 The October One Sneech Starts Right! The What's Sneech Show is sponsored by Lombard Hobbies, your value hobby shop for over 40 years of modelers helping modelers. Big inventory, value pricing, fast shipping and great service. And by Broadway Limited Imports, the cutting edge leader in model trains. Check out their website at Broadway-Limited.com. And by Bachman Trains. Now that's the way to run a railroad. Check out their website at BachmanTrains.com. And thank you for helping us support the best hobby in the world. This is What's Neat for October 2023. I'm your host Ken Patterson, and this month we do have a good show in that. I take you along with our podcast crew, we go to the RPM Meet, the St. Louis prototype modelers meet that's held every year over in Collinsville, Illinois just across the river. And this show was a treat to go to. There was about 800 people in attendance along with a lot of manufacturers. The one thing that was prevalent this year was a lot of the new 3D startup companies that are out there making amazing models. The RPM Meet is a special show in that you can hang out with like-minded modelers just like us, whereas they truly have a passion for their hobby and you can see it through all the different models that are on display at the RPM show. We enjoy that part of the show whereas we interview a couple of layouts I believe. We also have a few manufacturers and just do some great interviews with some great people. Also on this show this month, I just finished in the last couple of days shooting these beautiful models that are right in front of us here on this table. These are all from Broadway Limited. This is their Commodore Vanderbilt, the streamlined New York Central locomotive that was so famous they didn't even put a locomotive number on it because it didn't need a number. This thing is exquisite, die-cast, just a beautiful model that we feature later on in the show. I've also got some American car and foundry, 6,000 gallon tank cars that they sent which come in a multitude of paint schemes. Private owners, these cars are a treat. They also sent us some 70 ton hopper cars. Those of course made up about 1.5% of all the hopper cars out on the American railroads during the time. These cars lasted up through the 80s. Also this month on the show, Bachman Industries stops by and they share with us a lot of the new products that they are announcing for this year. They were announced at the Annamarie National and they will be announced here on this show for October. So look forward to that segment from Bachman Industries in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Also be sure to check out the What's Neat This Week podcast that we shoot down here on the property every weekend keeping you updated on what's new in the hobby on a weekly basis with special guests, a regular podcast crew and a lot of beautiful models to look at all the time. So with that, let's continue on with this October 2023 What's Neat. For this segment of What's Neat, I am shooting some beautiful models from Broadway Limited today outside. It's the best part of the year that I love where temperatures hover around 70 all day and it makes for just great photo shoot days out in the backyard. Today I'm shooting this gorgeous Hudson, the Commodore Vanderbilt a streamlined locomotive that Broadway Limited has come out with. I got some beautiful photography of this model that I want to share with you as I discuss and talk about this model. This is one of the locomotives that New York Central had where they didn't put a locomotive number on the locomotive because everybody knew who the Commodore Vanderbilt was. It was one of the most beautiful locomotives that the New York Central of many that they had and Broadway Limited hasn't missed a beat on this one. It is all die-cast. It's got full Paragon 4 sound in the rolling thunder line. It's got disc wheels on it and it is streamlined. It has still got tons of detail on it all the way around including the tender and the top of the locomotive and it's just exquisite. Not to mention this thing runs really smooth and because of its weight it obviously can pull a lot of train but this was dedicated mostly to passenger service on the New York Central. Also today I was shooting outside these beautiful ACF American Car and Foundry 6000 gallon tank cars that Broadway Limited has recently released. They are coming out in a multitude of paint schemes. You can find these on their website. There are more of them here today to share with you with also outdoor photography which I will show you as I talk about these very detailed beautiful little cars. These are mostly owned by private entities. As the prototype railroads they did use them also for hauling fuel and things like that. But I mean metal wheels, metal couplers just exquisite detail on these beautiful beautiful little tank cars. They also sent me some 70 ton co-hoppers. We all know these as these were a great part of the railroads up to 1.5% of the freight cars out there in the fleet were comprised of these cars. They come with full loads. They're made absolutely off of blueprints so all the detail that you see is accurate down to the smallest rivet detail. I shot these models from on top and on the sides and in groups so I can share with you how beautiful these models look out in real sunlight as they will look fantastic on your layout as well. I really enjoy the fact that Broadway Limited is working with us at What's Neat to share and just display and show some of the beautiful models and what really goes into what they do to make some of the most beautiful models for us on our railroad. Prototypically accurate. They run fantastic. There's no other way to say it. Check out the website or Google Broadway Limited on the internet and you will find all the various road names all the various colors of paint schemes for the tank cars. It's a treat and I'm sure that you'll find some that would blend themselves well to your model railroading layout. And so with that, that is this segment for What's Neat. And you're watching What's Neat with Ken Patterson. For this show we are at the St. Louis RPM Meet here in Collinsville, Illinois for the 2023 show. I've got with me Daniel Coombs over here. I've got Mike Buddy right next to me. Joshua Barton and myself, Ken Patterson. And we're planning to do some interviews with a lot of the wonderful vendors. Beautiful models this time around. We've walked the floor. There's a lot of neat stuff and new technology this year at this show. So look forward to that guys. What do you think so far? I think I'm already buying stuff. I think there's all kinds of awesome stuff here and I can't wait to see all of it. What do you think? I always leave