Bachmann Slot Cars

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Bachmann Right Now on eBay

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Bachmann History

Founded in 1833 by Henry Carlisle, the company originally specialized in vanity products such as Spanish Combs that made out of ivory horns and tortoiseshell. Its target market was in the American south and Louisiana. After the civil war it continued to make other type of hair ornaments and also walking canes. In 1899 Carlisle's firm, now run by Henry E. Bachmann, merged with a competing firm being run by Henry E. Bachmann's father, Henry G. Bachmann, and the younger Bachmann's brother, Walter J. Bachmann. The company changed its name to Bachmann Bros.. By 1902 it started to use celluloid for its products and by 1912 introduced optical frames that were made from it. In 1929 they became the first American manufacturer of sunglasses. The line, "Solarex" would become very popular and later purchased by the US Army and United States Army Air Force for their personnel during WWII. Other famous products include shooting glasses for Winchester Repeating Arms Company (now the U.S. Repeating Arms), and Stein Eriksen ski goggles.

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Plasticville

Bachmann's experience in plastics led to a mass-market plastic fence released in 1947. Originally intended for decorating Christmas trees it was adopted by early railway modelers. When Bachmann learned this they began producing other products for this market leading to the Plasticville line of buildings, which were popular accessories for Lionel and American Flyer trains. Bachmann's Plasticville products, originally in O scale, and later expanded to H0 scale, were made by Hong Kong based plastics molding manufacturer Kader Holdings Company Limited since 1952.

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Plastic Models and Other Toys

During the 1960s Bachmann produced plastic models of Animals (mostly birds) called Nature Craft Kits. They also produced their own Mini-planes, Slot cars, military models (with Fujimi) that include fighter planes, helicopters, and Tanks; and toy robots called "Toys of Tomorrow" (with Tomy). Bachmann would drop the toy robots within a couple of years. The Bachmann-Fujimi models would be dropped during the 70s. Bachmann dropped Slot Cars and Mini-Planes from its product lines after the Kader takeover (see below) but instead entered the Radio-controlled Model market. In 1982 they revived their Nature Craft Kits as Birds of the World. By 1987 they have dropped all other toys and only concentrated on Model Trains and Accessories. In 1998 Bachmann did try to sell a short lived product, a radio controlled motorcycle.

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Bachmann Trains

Because of the sudden popularity of N scale starting in 1966, Bachmann entered the trains market by starting its N scale trains products in June of 1968, with cars packaged in white jewel cases. However, problems of initial run led to a retooling the following year. In 1970 Bachmann entered the H0 trains market. A second retooling occurred around 1973, when trains started to be packaged in black jewel cases. In 1978 Bachmann changed its logo to the present one.

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Kader Takeover

In light of falling profits, in 1981 Kader acquired Bachmann. It changed the name to Bachmann Industries and used the new brand to expand worldwide, such as the European market. It is also part of the strategy to take over other failing companies in Europe and put them under one single name. The packaging changed from black plastic jewel cases to white paper boxes with cellophane window. Starting from 1982 Bachmann began to slowly retool individual product lines one by one. A typical example would be the replacement of metal gears to plastic ones in the Diesel locomotives. By 1992 all cars were manufactured in China.

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Bachmann Big Haulers

In 1990 Bachmann started to produce large scale train sets called the Big Haulers. These G scale models include trains, shays, and also streetcars. Their most famous line is the Emmett Kelly Jr. circus trains, introduced in 1993.

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Spectrum

In 1988 Bachmann introduced the "Spectrum" line of higher quality equipment, including updated motors, more realistic paint schemes, and better detail. Spectrum was considered a totally different company from the regular Bachmann company. The initial offering was a GE 44 Ton Diesel. Later on the Spectrum line expanded to include a Pennsylvania Railroad K-4 Pacific, an EMD GP30, and a General Electric Dash 8-40C. In 1998, Bachmann introduced their Spectrum HO scale 2-8-0 Consolidation, which was selected "Model of the Year" by the readers of Model Railroading magazine. By 2000 Spectrum was no longer considered a separate product and became one of the Bachmann product lines, as Spectrum was finally included in Bachmann's regular catalogs.24

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Today and DCC

In an effort to gap the quality between the Spectrum brand and the regular Bachmann trains,
Bachmann introduced a mid ranged "Bachmann plus" series in 1992 when production was moved to China. Eventually the entire product line would be upgraded to the quality of the plus series which led to the drop of the plus series and the birth of the current silver series in 1997. Bachmann doubled the MSRP of its products, and cars are now packaged in clear plastic display jewel cases. In 2001, Bachmann started to produce trains in On30 scale (O scale on H0 tracks).

Since 2006, Bachmann has been concentrating on implementing a DCC system and products in its product lines, with the help and partnership of the German company, Lenz Elektronik, GmbH. Bachmann is expected to release its Dynamis DCC system in 2007, which would enable Bachmann to catch up with the rest of the other DCC companies technological wise. Currently Bachmann H0 Spectrum lines are DCC onboard, while the vast majority of its N Spectrum lines are DCC ready.

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