OO range. I'd recommend this for any junior modellers who need a brake van to go along side Toad on their layouts.

If you're a more advanced modeller though, I'll get back to you on that in a bit...