with stuff I didn't need but I always get in anyway. Man it's good to see you Daniel. We don't see you that often. I know I've been working full time man but I'm probably going to bring some models for tomorrow Saturday. I just got in about an hour ago but yeah let's go ahead and see what we got around here. I know right. Let's spend some money do some interviews and have some fun. And let's serve some hats out. I'm standing here with one of my favorites who always shows up with a different module at this show every year. Modules. And that's Pete Munger hey Pete. Ken nice to see you again. It's always good to see you sir. This year you bought something special it looks like it's got an Amtrak theme to it. Well you know these manufacturers continue to just spoil the heck out of us don't they? Yes. And so the DIO tends to be a reflection on how bad I've been distracted by something new. So this year I tried to build something to incorporate the Athern SDP-40Fs that they did in that Genesis line a couple years ago. Yes beautiful. And then these Rapido guys are spoiling us every quarter with something new. And they brought the E8s out so I had to do something passenger to be able to feature that. So the DIOs as we've kind of discussed before kind of provide us a canvas to feature that eye candy that these manufacturers are giving us that's so much fun and then my buddies are weathering them up and making them look real. So it's been fun to do that again this year. No the models are absolutely beautiful and the weathering is second to none. Now you've also got a lot of beautiful buildings this year. Well again the weathering again I've got to go you know and give a shout out to my buddy Steve Hurt who's not able to join us this year. We miss Steve this year. He wanted me to be sure and pass along his hello to you he and his dad they promised me they'll be back next year. And so Steve I've been able to get him to help me with some of the vehicle weathering again. And Joe Nicodemus my buddy out of Cape Coral Florida who we've got to get him up here Ken. He's just incredible with the way he weathers my stuff and I certainly appreciate that. So walk through and describe the module and just start at one end and then we're going to show this as you discuss it. Okay great great well what I've got here is I've got something that I call Arimathea which has a little bit of not to get biblical but it does have a biblical connotation. I was kind of not paying attention in church one Sunday during the holy season and this whole concept of Joseph of Arimathea was being discussed and I thought boy that would fit with Amtrak. So we've got a stationally named Arimathea. And so that's what this this style represents and I've got the passenger units at the one end and then Walters with their cornerstone kits continue to provide us all sorts of things to kind of kit bash and so I've done that and then once again you know Woodland Scenics does these these build-ups that are right out of the box with weathering and I've got a Sully's Tavern Kit over there that I had some fun with and then scrounging around under the old layout and pulling the old boxes out. I found some old Concord U-Haul trucks and I said Steve can you fit these in? Can you weather these up for me? And so Steve managed to do a few of the U-Haul trucks. Yeah those look aptly fantastic. So that's what this year is and then we'll get back at it here in a couple months and try to figure out something to maybe share with you next year. Can you have some beautiful backdrops this year? Well thank you. The backdrops obviously help give it a little bit of perspective. They're a bit of a hassle to try to set up at a show but it does bring it kind of the end to scale. End to scale so. Right. But Ken I've got to tell you thanks for doing this for us every year. I know that this can probably be a challenge for you especially when you come to a show like this and you've got so many wonderful models that the level of skill that is exhibited here every year is just incredible and I really enjoy coming down once a year seeing you and seeing Daniel and your crew and then just seeing the modelers for those who have not had an opportunity to come to St. Louis and see the proto meat well I sure would encourage them to do it because it's just it invigorates you. It motivates you and inspires you to go and model something. That's awesome. And it's just really fun to be part of that. I'm telling you what the people there's a lot of love in this room. The talent that this is in this room. We haven't even begun to look at the models yet just being here just for a few hours and getting started with this show. There's so much to absorb in just two days it's almost not enough. Boy it's so well said Ken I agree with you. Absolutely. We sound like we're on the visitors and convention bureau. Let's go back to the layout for a minute. The one thing I notice is your trees are exquisite. The leaves everything is just it looks realistic. Well thank you Ken. You know those are scenic express. Okay. And a few nice weekends every summer. You know the beautiful thing about our hobby is there's so much diversity. If you're into doing wiring you can do wiring. If you want to build kits you can build kits. If you want to do some weathering you can do weathering. You've got to kind of be in the mood for each of those things as you well know. You've got to have time number one. Right. But you've got to be in the mood. And so the scenery thing is something that I don't always have the buzz for. It kind of is very very sporadic. But I have fun doing the scenic express trees because I do them outside and you know I'll joke with my kids who are now no longer teenagers. They say dad what are you hanging on the rope out back by the tree. I'm saying it's all legal it's trees. These are HO scale trees. Okay. And they get a big chuckle out of it. That's awesome. Pete thank you again for sharing your work with us. Thank you Ken for having me and for doing this for all the modelers. We really appreciate everything that you and your crew do on a weekly basis. There you go. Thank you again. That's perfect. All right brother. All right man. Thanks. Hey Daniel Loco I found here at the show. It's Mike Zucker. Hey Mike. Hey guys how's it going today? It's good. Listen I wanted to give you one of Denny's hats that he made for us. The What's Neat. Yep. This week podcast hat. It's red. It matches your shirt. So how was your trip here? Is everything good and you're selling? Oh yeah. No it was a good trip down. Jeff and I came down this year. So he's out shopping since this is primarily an HO show. So I got a man in the booth. He gets to have the fun. But it's been good. Good crowd