Large Scale Central

Finis to an era

General Discussion
#1

I received a telephone call from the Editor of GR today.

Seems the VP of Marketing at Bachmann, one Doug Blaine, called and was quite upset with the review of the K-27.
Neither one of us could quite figure out why.

Seems I am not to write reviews for Bachmann Products for Kalmbach, nor am I to communicate with Bachmannn Industries.

I have not received any correspondence from Bachmann Industries regarding this matter.

I kept hoping this was a date-based communication, but apparently not.

So, I am hoping they have gathered together a team to find and fix the issues, which was what I was primarily doing all along.

#2
Curmudgeon said:
I received a telephone call from the Editor of GR today.

Seems the VP of Marketing at Bachmann, one Doug Blaine, called and was quite upset with the review of the K-27.
Neither one of us could quite figure out why.


Makes no sense to me, I thought your review was very positive.

Quote:
Seems I am not to write reviews for Bachmann Products for Kalmbach, nor am I to communicate with Bachmannn Industries.
Sheesh, how juvenile! And I suppose they intend to force the issue by pulling their ads if Kalmbach doesn't comply?
#3

Doug Blaine:
1 - What are his credentials? Is he speaking for himself or Bachmann? What is his complaint in terms of Bachmann or Kader – or is this a personal gripe (for sure it is not a complement)?
2 - What was Mark Horovitz’s response? Did he offer agreement?
3 - What is the outcome to the conversation in terms is TOC reviewing FOR Bachmann or FOR Garden Railways? Translation: A movie reviewer for TIME magazine does not work for the movie producer or the distributor.
4 - Most important: What conclusion does TOC reach or has he reached regarding his review status – personally, with Garden Railways, this website, and Bachmann?

Conclusion:
Know we know at least ONE person (supposedly - I don’t see the credential by Bachmann) has read the review and does not like it. Hmmmmm.

Kudos to TOC!!!

Wendell

#4

This is all pay back for something else.

A certain person demonstrating:
“Don’t mess with me boyo. I have more pull than you do.”

Don’t worry Dave.
The truth will come out in the end and that certain person will fall down on his butt so hard it will end up as part of his face.

#5

So I guess I have to make a decision. I either trust a person that has become a friend, done many conversions and repairs for me on Bachmann, USA and LGB equipment. Or I should trust a company that has caused me to have to send equipment to the friend mentioned in the last sentence, because he has made some honest appraisals and suggestions for improvements to the manufacturer of the equipment he is repairing, modifying or upgrading for me. Yeap, this is going to be a real tough decision.

Good job Dave. Thanks for being who you are.

#6

Yikes! Your review couldn’t be anymore positive. A bit too glowing in my opinion. I guess that’s what happens when one corporate blowhard thinks too highly of himself. Anybody got an email address for Mr. Blaine?

-Brian

Got one - [email protected]

lots of info on that information super highway

#7

So TOC (on his own time & at his expense) tests stuff, announces his findings and (especially) provides real solutions, then works with the vendor who screwed up in the first place, and he’s painted as the bad guy! Note that the operative words here are “. . . tests . . .”, as in actually finds whether the subject is use-worthy and “provides real solutions”, as opposed to just simply publishing something along the line of “. . . this does / doesn’t work”.

If I recall, the earliest Bachmann K27 was in the hands of some “experts” who ran them and pronounced them as being wonderful.

I have had some small objections to Wendell’s campaign to push Bachmann on the testing issue, mostly based on the possibility of increased prices, along with the fact that Bachmann quickly stepped up and repaired the defect in a relative straight forward and timely manner. This kind of stuff could easily change my mind.

Does this imply that Bachmann is unhappy because someone with observation powers and mechanical / electrical skills actually found a serious defect and did something about it? Perhaps Bachmann’s desired path would have been to ‘not find’ and thus ignore the problem. They probably believe they have been forced to fix numerous locomotives that were never bought to run. Not having the problem announced could have saved them some money. Is this retribution for Dave’s diligence in trying to further the LS hobby?

If this is Bachmann’s new corporate policy, it is really a thumb in the eye of their customers.

Keep to the high road Dave. You know where most of us stand!

