Can a Payne-style Thomas be made from a Bachmann model?

In short, kind of, but it's a lot of work. It might be easier just to build from scratch. This is what I've been doing with my Thomas model, and here are a few pictures of my progress, and what remains of the Bachmann model.

I had to completely build a new running plate to match the curve in most illustrations. Drawing it consistently was the hardest part, but eventually I got the curve in the running plate to match on both sides, which was the most important thing (to me), before getting it put together.

I also needed to make a new cab (mainly because I want it to be detailed. I cut the bunker as part of it, which I figured would be easy. I also made a start on the cab windows, which are based on Reginald Payne's illustrations. I glued the sides together temporarily to drill the holes for the window. It's rough at the moment, but it will be worked on more.




And here's a picture showing what it looks like now (kind of) and what's left of the Bachmann model.

If you do decide to pull the wheels of the axles, if you can, try to just use your hands so that you don't damage the wheels when you take them off of the axle. Or you could try to repaint the wheels instead. Vallejo Deep Sky Blue is a very close match to the color used for Thomas (this is hoping that Gordon matches Thomas' color). However, I haven't looked for a green to match Henry, since I haven't owned a model of him, yet.

Quote from: Rodimus Supreme on June 27, 2020, 09:02:31 PM
You people don't seem to understand how any of this works. I don't care how big Diesel is, his measurements don't mean anything for a van. And that van, taken from narrow gauge proportions and scaled up to the model series scale, is taller than every other type of van, and it's too tall according to the NMRA. Facts are facts.

By that logic, James and Edward would also be to tall for NMRA standards, but they were able to be done.

The funny thing is, Bachmann James is even larger compared to his Model Series counterpart when comparing him to Henry and Gordon. In the show, the bottom of his face appears to start where the bottom of the bigger engines' faces do, and goes to a little over halfway above their boilers. The Bachmann model is very close to CGI scaling, where the top of James' face is almost level with he top of Gordon and Henry's. If you compare Bachmann remakes of Thomas' Christmas Party with the original, you will see this (the same also applies to Edward and Percy). I think these errors came about due to Thomas receiving larger wheels in Magic Railroad, when in the original series, he had shared a wheel size with Edward and James. You can also compare James with the picture Cheeky_ULP posted by putting a 7 plank wagon behind his tender. See how the tender's rear matches the height of the wagon? His tender is a few mm higher than it on the Bachmann version (another error Edward shares).
To repeat what Cheeky_ULP said, the van shouldn't be too tall, because, if anything, the Bachmann James is.

All of the Narrow Gauge stuff is also to 1:76 scale, so you don't need to worry about them.

You could do a half and half layout. I've considered that a little bit, myself.

To add, I have been working on making Thomas more accurate to his Series 1 model over the last year. Certain things have caused me to do measurement after measurement of the Bachmann model and several references of the Classic Series model. I can confirm that he's scaled to OO.
Here's a link to my work:
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/150577-backdating-bachmanns-thomas-the-tank-engine-a-finescale-thomas-project/

Quote from: Rodimus Supreme on May 14, 2020, 10:56:55 AM
If you're good at scratchbuilding, you could make a new Gordon, Henry, and Spencer using an HO BR-78 for the chassis for each of them. Two Märklin Gauge 1 BR-78's were used to make the original Gordon and Henry chassis back when they were making the first season.

Yeah, but that depends on if you want Henry and Gordon to be HO Scale or OO Scale like the rest of the range.

That's awesome! It's great to know that they think of us as much as they do the people who buy the normal product ranges.

Yes.

Here's a link to a picture that shows the scaling of the N Scale models pretty well:
http://fav.me/ddjduxc

The picture is from Merritt Trainboy on deviantart. I believe the models are on Bachmann's standard 5 inch pieces of track, so if anyone has that type of track and the Tomix models, it could prove an interesting comparison. The interesting thing is that it seems that only Annie and Clarabel seem to follow CGI scaling, since Thomas appears to be quite large compared to the trucks, like his Model Series and Bachmann HO and Large counterparts.

I might as well answer these questions if it gives a better shot of Stepney being made.
  1. I would definitely buy a model of Stepney in a heartbeat if he was made, even though he'd technically be out-of-era for me. He has always been one of my favorite characters. The fact that he's also a real locomotive also strengthens that fact.
  2. I think he would be one of the best sellers and is probably Bachmann's best bet at making a newly tooled locomotive.
  3. I agree that Stepney should definitely have priority over any other thing Bachmann could make.

If they just used Skarloey's chassis for Sir Handel and Peter Sam, the latter two wouldn't be accurate because the proportions wouldn't follow their basis proportions. They'd probably look stretched. If I remember correctly, Talyllyn has a longer wheelbase than both Sir Haydn and Edward Thomas.

Quote from: ebtnut on February 12, 2020, 10:52:24 AM
except that one of the signal wires from the tender to the loco was too long and occasionally caught on a frog or guardrail.  That's a minor fix.

How do you fix that? I have a locomotive that I haven't run for a while because of that problem.

Well, this was very unexpected, but it's very welcome. Perhaps it's not a leak, because that looks like the printed catalogs, and there was a train show this last weekend. The catalog probably was there. I'm sure that Bachmann probably figured this would happen if they displayed the catalog.

Anyways, these definitely seem to be fairly solid announcements. It is a bit strange, though, that Thomas and Percy's N Scale models weren't pictured in the catalog.