right. It's always good getting to see everybody here in the St. Louis area right. Of course this RPM draws all over the country right. I mean there's guys from all over the place which is awesome. It's so true. Yeah. It shows a lot right. Modeling skills are crazy here so. Oh my gosh. The models. The capacity of various. The caliber of the modelers right. It's amazing right. I like these learning stations. This is my first time here right. So seeing these learning stations and stuff that's pretty neat. So there's some neat stuff out there so. That's awesome. Now Daniel I see there's a lot of atherin stuff. Rapido stuff. Walthers things. There's a lot of 3D printed things that they've got. You're going to spend some money here right. Oh for sure. For sure I got to. And if you got some decoders I might pick up some soundtrack stuff from George. Oh. Hey George. There you go. There you go. There's some good stuff. So we got a couple of new 3D printed stuff here with us. And of course you brought all our details. So check out some of the new grain bin type things right. Agricultural detail parts. So we're trying to get help some guys out with that so. Now just a couple of weeks ago you had my annual show in Deshler, Nebraska. Yeah. That you guys put on. How did that go? Oh it was awesome. So I think it was our fifth show that we've done. So that's been pretty cool. So it was a great time. Had a lot of what we have about 11 manufacturers. A couple of other vendors there right. So crowd was awesome. They were having a good time. So that's what we really enjoyed. People coming up to Deshler right. Checking out our store. Checking out the events that we host. Having a good time. So we're looking forward to the next one. Maybe we can twist what's neat this week to come up and do a show here in 2025. That will be fun. There you go. That was a lot of fun. We did that in 2019 I believe. And that was a good time. Yep. So 2025 is going to be our store's 25th anniversary. So we'll see what we can pull off. Hope to see a lot of people there. That's awesome. Mike I got to thank you and your family. Everybody for the way you promote this hobby. Well we love the hobby. We're all modelers right. You know my brother's wife. My wife's gotten into it with us right. They're starting to be part of the train store right. So they're getting into it. They kind of like it. So it's just we got the third generation of Zuckers starting to come up. They like it too. So it's pretty awesome. So that's awesome. Thank you for the few minutes of your time for the viewers of the What's Neat? Yep. Thanks everybody. Hi for this segment of What's Neat. I'm here with George Bogatak at the 2023 RPM meet. And George what have we got to talk about today? Well we got a lot of cool stuff. I will say that the Blue Nami is certainly turning heads. We got a lot of cool things coming out with Blue Nami. Since we last talked we've announced our 4 amp decoder for the O scale and larger. So the Blue 4408 is available now in stores and the cool thing is I know a lot of large scale guys especially Mr. Ken over here has the Garden Railroad. Well the Blue 4408 allows you to do onboard battery with the decoder only. So you don't need to buy any expensive throttles. You don't need to buy any receivers or anything like that from third party companies. Hook up a battery to the Blue Nami install the Blue Nami into the model and you run your train. Completely through the free app that's available on your iPhone or iPad or here's your exclusive braking. Android is coming. Guys I have a prototype beta version of the Android app right here and you can see right now I'm running this steam locomotive and all of our functions right there we can pull up the functions. You've got 0 through 14 and then 15 through 28 and I can just turn them on and off. I can just sit here and run them along and so this is coming along we're hoping to have this available in the next few weeks so probably by the time you guys are seeing this we'll have the Android app ready to go and available for download on the Google Play Store. So we're really excited about that I know we're getting a ton of questions about Android we're not forgetting about the Android guys. It just takes a little bit more time especially you know trying to get it all working out so that the menus work but everything works the same way you have the gear logo here and you can go through and do all your settings you can do your sound settings or we can go through and change the whistle and what's really cool about this is I can actually click on this and it will allow me to scroll through and select different whistles and different sounds and it will play it so that you can hear it and then you can okay and what's really great about this is that you're no longer having to worry about CVs, CV numbers or values or any of this because the app will do all of that for you and so think of this as the easiest way to program it the cool thing about Blue Nami is it does work on a DCC system as well as DC or analog you can just use the track for power and run it with the app but what's really cool is if you have a couple of tsunami 2 equipped locomotives that you want to run with the Blue Nami you just simply put them on the track dial up its DCC address and run it and it will be just like every other tsunami 2 but this allows you now the ability to run so let's say for argument's sake you go to somebody else's layout and you can't stand the fact that they're not using an NCE layout decoder or DCC system what happens is now you can open up the app and run your trains and you don't have to run your other brand systems out there and so it really doesn't need the DCC system but it is a DCC based product you can still program CVs directly there's a menu here where I can go in and set CVs directly so when I go here to CV settings I can go in and scan all CVs, read or write individual CVs so if I want to read CV 128 I can just read it and there's the value of 225 it's just quick and easy and so that's the name of the game we're trying to make sure that we want to make model railroading fun and enjoyable and really with the Blue Nami if you've standardized Blue Nami on your entire layout how many people have one of these things in their products? Oh you know what see I actually have one myself so you could come over to my house and now we have two throttles and I don't have to go out and spend money on a new throttle so all of that's real built in and everybody can come over they just download the app off or the iPhone or the Google Play store and they're running trains I know this is a great breakout once you guys announced this Blue Nami and like you said earlier battery powered and garden