Happy RRing,

Jerry

#8

Iiiiiiiiiiinteresting…

#9

This one’s pure BS!!! (Sorry, but I calls em likes I sees em!) The simple fact is that Bachmann has made a series of gaffes and outright bonehead decisions going back much further than but for this discussion we’ll only go back as far as the 3-truck Shay! SOMEBODY fed Bachmann a bill of goods concerning the Tsunami…oh wait, it WASN"T a Tsunami! It was a mess that didn’t have any external triggers, that had a board that wasn’t properly mounted and that was improperly cold soldered, that couldn’t be repaired and that was mandated in half the run!! I didn’t think that Bachmann could screw up worse if they tried! Then, along comes the K-27…

Bachmann MUST have known that there was going to be trouble because they had their "spinmeisters" already working overtime even before the K's preproduction model was unveiled! Funny how a certain YouTube video made the rounds.... Dave was promised a K to evaluate. It never came. We waited and Bachmann's marketing dept. showed us how inept they are! Christmas was fast approaching and ONE K-27 managed to make it to a very special customer. Funny, that same SOMEBODY worked closely to put it through it's paces while posting carefully crafted reviews all to give us a "good" first impression.....

It wasn't until the K's started showing up and being run that problems started developing. The list is a long one! Unbeknownst to SOMEBODY, Dave was able to acquire a couple of K-27's to thoroughly evaluate and modify (yep, I was one of them!) He has a policy of letting Bachmann know when he has found a problem so that they can evaluate his findings and have time to come up with a solution. The counterweights were a perfect example. Dave evaluated the K, found and analyzed the problem, devised a solution and sent it off to Bachmann. All of a sudden, there is this gentleman that posts that he has devised a solution for the counterweight problem. A gentleman that just happens to post only when SOMEBODY needs a helping post! It would all seem coincidental EXCEPT that most of the data was identical to Dave's report.....to much so not to raise questions about just who did the research....

SOMEBODY has the ear of Lee Riley and Doug Blaine and even "The Bach-man!" Dave has been persona non grata at Bachmann for quite some time now! I have no personal knowledge of Lee Riley and I don't know Doug Blaine but what I have seen and read about SOMEBODY's behind-the-scenes machinations leaves me disgusted! Instead of working to solve the problem, they spend their time trying to deny there IS a problem and to quash any negative comment no matter how constructive! A perfect example is the GR review of the K-27! The review was already so watered down that Dave took some MAJOR flak for NOT including certain criticisms in the article. Well, it was "editorialized" out! Certain adjectives were "editorially" inserted. The review comes off as rather "plain vanilla."

Apparently, vanilla isn't good enough! The review didn't properly mention the new socket design for which SOMEBODY has been pushing and scheming! Now, SOMEBODY tried to get Dave to go along with his scheme and to basically "filter" his findings through him! Unacceptable. Now it's time for SOMEBODY, Lee Riley and Doug Blaine to try to kill two birds with one stone: get rid of Dave Goodson permanently and get a more favorable review of Bachmann products in the future. The problem is that now, I won't believe the reviews in Garden Railways as I will know they have been coerced by the strong-handed tactics of Bachmann Industries! That's the real problem! Dave Goodson has been the ONE reviewer in both Outdoor/Finescale Railroader and later Garden Railways magazines as well as here on LSC and MLS that is ABSOLUTELY and UTTERLY OBJECTIVE in his reviews! SOMEBODY is afraid of him and can't advance his agenda without getting Dave out of the picture!

I have told Dave it isn’t worth it! Bachmann has decided to go down this path. Let them! Quit reviewing Bachmann products and stay away from the next debacle that Bachmann brings out! SOMEBODY is going to finally “screw the pooch” and get what he so richly deserves…but either way, Dave won’t make a difference! They haven’t listened to him and they haven’t learned a thing in 11 years! They won’t start now and life’s too short to waste it on an entire business full of ingrates!

#10

This is not just “finis to an era” it’s the end of reality regarding Bachmann products.

Anybody that knows you knows your integrity which puts that of the “opposition” in grave doubt.

