The Santa Fe used the red and silver war bonnet scheme for their passenger service locomotives while the yellow and blue was for freight units. The main difference between pass and freight was in gearing with the passenger being set up for higher max speed (hence some reduction in pulling power). There were also some differences such as many pass units having steam generators for car heating and so had increased water capacity for use for the generator. As passenger trains increasingly discontinued leading up to Amtrak many Santa Fe (and other lines) began using many pass units in freight service with the paint schemes intermingled. Eventually many pass units repainted, regeared for freight, steam generators removed etc.
The difference was the freights were not equipped with the steam generators in the rear and that's the easiest way to determine which was which, however many carriers used the non steam version for short and/or short day trips. There was no differences gearing or otherwise, the E-units were specifically designed for Passenger service and had different engines and gearing, the F-Series were only designed for freight and eventually tooled to allow comfortable passenger service capability allowing for dual purpose road units, mostly just the addition of said Steam generators for heat. The warbonnet paint scheme was for the higher end Passenger service like The Chief designations and a few others.
@animalyze7120 You really need to do further research on this. Basically EMD offered many gear ratios although certain models only offer a limited number of choices. 65:12-50mph switchers 62:15-65mph freight 61:16-71mph freight 60:17-77mph freight 59:18-83mph dual service 58:19-89mph dual service 56:21-102mph pass 55:22-110mph pass Obviously customers had several choices depending on whether their Fs or Es ran in mostly flat or hilly terrain, etc. It was later when passenger service in decline many former F and E Units in pass service re-geared for freight which was relatively simple primarily achieved when traction motor units exchanged/relaced. Erie was a notable example when they had passenger Es re-geared and used in freight TOFC service.
I work at a hobby shop, and we sell quite a few of these Bachmann sets. They're definitely beginner-oriented, but they're far better than they used to be, and I don't feel bad recommending them to people anymore. For people who aren't serious modelers and just want a fun train set, Bachmann's quality is adequate at this point.
These are not worth 175$ and up. Total ripoff for what you receive and that's the only reason I would never recommend these sets. The quality has gotten better but they still load it up with junk track and plastic wheels, the only real thing in there is the newer designed Engines that have just a tad more power and reliability. These sets will lose more future hobbyists than they will retain. Hobby stores I remember would put together their own sets to make certain down the line the customers enjoy their purchases. They didn't have fancy packaging but so what. $75 maybe $90 and this puts it in a better range and allows more people to afford the start. Trains should never be this ridonkulous in pricing.
I just got the Thoroughbred set for my nephew's kids. Cost $126. Basically it's the same thing but with two straight pieces so it is a small oval. They wore out the old General set in one day (stripped the driveshaft) so I got this because the F unit is easier to handle and more durable. They can use the track from the General set and make a bigger layout. I test ran it and it worked fine. I always thought that having all the finish in flat paint was not quite realistic as all new units are glossy until they age. My biggest problem with EZ track is the connector tabs broke off from time to time. Great job with your videos!
I walked into my local hobby shop and was happy to find a used almost new CP Atlas Trainman HO train set for 140$$ I bought it right away for my son. I was very happy to find out the gp38 takes a 8 pin decoder and it runs great.
Nice to see Bachmann has changed up the chassis and power supply's... the earlier pancakes and plastic chassis were just that CHEAP, but they served there purpose for the time period and chances were little Brother 5 years old were actually playing with them and were susceptible to a lot of abuse. I think you done ok with that set... thx for uploading.
Wow, im old (63) and seeing how much a company like Bachmann is charging for these very basic starter sets is unbelievable - when I was this age a set like this was bottom of the barrel and cost like $15 - $20 tops - This reminds me very much of my first set in the early sixties with the same engine colors but mine was from Tyco - more toy grade than hobby grade, though the one big difference is in the engine is this ones all wheel drive instead of single truck drive and its got some extra metal for weight, the earliest sets had neither.