railroad guys even some of the O-scale guys are dabbling now how much uptick have you got more with the O-scale market or the large scale market? Large scale is eating this up we're selling a lot of the large scale markets I've actually picked up several large scale exclusive retailers around the country that are selling them like hotcakes and because like I said they're saving a ton of money because you don't have to buy all that third party stuff so it's really really good and the decoders are affordable the retail price on our Blue 4408 is $255.95 and the Blue Nami for the $2200 which is our HO scale version is $169.95 you compare that to $200 plus for wireless throttles and you get the free app built in and a decoder it's a bargain you can't beat it you're almost like breaking even on it because let's say you get a handful let's say you have a room of 10 operators that's $2,000 in throttles that you have to have whereas now you just buy Blue Nami now you can have each train with three to four throttle locomotives Blue Nami equipped locomotives and you can run them all in a constant and as we talked about in the podcast a little over a year ago consisting with these with the app is a breeze you can do it in a matter of seconds I can show you how quick and easy it is if we want to but as of right now I think we've done it go to our YouTube channel Soundtracks let's see it's Soundtracks DCC but just search Soundtracks Blue Nami consisting on YouTube you'll find our channel you'll see our videos where you can see all of the cool things Blue Nami does in depth that really shows everything and so we're really excited about it and it's definitely turning heads Oh perfect and George I know you and I have talked I really like your guys products hey thank you very much for all the information on all this and that's excitement for what's neat thank you George Hi this is James Regear and I'm here with Chris Tice from Gateway Fremont Hi Chris Hi good afternoon how are you? Doing alright So how many modules do you have here today? Well we've got quite a few I don't know the exact number but we've got modules that are actually from Massachusetts to Alabama to Oklahoma Nebraska Missouri Illinois that are here represented for the layout So anyone who wants to come from around the country can bring it to the St. Louis RPM meeting or whatever so we happen to be at and they'll come Yeah so at any one of the RPM setups anywhere in the country there's usually a Fremont layout involved and it's great opportunity to get modules from around the country and show off the work of individual modelers So what would you say are the benefits of Fremont as a modeling form? Well one of the benefits of Fremont is that it more prototypically represents the real railroads in that it's a single track mainline down the center passing sidings there's also the option for double track sections but it more represents realistic operation rather than the layout you'll see a lot of times it's set up at regular train shows it's more for the general public where it's two or three tracks across and it's done in a circle Okay so it's a little bit different of a standard you have a certain placement where the joining rails are supposed to go and then between there it's up to you what scene you want to create That's it exactly I mean the SPAC is really the end the wiring at the end the rail at the end what you do in between is all a function of what you can transport what you can afford what your skills allow you to do things of that nature so you can actually build a prototype scene someplace that you always have loved but it doesn't fit on your normal layout at home so you can build it as a Fremont module and take it to shows you can do just about anything you want And now what's the average or what's the standard depth of a module It's typically 24 inches deep the double track ones will go up to 26 inches deep but that's only at the end plate so anywhere in between you can get wider or you can get narrower if you so desire As long as they join up at that standard width That's it exactly at the end plates right And I notice that you have some wise on this layout where you have certain joints what are the standards for those Well there really isn't a set standard as an example this huge module behind us is a junction and it's really just the end plates and a minimum radius and a minimum turnout requirement and then you lay out accordingly to meet whatever you're trying to model Not cool so you can bring it to the show show it off here and if you have your home layout built to similar standards you can operate at home or any combination thereof Right right I mean if you have I guess you could call it a docking plate on your home layout you can plug modules right into it and continue on with your modules as part of the layout at home That's fantastic That's fantastic and what can you tell me about the modules that you've brought Well the one I've brought is just a small representation of a town of Crocker, Missouri It's an MFA feed mill and regrettably the feed mill is the only part that's still under construction so it's not here but the rest of the modules here and the rest of the modules pretty well finished Oh that's neat and this one's yours right here No it's actually further down Okay a little bit further down But yeah like I said we've got modules from all over the country Some of them are brand new There's two sets here that is the first time they've ever been in a show There's a small little 21 inch long one right here and there's about a 10 foot long section on the other side Brand new first time at the show Young guys, young modelers just really getting involved in the hobby And what's the standard height for the branch work? The rail is 50 inches off the floor So it's really designed for the operator not so much for the general public viewing It's designed to set it up and operate it like a real railroad Oh that's neat, that's neat I'm definitely noticing a lot of realistic scenery throughout The operators over there will get B-roll footage of those I like the farm the agricultural scenes You find that a lot with Fremont Fremont allows you to do very wide open country type scenes that you normally wouldn't be able to do on a more condensed home layout Right, right, yeah, there was a recent article on model railroad hobbyists in fact where we talked about the use of negative space in a woman's rock island layout and just an outstanding idea With Fremont you get to be able to set up long runs, wide open spaces and it works, whereas on a home layout you're trying to put as much action as you can into it in a limited space, you don't get a whole lot of space between towns So this works out quite