How much can we justify spending?

[Green_Elite_Cab]

GEC,With Bachmann's simplicity and lower prices those wrong paint jobs can be corrected just like the old Athearn BB paint mistakes, some paint stripper, paint and decals can and will work wonders.

There are those among us that readily points out mistakes with Atlas,Walthers P1K and P2K,Kato,Athearn RTR and Geneses.They are some that won't touch a MTH or BLI locomotive with a ten foot long brakeman's club.

The point though, was that the term "Botchmann" is somewhat justified. While many manufacturers make many mistakes, Bachmann seems to specialize in making a well proportioned and acceptably detailed model, and then slapping on some imaginary paint scheme. To add insult to injury, Bachmann's lettering tends tougher to remove than other manufacturers.

Bonus points when Bachmann claims to have photos of something that doesn't exist when someone complains on their forums (I've seen this at least once. Proto 2K did this to me once also, so its not just Bachmann).

The E33 and Amfleets are perfect examples of this. The E33s are porportionally superior to the brass versions, and the details are VERY competitive. Though there are some details differences, these I think have more to do with their mass produced nature than "mistakes" (for example, the all the models have Power bus connectors on the roof, though I suspect only the New Haven used these, and the Penn Central removed them regardless). Ultimately, its a fantastic model and I am happy with them over all.

The $50 Bachmann amfleets I cars are a similar story. Until the Walthers Proto Amfleet Is that just came out last month, these were the best proportion Amfleet I cars you could get. However, every single one had flaws in their paint and/or lettering. In the case of the Phase II cars I have, the paint job applied to them is closer to the Phase III and does not resemble Phase II at all. This would be a fairly involved process, made more difficult by the lack of Phase II passenger car striping and the disappearance of the Floquil/Polly Scale Amtrak colors.


The E33s have been marked down lately, but the amfleets have been consistently in the $45-$50 range, so i'm not sure a case can be made that they are comparable to blue box kits. Most locomotives Bachmann sells cost quite abit more than the Blue Box engines did, and in many cases, they are proportionally inferior to the Athearn equivalents.