No.125 The Four Ages of Warships – Bachmann Types

The arrival of Bachmann’s new Class 43 Warship Pegasus has encouraged me to revisit my fleet of Bachmann Warships.  I have counted four distinct variants of the Bachmann Warship: the early 'low' version, the corrected version, the lighted version and now the latest Class 43.  I don't count Kader’s early Mainline models as being Bachmann, although they have a place in this narrative.

Four ages of Bachmann Warship, left to right, Onslaught, Glory, Zenith and Pegasus

First some history, Kader Industries introduced their first Warship under the Mainline label I think in the late 1970s. I certainly bought a couple in the early 1980s, now long since sold at auction. The Mainline models had a good shape and came with directional lighting. When Kader rebranded their UK models under the Bachmann label the body shell from the Mainline Warship was reused (with different fixings) right up until the introduction of the Bachmann Class 43 in 2015. The Mainline chassis had a ‘plastic’ mechanism and to counter the lack of weight rubber tyres were fitted to the wheels on the motor bogie. The plastic drive gears had a habit of cracking where they had been force fitted to the axles. Ultrascale still sell nice brass replacement gears. With brass gears and some additional weight the model was nearly very good as can be seen at the end of this early video.

Mainline Warship chassis

Bachmann reintroduced the Warship I would guess during the mid 1990s with a much improved chassis and motor, not forgetting the sprung buffers. It would be 2008 before directional lighting reappeared. Among the first Bachmann branded models were Foxhound, Onslaught and Eclipse (32-050, 051 and 052 respectively). The first production runs of these models were deemed to be too low. That is the body and buffers were some 1 to 2mm lower than they should have been. This is evident in the view below comparing the latest Bachmann model of Pegasus with Onslaught (as bought new).

Bachmann Pegasus (left) Onslaught (right) as bought

A contemporaryfix by Keith Norgrove shows how to grind away part of the chassis and insert some plastic spacers to correct the error.

For their part Bachmann corrected the error in subsequent models such as Glory (32-059) by raising the height of the pivot point on the Bogie Towers. I don’t know how quickly these modified towers were introduced or whether any were fitted to later batches of the first models. Both Foxhound and Onslaught arrived on my layout too low. However I have a model of Eclipse (bought second hand) which was advertised and looks unused, which arrived with the correct height towers. Perhaps it was only the very first production batches that had the error and subsequent models were issued with corrected towers?

Bachmann Class 42 Towers - original right, later models left

Rather than grind away bits of chassis and manufacture plastic spacers I opted to source a couple of replacement towers for Onslaught.

Bachmann Pegasus (left) Onslaught (right) with new bogie towers

Bachmann Class 42 Onslaught, ride height corrected with replacement towers

When first introduced the Bachmann Warships were admired for their smooth running and super haulage capacity. They had a heavy metal chassis fitted with a big ‘can’ motor and they made a reassuring clunking noise as the heavy mechanism crossed rail joints.

Bachmann Class 42 Chassis (Foxhound/Eclipse/Onslaught/Glory)

Around 2008 Bachmann upgraded the Class 42 Warship. The earlier model was reworked to include cab/indicator lights and a socket was provided to aid the installation of a Digital Chip.

Bachmann Class 42 Zenith

The original and the reworked models share the same body shell. However if you compare the spacing of the top cab steps on ‘Zenith’ with the earlier picture here of ‘Onslaught’ it seems to me that the ride height of the reworked model is too high. I suspect that this is because of the spring contacts and circuit boards introduced as part of the lighting set up is preventing the body shell sitting tight on the underframe.

Bachmann Class 42 Chassis (Hermes/Zenith/Magpie)

The original and reworked models shared the same design of bogie / tower. However that is where the similarity ended. As shown below there were significant detail differences in the way that the towers were attached.

Clip on Bogie Fixing Bachmann Class 42 (Eclipse/Onslaught/Glory)

Screw on Bogie Fixing Bachmann Class 42 (Hermes/Zenith/Magpie)

Superficially the ‘can’ motors were the same. However there are detail differences between the two motors, notably at the opposite end to the brushes, such that when swapping motors between models it is necessary to also swap the black plastic motor cradle. From my own experience I would say that the motors on some of the reworked models were inferior in performance to those in the original models. I have had to replace two motors that I would say ran slow and overheated.

The overheating issue is interesting and has filled in many happy hours. The picture shown here above comparing the original (low) bogie tower with the modified bogie tower has differences in the shape of the axle holes. The original towers had an axle hole / bearing shaped to match the axle. Running was generally excellent. The modified bogie simply has machined slots for the axles. If these machined slots were made too deep the drive axle is no longer carried by the metal bogie side frames and instead the whole weight of the engine is carried by the nylon gearing. My observations suggest that carrying the weight on the gears increases the friction in the gearing leading to slow running and overheating, not to mention ‘wobbly’ running. (I do believe that Heljan ‘Lion’ has the same problem.) I did make a couple of spacers / bearings to clip to the metal side frames and pack the space between above the axle but it just seemed to slow the motor even more so it was abandoned.

Axle spacers/bearings

I am not sure if there is a ‘fix’ and I resorted to swapping gears and wheel sets to obtain the optimum solution, coupled with many hours of ours of ‘running in’ using the ‘Loco Tester’. ‘Zenith’, bought second hand ran perfectly. ‘Hermes’, bought brand new was a problem, eventually only solved by fitting replacement towers and a different motor.

Bachmann Class 42 Hermes

Because Bachmann’s Class 42 Warships have been around for some time I suspect the arrival of the Bachmann model of the Class 43 has not been given the prominence that other new releases have received. A pity I think, as it is a superb model which could teach a few other manufacturers a trick or two. Mine runs ever so quietly and is also rock steady. There are numerous clever touches, for example the casting of the engine/transmission visible through the side windows and the ‘yellow’ tint to the running lights.

Bachmann Class 43 Pegasus

I have added a view of the chassis. This too has been re-engineered and is a work of art in itself. I have not investigated further but I can see very little that would be interchangeable with previous models. The space for scale cab interiors and a sound speaker does come at a price and the Class 43 weighs 70gm less than the Class 42. Time will tell as to whether this is important or whether it will be an excuse for double heading.

Bachmann Class 43 Chassis

The only question remaining is, "When will Bachmann introduce a new Class 42 based on the tooling for the Class 43?"