well this way Looks fantastic Thank you Thank you for your time today Alright, thank you, we'll see you around I'm standing here with Lauren Izzy and Sarah from Otter Valley What an amazing company guys What an amazing family This is what the hobby is all about So tell us about your company So Otter Valley Road We're a third generation business in Canada We've been retail shop for 20 years and last year and a half we started making our own product I'm the second generation Isabella is the third generation Otter Valley was started by both my mom Cheryl who's passed away My father Roger's retired by myself 20 years ago This year was our 20th anniversary and we hope to be in business for another 20 more years and I hope to carry on the legacy of my daughter There you go So what do you think about all this Sarah? He warned me I like trains It's a lot more than what I thought but it's great Tell me about some of the products now that you're selling So the first car we have up We have the 6400 which is a trash scrap and construction debris car It's a national steel prototype We offered in our first production run can 128 production skews which is a huge offering for a lot of these cars are in unit trash construction and scrap service and then we followed that up with our second freight car which is the little brother of the 6400 the 6000 and this will be out in September this year they're going to be shipping the next week or two and then we followed that up with our third car and I know you like the weathered and the prime this is our third car this is the freight car America and it has the faded CN so these are now been off the CN lease on to CWLX they handle pipe and then we're also offering pipe loads for the car and we also have been offering both construction and demolition waste loads trash loads and then we're going to be offering scrap loads in the bale shredded and sheared and the top at off can we announce three shows at your car we announced three cars for this show which will be the frame car the NSC and Ebenezer Inget cars and the NSC three car well car set and the number of guys that come up to us and gals at the show that were amazed we announced them both online have been amazing so these are cars that were much needed and they're coming and we have three more cars that we're working on to announce for our Canadian show in September so as you see we got a big plan a big vision but these ladies inspire me that's absolutely awesome we so look forward to seeing what new products that you do come out with in the future I want to say that your trash loads all your different loads are amazing and I absolutely love the hat that Izzy's wearing thanks Ken for having us and Canada loves you guys and we love the show rock and roll I'm standing here with Aaron Piotraski of Apogee Locomotive Works and Aaron we met you last year you were a brand new startup company that was doing 3D work and we were so impressed with that stuff last year that you talked about that I wanted to find out what was new here at your table well today we have all of ALW's new 2023 releases we have the Oskaloosa class 357 ton heavy electric box cab we have the Ironton WIC battery storage mining locomotive for 0 and 30 we have the Lima Hamilton 1000 horsepower that will sit on a Stuart Hobbies Baldwin VO 1000 sorry and a few other of our freelance and prototype kits that's absolutely awesome now you've also brought some printers with you today and it looks like you're using filament printers for the most part yeah I have filament machines over here all the shell kits are done in resin but I started using some of my waste spools spools that are too small for large projects to turn in the packaging for them that's cool so tell us what website will we go to to find all these wonderful models well if you go online and take a look at apogeelocomotiveworks.com apogeelocoworks.com you will be able to see all my shell kits detail parts and some extra equipment here and there that's absolutely awesome are you having a good show have sales been good for you yeah it's a pretty good show st. Louis is always an important show to hit that's awesome well thank you very much for your time yes thank you everybody I'm here with Bernard Helen of mini prints hey everybody we haven't talked with him before it's his first time here in st. Louis he traveled all the way from Toronto so tell us a little bit about what you're doing today well I'm doing two things really I'm showing some of the mini prints mini figures that I created so I do all sorts of odd weird fun different things you know skeletons riding motorcycles and you know the kind of the weirder odd or sort of fun things that you so you're doing all these abstract things that's right normally people don't even have on their land exactly I think there are a lot of battery boxes out there a lot of propane tanks yes I might have a propane tank but I try and do things that are a little bit different a little bit more fun a little bit odd you're not the typical things that you would find you know on a model railroad because everything I do is stuff that I want for my own railroad right or stuff that people ask for very cool and now you're actually scanning people here at the show so you can make their miniature versions of them exactly so this is honey I shrunk the model railroader so I am I've got my my shrink ray gun and I basically aim it at oh no not a Daniel he's small enough as it is oh no sorry about that buddy so yeah it's kind of a fun way of getting the news out about mini prints you know you know yeah people like to look at the little whatever but who doesn't want a little mini me on their layout right everybody needs a mini me exactly we can collect them you know like need it need it want it got it collect all of them that's right so I like to sort of shrink people and it's a lot of fun and I built up this whole collection of mini me's you know on the miniprints.com website and guaranteed you will see a model railroader or a friend that you recognize excellent so how can we find you out there on the internet miniprints.com Alright everybody check them out and just for a fun fact here the beaver was the very first thing he ever printed and I'm from Canada a alright thanks everybody see you later bye alright guys we've done our interviews we've seen lots of models record crowd this year of around 800 people at this show I know right and I'm sure all you boys bought something I know I did so tell me what you guys thought about the show I think it was a great attendance I think all the great models that we had it's all new stuff from last year it's great that we see all these new models and a lot of new people in general yes I've seen that Mike