Bachman is one of those companies which you really may not know what you are getting(like I used to feel about Rivarossi). The 2-8-0 is an excellant model. The 4-8-4's are so so. I have to say I own the NYC Niagara, and it is ok, not terrrible. I had their mountain, which should be as good as the 2-8-0, but I returned mine, it went down the track like a wounded duck, yawing from side to side. Probably due to a quartering problem, but I wasn't about to fool with it. I got an Athearn 2-8-2 instead, nice loco. Older Bachman is pretty much useless, their new stuff should be good, with the occasional exception such as my mountain. For beginners who aren't aware of how long some of the Bachman stuff has been out, it may be difficult to know which models should be good. As just about always, you can pretty much figure it out by looking at price. $59. for a 4-8-4 should tell you something. $69 for a 2-8-0 should also tell you something. In regard to the Pennsy pacific, it is an old model(read junk) but I understand it was redone, have no idea if it is much improved. Stay away from their diesels, you can do much better(for more $). I personally would rather pay more for a good performer than have a junker for free. I mentioned Rivarossi earlier. I understand that their models are now quite good, and distinctly different from IHC. When I was getting into the hobby (1960's) this line was AHM, and it looked great, ran ok, and was(relatively) inexpensive. I owned a few at that time. I also used code 100 track and didn't ballast it. Upon ballasting, I found the engines bumped along the track due to the excessive flange height. Code 70 (code 83 didn't exist yet) was out of the question. So I didn't consider buying AHM from that point forward. AHM went out of business, and for the longest time(till a few weeks ago) I thought IHC was just AHM reincarnated. I saw, I guess already several years ago, that Rivarossi had put closer to scale flanges on some of their locos, notably Big boy and Challenger. I would have bought their NYC hudsons, but didn't know if they still had the big flanges. And the price skyrocketed! Perhaps an indication of improved quality, but then again perhaps not. Paying a little more attention to ads in the magazines, I now see Rivarossi and IHC seem to exist as separate entities, can someone let me know if their products are indeed produced in different locations? Getting back to my point, when a company produces garbage (harsh, I know) for a long time, then switches gears and starts producing quality equipment, they are likely to lose some possible sales to people who are reluctant to order an item wondering will I get the new or old? Particularly from a mail order firm. I bought some MDC RS3's a year or two ago, they had updated their drive some time earlier, but I was concerned I'd get some units which had been collecting dust on a shelf for years. This fear will keep people from buying. OK, this has probably been more than you wanted to know. See ya,
Gary
Are all Bachmann steam engines like this or just mine? Thanks.