@@SMTMainline But the quality isn't good, so no matter WHAT the price - it's still cheap. But if they dropped the price, Bachman might...and I say MIGHT - be worth a look.
Anton, you do realize that Bachmann does make higher quality Spectrum models that are well detailed and constructed. Starter sets are sold with various levels of quality at Bachmann, with DCC and other advanced features. Obviously they are more expensive than the set reviewed above.
@@michaelcerza871 Yes, I realize that. But, we were talking about starter sets, and Bachmann's starter sets are cheap quality. And I DO know about Spectrum - I have a couple myself. The Spectrum series are better quality and better runners.
The November 2020 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman included an article in the "Diverging Points" section written by Jason Shron, the founder of the Rapido train line . Titled "What About Train Sets," his conclusion hits the nail on the head: "it is impossible to make a quality model train set at a mass-market price." That said, paying a bit more can still secure a product with greater dependability, flexibility and expandability than what Bachmann generally provides.
I have bought 4 Bachmann n scale GP’s over the past year. Bachmann has retooled their diesel locomotives. I’m running DC, and the Bachmann units very much have the same running characteristics of a Kato now. I’m very pleased with them. In fact they pair up in multiple unit lash ups really well with my Kato locomotives. Just stay away from the previous lines.
I recently purchased both the "Santa Fe Flyer" and the "Canyon Chief" sets. One with the FT locomotive, the other with the F7A. Both locomotives come in the warbonnet scheme. I wanted both because I like the idea of having an example of both pre-and post-war "classic" Santa Fe EMD cab/car body power. I have really enjoyed both sets so far - and have been pleasantly surprised by how smooth both locos have run at low speeds after being properly broken in. Also, I took a a couple of evenings and upgraded the wheels on all six cars to Bachmann's 33" metal wheelsets. I conditioned the plastic bearings with a micromark "truck tuner" (always be very careful with sharp tools, folks - and/or get your parents' help), and now they run like a dream! Loads of fun! Thanks for the video!
The F9A you have is in the Blue Bonnet paint scheme, which is the alternate version of their famous Red Bonnet scheme. There is another blue with yellow strip scheme known as the freight scheme. The F9A in this set appears to be the Bachmann Plus updated version, oops its not. It's there standard low end version. The freight cars are all standard, under NMRA standards cars. The red and yellow caboose looks cool.
This F9A does not carry the bluebonnet scheme, it's using the blue and yellow warbonnet which was applied to freight diesels in the 1960s and 1970s (which should itself not be confused with the yellowbonnet scheme applied to the Amtrak F7 lease pool), which is correct for an F9 later in its life (that is, before being rebuilt into a CF7). The bluebonnet scheme was applied to seven F7A units and a smattering of B units - supposedly meant for dual service in the Amtrak era - and was the basic stainless steel, black, yellow, and red warbonnet scheme, but with blue paint applied where the red paint would have gone. Bluebonnets and yellowbonnets can be seen here: old.atsfrr.org/resources/funits/Santa%20Fe%20Railway%20Historical%20&%20Modeling%20Society%20-%20The%20F-Unit%20Pages.htm The blue and yellow warbonnet on an F9 can be seen here: www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3318566
@@ErickC You can tell it's a 1750 hp F9 since it has louvers ahead of the forward port hole. ATSF had 18 A and 18 B units, operated in freight service, primarily in Texas. By this time the hood unit was dominating the new loco market and only 101 A and 156 B units were built in the US and Canada. F unit construction would cease with the New Haven's unique Diesel-Electric-Electric F9/FL18's of which only 60 were built. The KIng is dead, Long live the King!
@@colbeausabre8842 : I think you might want to read my comment more carefully - it's about the fact that the F9 did not carry the bluebonnet scheme, rather, they were painted in the distinctly different 1960s blue and yellow warbonnet scheme. The bluebonnet was exclusive to certain 325-class F7s.