right and 3D printing has really taken a lot of stuff really a lot of cool stuff here to see just in that area alone there you go and Daniel hey another great show like always glad to see all my favorite friends modelers you name it and of course these guys I like your hat yeah thanks guys and Gepado alright guys so now we're going to continue on with the rest of this show for this segment of What's Neat I've got Matt Stern from Bachman Industries beautiful Philadelphia Pennsylvania hey Matt welcome to the What's Neat show how's it going Ken it's going fantastic absolutely fantastic everything is good so you've got a lot of new products that you want to talk about today and let the viewers of the show know some of this cool stuff that Bachman is coming out with yes so we just announced at the Anna Marie show last month in August our new announcements for the year so I'm going to take you through some of those and then we've got some samples from some existing products that have already been announced and some stuff from the brochure as well very cool so I'm just going to go ahead and launch into the brochure here so I can preface this by saying that this is available on our website you can download this as a PDF from BachmanTrain.com but let's just go ahead and go through here so the first thing here you'll see right on the cover this is our new steam announcement in HO scale this is the Dreyfus Hudson it's the logical follow up from the J38 that we previously released and we know a lot of people have been speculating and asking about this so we're happy to deliver on this and we're excited to see this come to market that's going to be gorgeous it's going to come with both the two driver versions it's going to come with the boxbox drivers or the skull and drivers I believe these are the skull and drivers in the picture here and yeah it's just a beautiful locomotive it sure is that's just awesome and then in the diesel locomotive section for HO scale we're doing something a little different we haven't done a second generation GE in a little while but we're announcing the C36-7 nice we're very excited about this because nobody has done this in the consumer HO scale market yet we're the first ones announcing this it's going to be Union Pacific Southern and Conrail and it's going to fill a void in hopefully a lot of people's 70s 80s 90s era layouts yes that's very cool and moving to cars here we have the two new announcements in HO scale actually we have four new announcements but two new announcements on this page in HO scale we have the Trinity 51-61 three bay covered hopper this is a pretty modern hopper the first ones came out in 1995 they I believe continue in production today don't quote me on that but they are absolutely on the rails today you'll see if you especially go out west you'll see long trains of BNSF maroon ones like this one you know miles long you'll find those pretty much throughout the west coast and on the east coast you'll see the Norfolk Southern ones this is the grain express one here there's a ton of those around this is probably one of the most prevalent hoppers out there so it's another one that we're very excited to bring to market yes that's going to be well accepted and then we have the GATX 4180 air slide hopper which is a slightly older hopper design but again one that you can still see not quite as much nowadays but they do still pop up from time to time we're offering that one in Union Pacific Burlington Northern CSX and in the GATX original scheme and we're pretty excited about these cars because they're a little more modern than some of the stuff we've released in our rolling stock range so we're kind of expanding into a new era here and moving to our next page of HO scale rolling stuff we do have some more transitional era stuff we have the probably more early diesel than transition era but we're introducing a second version of our steel coil car this one's coming with the angled hood design which the original design coil cars had we're offering this in B&O, Milwaukee Road Redding and Rock Island and just like our curved versions this is also going to come with removable hoods and with a full load of coils that can be taken out inside as well nice and last but not least in HO scale rolling stock we have the 52 foot wheel flat car it's a maintenance of way car it can be used either to if a railroad is getting new wheels delivered to swap out on freight cars or if they're trucking out old wheels this is how they would do it it comes with a load of wheels that will be removable they're painted in oxide brown to kind of give them that realistic haven't been rolling for a while kind of look and I actually have a couple of samples of these so I'll show you one here with the wheels on it so each one comes with a load of 16 wheels but you can add more the inserts for them go the whole way along the car that's going to be cool and this one is this is the most modern paint scheme we have so these actually lasted in service for quite a while they started in the 50s a lot of them were converted from just general use flat cars but surprisingly this is something you'll find in maintenance of way frequently they survived for many many years they survived up until the early 2000s of some railroads so there's a wide wide range of areas that you can run these in so this is our most recent paint scheme this is the Canadian Nationals the Worm scheme and as you can see these are completely removable and yeah it'll be a really cool car again this is another car that I don't know if anybody else has actually ever brought to the market in consumer ratio scale so we're pretty excited about that and I'm going to just show you we've got four schemes here we've got the CN we've got New York Central we've got Pennsylvania and then we've got this is actually my personal favorite here this is the Santa Fe one nice in the silver scheme with the silver trucks and it also has a wood painted deck as well which I think gives it a really nice it kind of helps the scheme pop a little bit no that's going to be a very cool car yeah we're very excited about these so that's the only sample we have in HO right now for the new announcements you know these things a lot of times are we're not even going to tooling some of the stuff when we bring the stuff out but it's always within a reasonable amount of time but some of these things do come out and we're lucky enough to have samples very very nice Matt so we also have a we announced this previously but we have actual artwork for our cellar 2 now which is still coming out early 2024 we've got the full train set here which is going to come with our concrete tie easy track with the wide 22 inch radius curves this is