I'd only have hopes for Caroline if we got Bachmann to make Stepney in 2019.

Now -that- would be a dream.

To be fair though, Stepney does have enough of a demand for Hornby to have made a limited second run of Stepney in 2012, so there's definitely a market for the Bluebell engine. To add, he doesn't have any CGI references so if a model was made of him, it'd be based on his charming Season 4-12 model. If Bachmann didn't want to make Daisy, I feel like Stepney would be a good, unique B option.

I haven't seen this mentioned much:

The Flatbed with Paint Drums has been discontinued for awhile, and when it does come up on eBay, it's for a ludicrous amount. There's clearly still a demand for the flatbeds, so just like the Express Coaches coming back, I feel like they should bring these back as well. The load could be the same or different for all I care, since I really just want the flatbeds themselves. If Bachmann wanted to make a new load however, they could have crates instead of paint drums, or even logs.

InsideTrack, there's an image of the Spiteful Brake van in the 2018 catalog, but it's very low resolution. Could you by chance upload the high resolution picture?

I personally feel like Peter Sam is a smart choice, but at the same time I feel like the Bachmann range in general is way overdosed in green and red-ish engines. Sir Handel would be a welcome shade of blue to the range.

Even with Sir Hadyn in restoration, he is coming along nicely. I imagine Bachmann can easily get the blueprints to Haydn if they want to make Sir Handel, or even do him in the near future once Sir Haydn is done.

Not much to say about his stock render, but hopefully we see him before the end of the year.

I still wonder if he'll be based off Midlander, as per Skarloey and Rheneas, or be more based on his CGI model.

No problem Maui, Demigod of the Wind and Sea, Hero to All

Boy uh.

That's quite the glaring error.


The weird thing is, Diesels face isn't as wide as the grey area around Paxtons face. It raises the question of whether this is a bad Photoshop, or a paint error.

I really wish to support the Bachmann Thomas range, but when not even a repaint of Diesel can be done right, it raises some red flags and makes me very concerned for the range. Was the image/prototype simply not proof-read? Is this an unfinished design? I certainly hope so, as I had been greatly anticipating Paxton.

With Rosie and Oliver, I felt like Bachmann was back on track after the misfire Toad was (especially from a manufacturing standpoint).

On the other hand, Grumpy Diesel looks alright; if I didn't have Diesel already, I would have gotten it instead. I feel like Grumpy Diesel will become the peoples choice for a Diesel model, rather than his smiling face.

There's nothing wrong with Grumpy Diesel on an individual level, as anything, he should've had a grumpy face in the first place.

The issue however, is the fact that he was the only engine announced this year, period. It kind of makes sense with Rusty and Paxton still nowhere near out yet. Grumpy Diesel alone however, isn't much of a crowd-pleaser for announcements we get only once a year.

We basically have to wait another year to see if the wait for better things will be worth it (course in the meantime it means I can buy engines like the Hattons P Class and Barclay).

The CGI narrow gauge coaches seem to be based in color off of the Talyllyn Coaches, but proportion wise, they're not quite accurate to the No. 4s on the Talyllyn (too tall). Model series wise, the blue coaches were No. 4s (which have flat sides) and the red coaches were No. 3s (which have curved sides).

Honestly, it's hard to mess up their design when 7mm blueprints are accessible online:


No. 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all purchasable on their website:
http://www.talyllynrailwayshop.co.uk/ourshop/prod_3652253-Talyllyn-Coach-No4-7mm-Scale-Drawing-250-including-postage.html
http://www.talyllynrailwayshop.co.uk/ourshop/prod_2440473-Talyllyn-Coach-No3-7mm-Scale-Drawing-250-including-postage.html
http://www.talyllynrailwayshop.co.uk/ourshop/prod_2440379-Talyllyn-Coach-1-2-7mm-250-inc-postage.html

Only way this could go wrong is if they use the CGI Thomas & Friends reference photos provided by Mattel, rather than following Talyllyn design plans (which besides color scheme, they didn't do for Skarloey and Rheneas, and didn't at all with the slate wagons).

Another thing to consider is these coaches may be something Bachmann UK is making, and like the slate wagons, it just happens that the Thomas version will come out first.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall to hear the reasoning behind that.

There's quite the humor in the 2018 announcements being so lackluster that people have almost immediately flocked to making 2019 wishlists, in hopes of a better year next year.

I pretty much agree with Daisy being the next HO engine, and Sir Handel, Peter Sam or Duncan being the next OO9 engine.

I'll make a post later on going into greater detail of my current hopes, but I do wanna think on rolling stock options for a bit.

If they turn out to be PECO GVT coaches though, I won't imagine many people flocking to them.

People still want Daisy and are going to demand her. We aren't going to stop simply because you don't wish to hear about it anymore. The ship hasn't really "sailed," when every engine that had a chance this year got shot down.

Having been vouching for the Spiteful Brakevan to be made into the range for over 10 years, I have to consider that the second-best item we're getting this year. The winner of the announcements is the fact that we're getting Narrow Gauge coaches, though. The question is, are they going to be repaints of the PECO tooling, or original toolings made by Bachmann as per the slate wagons? Time will tell on that matter.

Anyway, time to address the elephant in the room:

No narrow gauge engine, it's a bit sad but expected. However, the HO scale engine choice on the other hand... Yikes. Lots of people complained that Bachmann Diesel had a happy face instead of a face, true, and it's great to see that being addressed but... I think having this be the -only- HO/OO engine of 2018 was a really, really bad idea. The backlash on the forum and on Twitter is through the roof.

To add, it almost seems.. Excessive to release an entirely new variation of Diesel when the only difference is... His face. It seems like selling a separate faceplate at a cheap value would've been more cost-effective. The only way I see this working is if Bachmann has plans to phase out the normal, happy Diesel and eventually only sell "Grumpy Diesel."

Grumpy Diesel is a good idea in its own right, but releasing no other engine along side him was a poor decision, and has damaged peoples faith and trust in the brand in a matter of hours. This combined with the supposed cancellation of the Large Scale Diesel and Farmer McColl wagon isn't helping that any.

Overall, I feel like Bachmann is running on a budget this year, and it shows. Whatever issues are going on internally, hopefully Bachmann sorts out the problems by 2019. Here's to another 365 days of vouching for Daisy and Sir Handel (or Peter Sam or Duncan, really).

In that case, it'll probably be posted in the next few hours or so.