I got a train set 10 years ago with the same engine, the inside looks and sounds identical to mine so I doubt they have changed the drive system for a while
@@SMTMainline Bachmann's basic F-Unit hasn't changed in nearly 50 years, I have one I bought in 2010 new (exact same set, but in Canadian National Noodle paint), and one I got from a friend that was from the 1970's; some differences, but fundamentally a fairly similar machine. They may be cheap, but they are good reliable runners that can clean up nice if you put some work into them :)
Bachmann has be around the HO RR business for a long time. They were never the very best in detailing but were certaily adequate.. However, they were usually less expensive the most other brands They also always seemed to also specialize in starter sets Having said that.... A bit of detailing here and there with a tiny paint brush....and some tasteful dry brushing like on the trucks.... and some minor weathering can work wonders for any rolling stock .
Harrison, nice purchase. 15 years ago you could get these at the grocery store at Christmas for 25 dollars. I use them to pull my vintage Lionel ho.
2 года назад
15 years ago was 2006. 'ill take stuff that never happened for 500 alex' trainsets havent been sold in 'grocery stores' since 1975 some even had a model railroad section
My dad bought my first set in 1969 when I was 5, I think it was more for him. It’s amazing how things have changed since then. There has always been starter sets but I can’t get use to this EZ track. It makes my skin crawl when I see layouts using it. I remember Dad would take me over one of this friend’s garage, the whole layout was hand laid even the turnouts. He would start with the ties and then on to the rails and it was all perfect. I’ve alway used flex track first in code 100, now I only use code 83. I know everyone has different skills and not everyone is trying to achieve the same results. Yes,the EZ track is prefect for the beginner especially if the layout is not permanent.
Nice unboxing and review of the Bachmann War Chief, Harrison. It is a fine starter set for anyone getting into the hobby. Just put a 🎄 in the middle and you're set for Christmas. Did you test slow speed on your layout? That might make a difference due to track type and controller. Thanks for sharing. 👍👍👍
My father in law recently passed, among his effects were a Marx military set and an Allstate streamliner set. Incredibly horrible, but these cheaped out sets were available to families with less money and were a lot better than nothing. A local Kmart was closing and I bought three similar sets to this modern starter for ten bucks each, but this was in the early 2000's. I thought the roadbed track pretty good and used a tiny amount of Wahl clipper oil to keep the rust off {really tiny} My daughter loved to run her Percy and troublesome trucks on it. She is 21 now and still loves trains.
It's definitely an improvement that the couplers are body mounted rather than truck mounted. I had a Union Pacific set that used this same consist in fact it was the same gondola and hopper back when I was a kid and the couplers were, A: Horn Hook, and B, truck mounted. I still have all my old starter set cars from when I was a kid including that one but it looks like some "modifications" are in order to make them compatible with the newer additions to my collection. I know for sure it's going to consist of coupler replacement (changing them to body mounted knuckles) and putting metal wheels on them.
@@SMTMainline I have quite a few Bachmann starter sets floating around, I was mainly after the bulk number of freight cars, since they have the knuckles as opposed to my dad's old TYCO's which still have the horn hooks. One thing is for sure though, I'm going to put metal wheels on them, the Bachmanns and the TYCO's.
We picked up a Hornby coca-cola train set new for under 100us. It’s Little diesel switcher is well built and runs really good. Basic style track but it would be a good comparison to the bachmann set. I have had decent luck with most of Bachmanns newer stuff. Can’t beat the value for dollars. Good video
If bachmann coverted the sets to dcc ready or dcc sound I believe they would be better sellers. I would love overland limited with dcc ready or the norfolk southern thoroughbred set with dcc ready or sound.
If I'm not mistaken, Bachmann released a similar HO set called the Challenger with the exact same freight cars, but instead of a Santa Fe F9 and caboose, it was Union Pacific.
There's a reason us old-timers call them "Botchmann". The gears in many of their locomotives are made with a nylon that needs to cure for at least a year before using it in gears. The gear then starts shrinking, causing it to crack around the steel axle. They have a good warranty, but it's still frustrating because this problem goes back to the 1970s and they still haven't really fixed it, they just made it to delay a few months down the road. I recently replaced my bevel gears on my Shay with aftermarket products, after finding 5 of the 6 cracked.