going to be a three car set and as you may know the actual trains are nine cars which is very long for HO scale so three cars will look great on an HO scale layout but if you do want to make the whole train we are making all the separate sale cars to go with it as well that's going to be an awesome consist it is, yeah we've got the unpainted sample which we previewed on social media a few weeks ago on our test track and that thing that thing is long but it looks fantastic haha cool so moving into, I'm going to skip over this section here this is Thomas and friends that will leave that for Doug that's his area but over here we have this is our end scale steam announcement the 19th century forcing so and people are very excited about this we received a lot of positive comments about this at the NMRA show in Texas and we're very excited about this it's been a while since we've had a steam locomotive from that era available on end scale and we know the market has been asking for one so again it's something that we're very happy to deliver on no that's good the end scale guys are going to love that and there's a lot of end scale guys out there absolutely yeah we're going to come with the Central Pacific in the Central Pacific scheme with the number 57 and Bison as the name it's going to be available in Union Pacific with number 1010, Baltimore and Ohio in the Thatcher Perkins it's the Thatcher Perkins in its current scheme which is actually, so for those of you who don't know the Thatcher Perkins is actually an existing one that's on display at the B&O Museum today and the scheme on the locomotive is the one that it's wearing now which doesn't actually have the name it is the Thatcher Perkins locomotive okay and the Pennsylvania Railroad 417 is the fourth one that we're doing so moving from early steam into about as modern as you can get we're also introducing the Via Rail Canada SCV-42 Charger which we announced in HO and is actually going to be in stock very soon in HO scale so we're excited to bring this out in end scale as well we know this is something that as soon as we announced in HO we had a lot of people saying oh man when are you going to make this in end so we're excited about that and to add to that we're also announcing the entire Consist as well which is going to be the two of the coach cars, two of the business class cars and then a coach and cab car just like the HO scale version it's going to not be powered but it's going to have sound in DCC for lighting and horn and stuff like that and we're also doing the Amtrak Midwest versions as well currently the coach version is the only one that's out on the rails right now they may have just started introducing some business class ones but we're not trying to jump the gun with the prototype here so we're announcing the coaches at this point dude that's a great lineup we're very excited about these and as you'll see in a little bit we actually just got the painted samples in for HO scale via ones and the end scale ones are going to look amazing so let's see so we're also announcing our coil cars in end scale now they're going to come with all the same features of the HO scale one they're going to come with the steel coil loads they're going to come with the removable hoods and we're actually doing a combined announcement of both the curved side and the angled side versions so you're going to have BNSF and CSX in the curve more modern version and we're going to do a couple of the schemes that we announced in HO but we're doing a couple of different schemes as well we're doing diamond chemicals and hooker chemicals which were both available in HO but those are actually shipping now I should say the HO scale ones are and we're doing pen, salt and angle hard as brand new schemes for end scale only at this point yes those are going to be colorful paint schemes yes absolutely so an O and F we're going to do this so an O and 30 scale we're bringing a new hopper to the range this is going to be newly tooled it's the east broad top style three bay hopper we've had the two bay hopper in and out of the line for many years but as many narrow gauge railroaders will know the three bay hopper is the more prevalent one in reality and actually made it to a lot of other railroads once the east broad top stopped being a common whole art they actually send a lot of those railroads such as the Durango and Silverton the White Pass and Yukon one actually made it as far as Hawaii all for predominately for maintenance of way use but it's just one of those cars that if you're modeling narrow gauge railroads anywhere in the country you can use this car so we're very excited about bringing that to the range and true to the prototypes we're going to be offering it with a coal load for the east broad top version and for painted on lettered version and then we're going to offer a maintenance for the scenic railroads the White Pass and the Durango and Silverton versions very nice and last but not least we are into large scale now we're announcing some new paint schemes for the Dash 9 I'm going to preface this with saying these are actually conditional announcements so if you're interested in these please contact your retailer let them know that you're interested so they can reach out and say yeah we want to order these we know there are guys out there that are interested in them so we're going to do the Union Pacific in the more recent Yellow Soul version the one that we released last year has the Red Soul which is the previous version of the scheme we're introducing Southern Pacific CSX we're returning with the YN2 Bright Future scheme this time and then we're doing Canadian National and we're doing the BNSF Heritage II scheme the previous version okay wow that's never been available in HO scale in G scale before and that's fantastic I do hope people order those we certainly do too these will be very very cool looking models and just to round things out in large scale we have a new range of tank cars these will be available this is also 129 scale like the Dash 9s so it's scale for standard gauge we have Shell we have Quaker State Texaco and then we have one Christmas car lettered for Mrs. Claus Christmas Punch absolutely and our very last announcement here is the large scale optical auto reversing system and I could show you a sample but it's a box it's probably better explaining it than showing it but what it does is it's a control it's a specially designed controller that comes with two sensors and a track power clip and you can set this up on a section of track and what the sensors do is when the train rolls over the sensors it tells the controller to hold the train there for a specified amount of time that you can set in the