Mainline steamers

[nikonian]

I would love it if bachamn produced a "g-scale" Class A RR mainline steamer like a 4-8-4 or the 2-8-0 (union pacific) I just picked up. They have nice 4-8-4's in both N scale and Ho and it would be a departure from what aristocraft puts out. If thay could make a 4-8-4 and price it around $700-$900 usd I would buy one...

What would everybody else like to see in terms of mainline locomotives.

[Chuck N]

Bachmann "G" gauge engines and cars are all based upon American Narrow Gauge prototypes.  We have seen nothing to suggest that they are planning to change that approach.  If they were I would guess that modern freight cars would be the first to come out and they would have to sell very well before they started thinking about tooling up for an engine.  That is a really big investment in a scale that is limping along in the present market.

Chuck

[Jose Morais]

Well, that would raise the question of scale and compatibility with existing layouts. Bachmann produces essentially narrow gauge models in 1:22.5 (Big Hauler) and 1:20.3 (Spectrum) scales.

To produce a standard gauge model, as you suggest, it would be necessary to either reduce the scale to make them compatible, size-wise, with the narrow gauge models (as Bachmann as made to the toy like Thomas series, about 1:25), or they would manufacture really large models in 1:20 or 1:22,5, but then to what gauge? 45 or 63mm? This is problem similar to that faced by LGB which manufactures some large scale locos in a somewhat mysterious and undisclosed and necessarily fictitious scale (1:26?).

Given that Bachmann has introduced 1:20.3 to be exact modeling 3ft narrow gauge, it seems it takes seriously the scale question. So I would not expect Bachmann to introduce any large scale serious models of standard gauge prototypes in the near future, particularly in the current economic climate.   

[tac]

A few years back there was a thread on mylargescale.com which dealt with a small run of custom-built 4-8-4 locomotives built to standard gauge in 1:20.3 scale.  There were a few necessary drawbacks to modelling in this scale -

1.  There is no ready-made standard-gauge track in this gauge/scale ratio - 70.7mm. 

2.  The models were truly enormous - around eight feet long.

3.  They needed curves AT LEAST 25 foot radius - that's a 50 foot circle, in case of confusion.

4.  They were around $20,000 - each.  I could be wrong here, they might just have been more. 

There is categorically NO RTR standard gauge rolling stock in this scale to run behind them, and in any case, the average twelve car train would be almost sixty feet long, plus the locomotive, of course.

You'd need to live in the same house as Donald Trump for this kind of a deal.

Just sayin'.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS