David Maynard said:
Geesh, all this for an advertisement about one of our favorite subjects, trains.
Yeah, ridiculous, ain’t it?
Per John’s comment above, what’s the cut-off age for being “old”? Anybody know?
It was not my intention to start the furror I did. That said, I would like to make a public apology to Ken Bianco at Trainworld. I took a personal aggrivation and went too far with it. I can’t undo what has been done, but hope we can let the subject drop and everyone go back to their particular style of life.
I consider this the end of the topic as far as I am concerned.
Bob Cope
Michael Kirrene said:
David Maynard said:
Geesh, all this for an advertisement about one of our favorite subjects, trains.
Yeah, ridiculous, ain’t it?
Per John’s comment above, what’s the cut-off age for being “old”? Anybody know?
I guess that depends on your viewpoint. The kids in the CAP thought I was old when I was in my mid 30’s. My boss at my last job acted as though I was a child, when I was in my mid 40’s. So I guess it depends on where you are as to what is old or young.
Michael Kirrene said:
David Maynard said:
Geesh, all this for an advertisement about one of our favorite subjects, trains.
Yeah, ridiculous, ain’t it?
Per John’s comment above, what’s the cut-off age for being “old”? Anybody know?
As an Older, I protest the idea of a cut-off!(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif) Besides, though it changes every year, my sister says I’m 67 going on 6, the 6 has been a constant for 16 years…
John
I went poop on the potty today !
" Rooster " said:
I went poop on the potty today !
Roosters finally admitted to having gone Potty
I missed this one but likely 'cause I received a email direct from Ken, Trainworld announcing the event.
As I also have chosen not to do facetime’ I passed on it. But I do know that Ken usually does post the event video elsewhere (ex. 'Utube) and at a later time I would view it (all o portion of it). And that is usually where I’ll post my thanks for it !
But here, … Ken Thank You for sponsoring LargeScaleCentral (and our hobby) ! (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)
doug c
p.s. if you told someone who is fully into fb’ tw’ drop’ snap’, etc. that a website forum is social media they would call you out on it and slam ya waaaay more (and viciously) than what was perceived by the first couple rebut’ posts on this thread. a couple yrs back I heard a fb’ user on a public radio, tech’ program declare anyone not on FB was a non-person/entity. Hearing that definitely got my back up and I still refuse to sign up for any trendy social media platform other my 2.5 email addys, and numerous forums (at least 6 GR-flavoured ) ! IMHO (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)
John Caughey said:
Michael Kirrene said:
David Maynard said:
Geesh, all this for an advertisement about one of our favorite subjects, trains.
Yeah, ridiculous, ain’t it?
Per John’s comment above, what’s the cut-off age for being “old”? Anybody know?
As an Older, I protest the idea of a cut-off!(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif) Besides, though it changes every year, my sister says I’m 67 going on 6, the 6 has been a constant for 16 years…
John
I refuse to grow up. Grown ups are grumpy people who are always worrying about stuff that never happens. And if it does happen, its not as bad as they thought it would be.
My first childhood sucked, so I darn sure am going to enjoy the heck out of my second one.
David
Not an adult, but playing one in real life.
Yea,
Same ol crap from the same ol participants time and time again. Jeeze don’t you guys ever get tired of trying to tell others what and how they should feel about things???
If ya don’t like FB who gives a sh–, some others do. If ya don’t like Billboards along the highway, who gives a sh–, some others do. If ya don’t like chocolate ice cream who gives a sh–, others do.
A man running a business has a few other things to think about besides a few potential customers aversion to a certain type of advertising. Cripes if ya go down to buy a new car do you give the dealership a bunch of crap because they use more than one venue to advertise? Yea didn’t think so, after all you’r standing right in front of them.
Sure be nice to see this all get back to building and running model trains.
Rick
First it was said Bachmann knows everything about the model train industry but they are ignorant to the fact that their 1:20.3 scale models are not G scale but are actually F scale so designated by the NMRA about 14 years ago. And in my opinion Bachmann dropped the ball when it abandoned their 1:20.3 Fn3 line giving no thought or respect to their customer base that they solicited into this scale with their first release the 2 Truck Shay followed by 10 other locomotives and numerous freight cars then they just abandoned the line, to me this is not a company dictated to the hobby or it’s customers
Well, to many folks, 45 mm gauge models are G scale. So saying F scale would confuse them.
As for “abandoning” the 1:20.3 scale base, what scale is that mogul in? Oh, 1:20.3
Lee Riley was the moving force behind the 1/20.3 Spectrum line. When he died there was no one left to champion it in the Bmann boardroom. They are now phasing out the rolling stock. As of this morning everything on their site shows as being “sold out” except a few tank cars. This line is also disappearing from the retailers shelves as well as the auction sites. It is high quality in both design and accuracy (with the exception of the side dump gon). The line includes several items that Accucraft has never offered such as the wood roof boxcar, framed and frameless tank cars. They also have the advantage of being easy to dismantle for painting customizing or kit-bashing. Try taking apart an Accucraft boxcar if you want to truly appreciate the value of this. The line is a good performer. It is made from injection molded plastic rather than resin so it weighs half or less than the Accucraft line. The wheels and trucks are metal with solid construction and high quality material.
The only bad thing I have ever found in the line was the early shays and the connies. Both had motor, gear and wheel problems.
I own about 80 pieces of 1/20.3 rolling stock split almost evenly between Spectrum and Accucraft and all Bmann engines except for one AMS K-27 so I feel I am speaking from an experienced position.
I freely admit that when I did HO years ago I hated Bmann. It was in the same category as Lifelike and Tyco. I was hesitant to buy any of their products in G but once I got into the Spectrum stuff I have changed my opinion 180 degrees. I also have and very pleased with their ON30 Spectrum line. Who would have guessed that Bmann would be the biggest fish in the large scale pond.
They are now phasing out the rolling stock. As of this morning everything on their site shows as being “sold out” except a few tank cars.
Boomer,
Do you have any hard information that they are ‘phasing them out’ ? Bachmann recently has slowed down production - possibly due to the Recession - but they often do a run and suddenly the stores are full of stock again. As Dave says, look at the Mogul.
First it was said Bachmann knows everything about the model train industry but they are ignorant to the fact that their 1:20.3 scale models are not G scale but are actually F scale so designated by the NMRA about 14 years ago. And in my opinion Bachmann dropped the ball when it abandoned their 1:20.3 Fn3 line giving no thought or respect to their customer base that they solicited into this scale with their first release the 2 Truck Shay followed by 10 other locomotives and numerous freight cars then they just abandoned the line, to me this is not a company dictated to the hobby or it’s customers
Boomer I have 17 Bachmann 1:20.3 locomotives and 45 of their Spectrum 1:20.3 freight cars plus 20 AMS freight cars and 4 of their JS Passanger cars so I am also speaking from a knowledgeable stand point. I spoke to a Bachmann rep at the 2015 Fall York show and I was told then that they were most certainly phasing out their 1:20.3 scale line due to a failing market they said and increased mfg costs in China and with the exception of their new release of the old
2-6-0 Mogul if you look at their site almost all of this line is “discontinued” I also asked Bachmann, via email last year why not put together kits from the 1:20.3 parts they have for modelers to assemble themselves, but never received an answer. And yes the F scale models do use 45 mm track but with the exception of 1:32 scale models F scale or more accurately Fn3 models are the only accurately scaled models running on #1 gauge 45 mm track as 1:20.3 scales out to 15 mm = 1 foot. There are also a small group of F scale modelers now making models of standard gauge locomotives and rolling stock running on 71 mm gauge track so the scale has a market contrary to Bachmann’s claim.
The scale may have a market, but apparently not a large enough market for Bachmann to invest in molds, tooling and the effort to assemble the models and ship them halfway around the world. It’s a shame, since, as has been stated, Bachmann really gave 1:20.3 scale a shot in the arm with their logging engines, especially the first run Shay.
I freely admit that when I did HO years ago I hated Bmann. It was in the same category as Lifelike and Tyco.
Hey! I like my Tyco trains, and I run them at train shows. Mainly to torque off the NMRA guys, but I do run them. And the public loves them, because that is what so many of them grew up with.
Joe Augustine said:
I also asked Bachmann, via email last year why not put together kits from the 1:20.3 parts they have for modelers to assemble themselves, but never received an answer.
When I was in the hobby shop business at the time Horizon bought MDC and Athearn with their HO lines I talked to Horizon about the kits and that they were discontinuing them. Horizon person said that production costs for kits were same as and sometimes more than assembling cars at factory because of the necessary packaging the parts and getting them in to kits and checked for content.
Bachmann tried to create a market in the 1/20.3 niche like they created a market in On30, but it just wasn’t enough interest. Part of the reason was that 1/22.5 was already established as the defacto ‘narrow gauge’ scale and a great big chunk of the market was already well established in 1/22.5 and not willing to be forced to rebuild their already established layouts to accommodate the larger scale engines and rolling stock. It didn’t help that it seemed like every year or so new 1/20.3 offerings required a bi-yearly complete rebuild of the layout to accommodate the ever larger stock that needed larger clearances and wider curves. That alone exhausted some folks interest, now factor in the early QC problems Bachmann was having with their 1/20 line and alot of people were simply afraid to buy anything for fear their trucks would break or their gearbox would implode. But the killer was the recession. All of a sudden the bottom just fell out from the market for large scale. This above all things is what the hobby is still suffering from and still not yet recovered. Given the current prices for track and rolling stock We’re never going to see that heady days like the early 2000’s ever again and Kader knows this, that’s why they are following their wallets and going forward with only what they know will have a strong sales presence world-wide, and that’s in matching product to LGB and Piko. So say goodbye to any new 1/20, I suspect any growth in new items will be where there is currently a market void, and that is in 1/29.