controller and then it'll send it back in the opposite direction so what you can do is you can have your trains running on your layout but then you can also have an isolated section of track like for a trolley or for like a mine or something else where you can just have the train do its thing and run by itself you don't have to moderate it can just go back and forth and it'll just shuttle back and forth in the two points. That's a really good idea especially for the Christmas China homes those guys love to set up around their trees or on a mantle where you can jam through the trolley or the train going back and forth on the mantle as they display exactly good idea we've announced these previously as well but we also just wanted to put these here because this is kind of related to this but this is our we're also bringing back the closed streetcar on large scale it's going to have metal gears this time as well very cool you guys are always thinking of stuff absolutely we tried to so if we have some time I do have some samples to show you as well okay shoot in Oskale and Williams easy street we have the first painted samples of our new sedans okay and these are there's going to be three different versions there's going to be two just standard cars this one's my personal favorite because for a car of this era late 60s to maybe early 80s for some reason you know gold is just the quintessential color for those cars right I can see this just sitting on the side of a road with a pen central RS3 or something going past it and these will really look the part for that era we're also doing a sky blue version here which really pops looks really nice and we're doing an ambulance version which comes with the lights and the little horn on the roof here okay and really flashy color scheme I really like this one and last but not least we also have the hearse as well wow yeah the Oskale three rail guys are going to love that absolutely yep and these are all motorized they will all work on our easy track or our easy street system and they will also work on any standard Oskale three rail track as well very very cool you got to show me the VIA you got to show me that yeah come on that's sitting there teasing me it's so beautiful alright so this is the what I was talking about this is the sample of our VIA rail venture cars in H.O.S. scale this is the cab car so this comes with let me try and angle it up here there we go so this actually comes with the same design cab as on the charger but it's a it's a coach as you can see it's going to have interior lighting and as I said this is going to be DCC and sound equipped not for power there's no motor in this but it's going to have operational lighting and operational appropriate sounds for a cab car as well yes the paint scheme is amazing the coach car here this is just a standard coach car okay again inside you can see you've got the full interior in there and nice underbody detail and you've got the end diaphragms as well and here we have let me just fall off the desk here we have the business class car as well so the difference between these cars is fairly subtle but if you see side by side business class car has a slightly darker paint scheme than the coach class car and this is actually the front there's going to be two of each of these in addition to the cab car this is the front one that goes up against the locomotive and the way you know that is because it only has a diaphragm on mind on this end it's just a riveted end and these are going to be available as separate sale cars but you can make the entire consensus with the cars that are available alright that's some really cool stuff so if we have time for a couple more things people have been asking about our 44 tonners they've been in the catalog for a couple of years and we're happy to say that they are going to be coming to market very very soon this is the B&O version and then we also have Santa Fe yes oh the tiger stripe how beautiful yep I love this scheme and we also have this is just a shell for this one but this is Union Pacific here and we actually have a couple more schemes as well we have Amtrak but we don't have samples of those to show yet okay I should have brought this up when I was doing the NMRA announcements because this is actually one of our new announcements this is the first sample of our angled hood coil car so as I was saying earlier you can take the hood off you can load the coils in here this is just a sample so there are no coils in it but when you buy them at the store they will have coils in them and I think it's going to look really nice and just as a reminder we may have shown these on the show before but we're also bringing out before these come out we're going to have two new schemes of the curved side coil cars as well so we've got Santa Fe here and we've got Burlington Northern that's fantastic good color scheme all this stuff is available from Lombard Hobbies in Lombard, Illinois that helps sponsor this show and also this is just in time for Christmas to get your Christmas orders ready to go absolutely and I do have one more thing to show so we actually have our samples of something a little bit different here this is our first branch branch out into a prototypical H.O. narrow gauge or actually an H.O. slash double O narrow gauge I should say and this is our Welsh narrow gauge taliflin steam locomotive oh nice these are from the taliflin railway which is in Wales and they're actually all the same locomotive but it's worn a lot of different paint schemes in its life so we wanted to replicate three different paint schemes just because they're also attractive and it'll give modelers a lot of choice on how they can operate them that's nice and those run on end scale track yes these run on end scale track and they're actually fully compatible and H.O. narrow gauge line these will run with those as well wow Matt that's a lot of new products you guys really keep cranking out great models for the modelers out there we always try to and that rounds it out for today correct absolutely yep I think that's it well we'll say that's it I could probably go on we're probably taking out more time than we should already no I really appreciate you being on the show with us bringing us all the cool stuff coming from Bachman Industries in Philadelphia and folks with that that is this segment for What's Neat all the products seen on this episode of What's Neat are available from Lombard Hobbies in Lombard, Illinois or order online at LombardHobby.com and buy Broadway Limited Imports the cutting edge leader in model trains check out their website at broadway-limited.com Bachman trains now that's the way to run a railroad check out their website at bachmantrains.com