Nice item by Durango Dan on his blog. 
But Bud is such a really nice guy…
Dave,
It’s all in the eye of the beholder and/or the personal experience. 
Bachmann’s sales promotion in Large Scale may unfortunately be three-fold:
1 - Create anticipation for something “new” since everything that was “new” is now “old” from being reported many times to feed anticipation;
2 - When finally delivered, the “new” is no longer “new” because the news is on how to accomodate making the product work as originally anticipated;
3 - Now, the news if from those who purchased reporting if the repair remedy worked or didn’t work.
Sigh…
Wendell
Wendell,
Humour on:
There are manufacturers who heard that scratchbuilding and generally tinkering with model railway products was a dying art.
Sooooo they are doing something about it: producing items that need plenty of head scratching and tinkering to make them work according to what one would expect. OTOH it is quite unreasonable to expect the product at least to live up to the hype spread in the advertising material. Which means in the end it’s the buyers’/users’ fault.
Humour off!
Can I quote you?
Boy, whill that make Philly Whinney.
Apparently it made Jim Henson sing too …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US1bl1CBAfk
In th words of the fellow at the end … “I don’t get it” … either.
Matthew (OV)
In the words of Mr Fenner from the 70’s Brit TV series “The Rag Trade”.
“Never mind the quality - Feel the width”.
Curmudgeon said:Yes Dave,
Can I quote you? Boy, whill that make Philly Whinney.
You can quote. I’m reasonably sure that the reaction won’t be any different than when I coined the “G - wie Gummi” tag.
Hansel and Gretel discovered the Gingerbread House about 45 minutes after they discovered the mushrooms,
“Oh, yeah, I see it too…”
After I spoke with a “live” person (I assumed was a live something or other ) at Backmann,
I have determined that without a doubt, no one, and I mean no one at Backmann knows if they are afoot or on horseback.
Wendell Hanks said:
Bachmann's sales promotion in Large Scale may unfortunately be three-fold:1 - Create anticipation for something “new” since everything that was “new” is now “old” from being reported many times to feed anticipation;
2 - When finally delivered, the “new” is no longer “new” because the news is on how to accomodate making the product work as originally anticipated;
3 - Now, the news if from those who purchased reporting if the repair remedy worked or didn’t work.
Sigh…
Wendell
Aristro is part of that food chain too. They know a LOT of their stuff is crap but still they sell it and expect us to fix it. I’ve fixed too much of their stuff so far.
What I am a loss to explain is that the totally naive novice to the hobby, purchases and runs straight out of the box, has nothing but praise for the manufacturer and seemingly has little to no problems with the product. The experienced modeller has nothing but trouble with most items purchased and is criticised by the novice as a trouble maker for criticising their supposedly troublefree product.
Who does the manufacturer respond to - well of cause the ones who see nothing but silver linings.
Reminds me years ago of my first computer purchase for home use. It was a Compaq Presario, the first of the Pentium 2.8 chips and was basically a console computer crammed into a laptop, with inevitable overtemperature failures. An experienced computer nerd would refer to the Compaq as a very useful boat anchor, as that is about all they were good for, supposedly.
Well in all my wisdom, I spent hours downloading the latest updates to make the computer run better. Of cause the inevitable occurred and the computer would regularly crash, losing all my railroad photographs. It seemed that the regularity of computer crashes coincided with the latest update downloads. Compaq was very wise as they provided a 3-disc recovery set that automaticially formatted the hard drive and reinstalled the operating system, back to as originally delived from the manufacturer.
Well, it seemed that those total novices who never downloaded any updates and ran the computer exactly as delivered, had little to no problem and enjoyed the experience of a relatively trouble free computer laptop. Is there a parallel that could be drawn from this? It seems the less one knows, then the less likely he is to notice any potential problems with his product. The moral is - Ignorance is bliss!
Tim - i dont know if that is 100% correct to say. I think the novice using the product for around the christmas tree or a few times and then gets bored with it and does not use it. They can say I never had an issue. Use it enough and they too will experience the problems. My first two sets as a novice ended in a disaster. Lets say I will never buy a Bachmann engine unless I can get it for $50 or less.
John Bouck said:So..... you are saying that Backmann is either infantry or cavalry?
After I spoke with a "live" person (I assumed was a live something or other :) ) at Backmann, I have determined that without a doubt, no one, and I mean no one at Backmann knows if they are afoot or on horseback.
Yes, time is definitely relative. The length of a ‘minute’ depends upon which side of the bathroom door you are on…
OTOH, the longer B’mann takes to release something, the longer it will be until there are a zillion threads complaining about what is ‘wrong’ with it. hehehe
Nothing never mind
Steve Featherkile said:Neither. More like a bunch of Brownies. (or whatever those pre-Girl Scouts are called. :) )John Bouck said:So..... you are saying that Backmann is either infantry or cavalry?
After I spoke with a "live" person (I assumed was a live something or other :) ) at Backmann, I have determined that without a doubt, no one, and I mean no one at Backmann knows if they are afoot or on horseback.