I have always loved that style of locomotive. My first trainset was an old Lionel set my uncle Artie gave me back in 1993 i was 6. Unforutanlty moving from NY to PA to Maine and back to PA it was left behind somewhere. I dont remember what set or what rolling stock it had but it had a red and chrome santa-fe.
I'll admit that this feels a lot nicer than starter sets with the notorious 'pancake' drives. The pancakes work, and they work reasonably well, but wow are they noisy and cheap feeling. On the whole this locomotive feels a lot higher in quality than an all plastic loco with a pancake drive and a few steel plates for weight. Provided it's treated nicely, it seems like a great improvement over older starter set locomotives. The rolling stock also looks pretty decent quality for a starter set- shiny isn't necessarily most people's preference, but they do look like they have clean, crisp lettering and crisp paint work. You could certainly do worse for a starter set.
Hey SMT, if you're looking for something unique, Bowser made a C430 in Rock Island paint. Story goes the Rock originally placed an order for 10 but at the time UP was the Rock's motive power funder because of the merger and didn't want the oddball Alco's on their fleet, so they changed it to GP40's. Cool video!
The modern Bachmann sets like those, their locomotives have really increased in quality. Not Athearn or Atlas or Walthers Proto quality, mind you, but more like the Walthers Trainline locomotives, with all-wheel can motor drive, body-mount knuckle couplers (with coil springs, too!), even LED lightning. Even the shells on some of them are detailed pretty well, like the GP40s even having wipers molded onto the front windows.
The rail chief set the locomotive itself isn't too shabby, rescued one from an abandoned house and found it had a can motor, dual flywheel and 8 wheel pickup plus 8 wheel drive. It moves around quite well.
SMT - I saw a similar set in the Menard's toy land a couple of years ago with a Soo Line F unit & caboose. It reminded me of a prototype train I saw back in May of 1981. The consist was a Soo Line F unit, two boxcars, & a caboose!
Bachmann Steam locomotives are really bad. However most of my diesel locomotives are Bachmann and I’ve never had a problem with them. My first train set was a Bachmann Powerhouse set from the mid 80s. The locomotive from that set still works today.
Here’s a tip with those tracks place them on the ground and push them together don’t try to connect them in up in the air that’s when you get it misaligned and damage the tracks
Atlas made the FP7 in in the yellow and silver war bonnet livery back in the 70s and 80s though my yellow bonnet got a paint stripping and still survives to this day as Chicago Great Western 116C. Apparently the Santa Fe also did an even rarer is the blue bonnet where the traditional Santa Fe red and silver was done in blue. Ah and the ever popular Minneapolis & St. Louis hopper. For such a relatively regional and fairly small class 1 road the ol Maimed & Still Limping got a lot of love from the toy train manufacturers most likely due to their bright red freight equipment.
A word on ATSF F-unit paint schemes. The bluebonnet scheme was applied to 7 F7A units in the 325-class and a number of F7B units. Supposedly, it was because they were meant for dual service, but it's anyone's guess as to whether or not that's true. The more common yellowbonnet scheme was applied to a number of F7 units in the Amtrak lease pool and was just the traditional warbonnet but without the red layer applied (a cost-saving measure). Of course, the yellowbonnet scheme shouldn't be confused with the later blue and yellow warbonnet freight scheme, as applied to the Bachmann F9 in this video. This is, indeed, the paint scheme that ATSF F9s wore before they were torn apart and rebuilt into CF7s.
I have modeled in N-scale since the late 1970's. Many of my locos back then were Bachmann F units. The problem with the nylon gears has been an ongoing problem that, as far as I know, has never been corrected. I think the reason they went with nylon gears was to avoid the problem they had with brass gears. The brass gears were very durable, but very noisy. We used to call those locos "coffee grinders"! I would rather have a noisy loco that runs than one disabled by broken gears. Now, forty years later, I buy Kato F units and avoid the problem. It was disturbing to read of the Bachmann controller catching fire. I use two Bachmann controllers on my model railroad, but only for controlling my turntable motors. So they only see infrequent light use. Thanks for doing this review.
