Bachmann RS-3

So I was looking at the NTS report at MR's site and I saw the new ALCO and it looked excellent so will anyone get one?

 

Maybe if it was on ebay for half of msrp $120 for a new bachmann... I'd be hesitant based on my limited experiences.

 

Maybe Bachmann's getting out of their diesel slump.:tb-ooh:

 

The bachmann offerings of days gone by are a completely different story. The new stuff has been pretty good. My guess is it will be a winner.

 

I'm anxious to see it when it comes out. Hopefully they will add some more roadnames. Based on what I've seen and heard about the GP-7, it looks like the RS-3 may be successful as well. I'll probably pick a few up when they come out. Sure beats trying to retrofit an Atlas unit with a decoder.

 

The GP7's are selling at around $60 at mainstream retailers, no need to bother with Ebay. I wouldn't judge today's Bachmann products on past experiences, $60 for a DCC equipped diesel that IMHO can hold its own against its Atlas competition is not a bad deal.

I never thought I'd be saying such things about Bachmann.

 

Indeed..Bachmann has capture my attention with the GE 44 and 70Tonner..I had the opportunity late this afternoon to run both and I was suprise how well they ran.I was going to buy them but,he wanted more for his used ones then new ones would cost me at discount.

 

:thumbs_up:Bachman bought the factory over in china so they are getting the first run stuff now Atlas is sucking wind. The problem has been the guys running the San-kan factory when they were bought took everything they could equipment dies what have you. It took bachman awhile to get going thats why atlas is so far behind . I always forget the real name of the factory. Its sadi-kan or something like that . Its an interesting story the guy that told me is in our ntrack club and imports his own line of cars he had to go over there and take his dies to another vender Jay:cocktail:

 

spam,
This is the story as it is understood at this time.....

Atlas products were originally manufactured by SandaKan. Kader, who owns Bachmann, bought SandaKan when they were approaching bankruptcy due to trying to deal with too many small companies and small production runs. Kaders first thing was to trim the fat at SandaKan and eliminate many of the smaller companies from their production facilites so they could conentrate on their biggies. Now Kader manufactures for Atlas, Athearn, Lionel and a few others, including Bachmann. Atlas had a lot of down time during the time SandaKan transitioned to Kader control and aparently may have lost some of their tooling in the transition. Kader, when they took over SandaKan, also took over control of their tooling. In China, the company that cut the tooling owns it, not the people who comissioned it which makes it very hard to get tooling transfered from one production facility to another. The only thing that is stable in the market right now is Bachmann because their situation did not change. It appears Athearn and Lionel are large enough customers that their production was unaffected. Everybody else takes a back seat. From the looks of things, Atlas is working to move it's tooling out of Kader control as some newer cars are coming with visible changes from previous releases.

Others saw the writing on the wall and pulled out early. Rapido opened it's own factory and is now trying to cater to some of the companies that were displaced with the Kader/SandaKan cutback. I understand there are some other smaller startups trying to fill the niche.

 

I will, along with a doodlebug. New York Central, of course.

 

Santa Fe didn't have any either, and only one RS2 and I already have the Atlas one so my wallet can relax.

 

Thank you skipgear I always get the story screwed up without taking notes. I couldnt understand who owns the tooling I know the investment is huge. Does this mean some of them might come back to USA and produce kits or is it getting better for production in china? Jay

 

I'd love to see some of these in the SP&S as-delivered scheme. I have a couple broadstripe ones that Atlas made, and they're nice, but the earlier scheme has always been my favorite.

If they do these right, and offer an undecorated, I may be tempted to buy a couple to round out my SP&S road switcher fleet a bit.

 

Looking at the PDF file on Bachmann's site their new RS3 dual mode sure look good - street price maybe $90 .They are also coming out with a new northeastern caboose that sure looks better than the Walters version. Also in HO a new Alco S4 switcher - can a N guage version be far behind?

 

I hope so. I could use some S4s!

 

As I noted elsewhere, I am pretty happy to see Bachmann doing an RS-3 in B&M. I guess it would be nice if they released more than one road number or a GP-7 in B&M though. In addition to my main job I also work part time at an LHS and I can say that we have been selling the pants off of newer Bachmann stuff (primarily HO, but N as well). There doesnt seem to be any lasting stigma about Bachmann products in my area and we have actually been able to get a lot of new/younger people into model trains because of Bachmann's pricing.

Side note: I wonder if all of this factory swapping is why I still dont have a release date for the Atlas B&M GP-9s I pre-ordered months ago.

 

This sounds really interesting. Does anyone have a picture of what it looks like, yet?

 

Lord-willing I won't get disapointed, and it will be green, instead of Southern's Tuxedo scheme, not that I don't like it.