Bachmann Wide Vision Caboose...

[JMaurer1]

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/N-Scale-Wide-Vision-Caboose----Three-NEW-Roadnames-Now-In-Stock.html?soid=1115574866827&aid=dvjSPuEqKhE

You would think that the best pictures would come from the MFR, but if this is the best that Bachmann can do, they might want to rethink what they are doing. Caboose is WAY TOO HIGH above the rails (looks like a lifted 4X4 truck), and whats up with those running boards? But then what can you expect for $31 

[MK]

So modern day painting involves dipping the item into a vat of paint and drip dry?   

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I literally just replied to the email from them with "Lol, you guys must be enjoying some recently legal substances".

I just don't understand what they're doing here and who their target market is.

They're too expensive for train sets and daisy pickers. They're too, well, garbage, for serious modelers.

Is there some other tranche of train people I don't know of who will spend $30 (or even $20) for something like these?

I mean, usually I don't want to pretend I know more about this stuff than people who do for a living, so I WANT to believe I'm missing something, but like, I just don't get it.

[thomasjmdavis]

The running board looks like it is about 9 scale inches thick. Ugly even by Bachmann standards of 1970.

This sort of thing bugs me because I have a couple very nicely detailed Bachmann steam locos- so they KNOW how to do a well proportioned, accurately scaled, model. In the case of many of their freight cars, they CHOOSE not to.

[JMaurer1]

Yes, at one point it appeared that they wanted to put their 'less than accurate and scale' past behind them and started producing some really nice engines (Spectrum). They came out with some nicer rolling stock as well...while I have never seen any, the 52ft Flat Car w/ 35ft Trailer looks nice (but once I see that $52 price tag, I know why I have never seen one). I also have two or three of their 3 dome tank cars (I'm a sucker for wine cars), but while it looked like they were becoming serious with producing much higher quality N scale, it now looks like whoever was the engineer on that train has now left the station. Really too bad...

[Tristan Ashcroft]

I've never understood what Bachmann is doing.
       And I guess they don't care what we're doing.  I've never seen a person at the Bachmann booth at a train show who looks the slightest bit like a model railroader or even a product developer.  They just look like college kids who are business or marketing majors who have internships.  In the early days, I tried asking questions to those reps about Bachmann's choices of models or paint schemes or whatnot... but the reps never had the first clue how to answer. 

It's probably best to just watch a sunset or something and forget about it.

[squirrelhunter]

The killer is these are pretty close to a Rock Island prototype, so it's not like something they came up with out of thin air.

Add an etched roof walk, tool a new frame that uses trucks that allow for an accurate ride height and they'd have a decemt caboose on their hands.

[spookshow]

Apart from the couplers (and possibly the trucks), this looks like the same exact model they've been selling for 50+ years.

http://www.spookshow.net/freight/bachwv.html

-Mark

[oakcreekco]

It's their version of a "Classic" series. 😂

[wmcbride]

Having been at this N thing for 40+ years and having seen some real nightmares, I figured how bad could this be.

Then I clicked on the link.

It is just ... beyond words. What a mess.

[lock4244]

Oooo, CP Rail for less than the Rapido MSRP... will be getting some of these and canceling my Angus van order 

[wazzou]

The running board looks like it is about 9 scale inches thick. Ugly even by Bachmann standards of 1970.

What's worse is that the bottom edge of it is about a foot above the roof line.

[Curtis Kyger]

Bachmann is a TOY manufacturer.  (Sometimes Micro-Trains is too with their choices of paint schemes).

[peteski]

This is just another run of '70s vintage N scale caboose.  I guess the only changes are the new knuckle (um, fist really) coupler, the MSRP, and hopefully thinner and less glossy paint.  Except for being a good fodder for griping about Bachmann, there is nothing to see here. Move along . . .

[Albert in N]

   Here are my two from about 2007 that came with non-operating knuckle couplers.  Both look similar to early 1970s era with brake wheels cast with handrails.  I cannot see much if any difference between these and the new catalog.