I had one of these sets growing up except mine had a red and silver warbonnet FT. Of course me being a young child it was destroyed within a few weeks lol
Harrison , Bachmann is junk "Not just my option" I'm glad your excited about the engine but you do so well with buying them used and fixing them that I would have enjoyed seeing that instead of wasting money. Your inventory of engines is large and when you come back to run that Bachmann engine again odds are it will fail. "Not just my experience" As you stated the track itself is also garbage however you can cut off those clips and connect to Kato or any other track. Knuckles are good instead of the horn hooks and adding metal wheels would be best if you wanted a better experience. LOL Good luck with it but im gessing it will be on your repair table quite a bit. Congrats on all the subscribers, you finally beat me, LOL Mike..
Everybody Knocks bachmann stuff, i noticed. I work in N gauge, and I have Seven Bachmann Locos. Funilly enough, apart from the Kato one, they all run better than all of my others, even through the switches without stalling at all. So, I reckon it's what you get rather than an actual issue with the brand.
Biggest issue I have with Bachmann was their use of steel EZ track in every starter set for a long time. Steel rusts quite easily. I think they switched to using the nickel-silver track (which they had while still pumping out the steel stuff) Since I don’t have a ton of money and am not that avid of a model railroader I still use the EZ track. One day I may get regular track.
I got the same TYPE of set years ago. Same as that one but just different colors, literally. And I’ve had the Santa Fe engine running smoothly for years.
I'm glad Bachmann no longer sells these F7s individually, but I am disappointed they haven't been changed in the starter sets. I got a separate sale Union Pacific F7 in 2011 for $25 and the motor ended up not turning as well and jammed the drive shafts which burned out the motor (that was 8 years after I bought the model). I also don't like that the trucks aren't easy to access under the die-cast chassis I think I made a good choice in picking the Bachmann steam loco starter set when I began my model railway journey as that 0-6-0 is still running well, even after falling off the table once. I don't have any of Bachmann's GP40 models that they also stock in their starter sets, so I don't know how reliable those are.
Nice video, I've had a few nice Bachmann HO Scale trains, but now, I have an Athearn HO scale GP-40 diesel locomotive pulling my freight train, and I have an Amtrak set that has two Walthers Amtrak F40-ph locomotives
I've had mixed experiences with Bachmann's N-scale products back in the '90's. Their "Spectrum" locomotives were reliable though they "growled" a bit while running, their other locomotives (train-set & stand-alone) gave me a number of issues to the point where I want to turn the shells of those other locomotives into scrapyard scenery pieces for a future layout project. Their rolling stock is okay, though their trucks can be converted to better ones and can make for interesting weathering projects. The rest of my active fleet are of Kato and Atlas locomotives, the Life-Like locomotives are in limbo as I need to do some type of maintenance on them in the future.
My issue with Bachmann is the jump in quality and price from them to other companies. I got a Bachman engine for ~$100, it doesn’t look that good or run well but my other option is +$300 for the same engine.
Bought a rail chief set awhile back. I had the cannonball express in the late 90s. One thing I noticed is the hopper, caboose and gondola haven't really changed since then. Only difference is the couplers, and they feel slightly heavier. But the cars so far seem to hold the track better. I think the only upgrades since then have been what they call the Mark 1 couplers. The power pack is the same as in the rail chief. One thing I don't like about it is they don't have scale mph labled.
My first set I got my son was 5he Bachmann commander set. Two DCC engines and a Ex command control, nickel track. My only complaint is not much extras available here in New Zealand, so easier to order off of eBay
The centennial. I got it used in 2009 and it's run trouble free since then with only one exception which was a clicking noise it had for a bit. The hobby shop that fixed it never told me if it was a piece of ballast or a cracked gear but that's the only issue it's had anyway.