#11

I am sorry to hear this Curmee! And I thought that your review was actually misleadingly positive… as you later pointed out, that was due to the editorial polishing it received. My apologies once again! Well, why not publish your reviews here on LSC? Less and less people buy and read paper these days and as long as LSC remains neutral, professional and objective reviews published here would be most welcome by the Large Scale comunity. Best wishes from Tokyo, Zubi

#12

Good advice…I gave up GR and just about all magazines, so your reviews would be welcome here, if you care to still do the odd one in the future.

#13

If this is the future, that all reviews at the behest of Bachmann or via Kalmbach have to be candy-coated, then I will have to find some other place for reviews on equipment that I trust.

I buy magazines to learn things. If what I am presented with is useless, then so is the magazine.

If a manufacturer is forcing this to happen, then that makes all products from the manufacturer suspect to me, so instead of buying on reputation, it would force me to not buy anything unless I can get a review I believe in.

Model railroaders depend on reviews because you cannot just try a loco out, even if you can return it, the shipping will kill you.

It’s a sad day indeed.

Regards, Greg

#14

So the truth can’t be posted in print anymore ! I respect GR more now for printing it. Wonder if all future Ads will be pulled then.

Curmudgeon said:
I received a telephone call from the Editor of GR today.

Seems the VP of Marketing at Bachmann, one Doug Blaine, called and was quite upset with the review of the K-27.
Neither one of us could quite figure out why.

Seems I am not to write reviews for Bachmann Products for Kalmbach, nor am I to communicate with Bachmannn Industries.

I have not received any correspondence from Bachmann Industries regarding this matter.

I kept hoping this was a date-based communication, but apparently not.

So, I am hoping they have gathered together a team to find and fix the issues, which was what I was primarily doing all along.

#15

Funny how corporate politics mirrors government politics…the old CYA, what’s-in-it-for-me and screw you syndrome. Well Dave, your reviews are still welcome and appreciated here, (and no candy coating either!) as it gives me pause on buying anything first-run from Bachmann. Keep up the good work! You know where we stand!

#16

Dave,
I made the decision last year to not purchase any further Bachmann products. For some reason I found myself ‘at odds’ with the Bach-man and had numerous postings deleted. I saw others posting a similar point of view and yet their postings remained on the Forum. It is a long time since I posted on that Forum and simply refuse to go back there.

    It is the age old symptom of kill the messenger and hope no one else heard or saw anything.  It seems that burying one's head in the sand is the new corporate policy - denial, denial - 'What problem?????'.  'There is no problem!'   'Oh that.  We knew about that all along,  no need to tell the whole world.'  When they eventually pull their collective heads out of the sand then maybe a little soul searching will be in order.  LGB had a red box and they failed commercially.  Bachmann has a 'red box' and ????????
#17

Don’t own any Bachmann.

After reading this thread, I’ll keep it that way.

Blokes who have pointed out my screw-ups before they got expensive have saved the companies I’ve worked for a lot of money. These Bachmann blokes sound a bit touchy. You sure they’re not women?

#18

In all the years of reading magazines from various hobbies, I remember that they constantly stressed that there was no connection between the editorial department and the marketing department. This supposedly allowed for fair and honest reviews.

It certainly appears that Garden Railways does not want to keep up this pretense any longer, and will now let advertisers dictate review policies. Perhaps we should just have the manufacturers write their own reviews from now on?

#19

Now I can understand not wanting an employee of USA Trains to write a review of Aristocraft products, as there could be bias, but this I don’t understand. What possible pretext could Bachmann be thinking TOC has? He’s always come up with fixes for whats broken, I don’t recall any of his reviews saying “This is crap, don’t buy it”.

Another case of a company not liking the fact that someone is pointing out flaws in a product. Security (or reviewing) through obscurity never works.

#20

Bob dont you kow?

Its was all Dave fault, those “negative vibes” of his caused all those counterbalances to wobble loose. :wink:

Mr Blaine apparently believes that as long as we all think “happy thought” and just “believe”, Tinkerbell will keep flying.

Sorry to hear about that Dave, but this conflict does seam it was a long time coming doesnt it? If worse comes to worse, and your reviews are limited to the internet, you wont have to pull any punches, and can really let readers know the score when something new is released.

I think Bachmann is being pigheaded and very very short sighted. Without Daves reviews, just wait till the next release where something goes bad and just wait to the Holy Flying S***-fest on the B’mann forum… serious anger in marketplace is not soon forgotten.

:frowning: