Right off the bat I would like to apologize for the lack of blogs lately. I tend to try and get at least one blog out every week, but during the holidays things got a bit hectic and busy.
Never the less, I hope everyone's had a good holiday, and starting off their New Year on the right foot. For me, I'd like to start it off with one of my favorite Bachmann catalogs from 2007.
As I mentioned in past blogs, I have a soft spot for this catalog. It's one that I personally have, and one that I looked at a lot as a kid. So what was it about this catalog that made me gush over it so much?
Well, for one thing it was the two train sets that it started off with, the Walt Disney's Carolwood Pacific Railroad and the Sherk's holiday special.
The Walt Disney train set looks great. It's essentially the train that Walt ran in his own backyard, scaled down to HO scale with two gondolas, a box car, and a caboose. I personally have this train set and I'm glad I do, as this train set is one that Bachmann hasn't offered since.
Same can't be said for the Sherk's Christmas special. Not trying to make this train set out as the next "Blue Comet" or "Santa Fe" train set, but it does have a soft spot in my heart.
The color Purple might not be the first color you think of when you think Christmas (I think it's more of a Halloween color), yet it looks good on the EMD diesel. Sherk and friends also don't look too bad on the train either.
While I can see why people might not be a very big fan of this set, I personally think it's neat.
Oh Bachmann, why can't you make anther Herhsey's train set? Nothing against the Chocolate town USA train set (Hershey's train set before this one), but that train set being from Bachmann's dark ages aside, I really just like this train set better.
Sure it doesn't have as many cars as Chocolate Town USA, but the cars it does have look great. The Reese's pieces gondola puts me in the mood for Reese's pieces, the bumble gum car looks good, and to top it off it comes with a twizzles caboose.
Maybe it is best if I didn't get this train set as I kid. I'd be begging my parents for Hershey's, Reese's pieces, bubble gum and twizzles all the time.
Bachmann would go back and forth between bringing back the Southern Pacific's Freedom train scheme. In this catalog they brought it back which I thought was nice. It is a nice looking scheme.
Bachmann sold two limited edition G scale trains in this catalog. The first being White Pass & Yukon, and while it's not a Christmas train in name, I wouldn't mind seeing this run around the tree Christmas morning.
The Wonderland Flyer is a set I wouldn't mind seeing come back or even replace the "Night before Christmas" set, if not for the fact that it would probably cost much more. I'd also take this set over the North Pole special as I do like both the passenger car at the end that the set comes with and the gondola full of Christmas presents.
Final thoughts:
When looking back at this catalog alongside the others, it is kind of a kill joy as there wasn't too many new things featured. Truth be told anther reason why I had such a huge soft spot for this catalog was because it was the first new Bachmann catalog I had gotten in a while, and pre before I knew Bachmann put their catalogs online for those to read.
Still, I do like a lot of what's offered and long for the days of some of the train sets I talked about to return. I'd also argue that this catalog alongside 08, 09, and 10 are getting closer/just about their to what would be modern day Bachmann, bringing their best selves to the model train dance while being the only company offering train sets. (LifeLike was just about on their way out around this time).
No comments:
Post a Comment