At last I can stop biting my tongue! Bachmann Europe have announced today (13/04/24) a complete narrow gauge range in 7mm scale to run on 16.5mm gauge track. The initial range consists of three locomotives, truthfully three variants of the same loco, three wagons, crew, buildings and a new coupling system.

I’ve known about this for in excess of two years having been warned it was coming. The mystery is why its taken so long. I suspect it was initially going to be announced around two and a half years ago but the Lionheart L&B announcement stole their thunder.

Doing it Right

Well at least different. The Lionheart launch left so much to be desired. Three years from announcement to delivery, incompatible couplings and promises not kept. However this isn’t about Lionheart its about these excellent new models.

The doing it right stretches to Next18 DCC compatibility with sound fitted versions from the off. A new chopper coupling system that fits in an NEM pocket with an alternative supplied. All manner of accessories for the loco and a supporting range of buildings and people.

Initially there are three loco’s, well loco styles. They are actually all versions of the standard (dangerous use of the word standard there) small quarry Hunslet.

	There is the mother of the design. Cabless with the chopped ends to the frames. This was to allow them to be hauled up and down the quarry inclines without them running aground. This would include Velinhelli, Rough Pup, Cloister and Maid Marian and others (there is a frame profile variance that exclude others if you want to be really picky
	Then there is cabless but with the full depth frames intended for use in the port and not go up the inclines. Inevitably they did which I assume involved some graunching on the ground.
	Then we get the cabbed version which represents the engines built for Pen-yr-Orsedd Quarry, Britomart, Sybil, and Una Irish Mail was delivered to Dinorwic with a cab but it didn’t last long

There were other variants with, for example, rounded corners to the cab and the slightly larger Port Class engines and large quarry class. There is a whole book on the subject

The Scale Naming Conundrum

Bachmann have chosen to call the range NG7.

There is already a load of online fuss of the “what’s wrong with 0-16.5, 0n30 etc and mostly it’s a load of drivel. Bachmann chose 0n30 for their American narrow gauge range to 1:48 scale and its wrong. The correct notation should be 0n2 ½ but this isn’t the place for a lecture on NMRA naming standards.

What Bachmann are doing here is not introducing a loco but a complete range and they need it to stand out so NG7 works for that. I like it and  can see it being adopted with possibly some additional delineation.

How about NG7 as the scale and  -16.5 as the gauge? Then we could have: –

• NG7-21 for the three footists
• NG7-17.52 for the 2’ 6”ers
• NG7-16.5 for the GVT and near enough modellers
• NG7-14 for the two foot modellers
• NG7-09 for the near enough 15” ers
• And of course NG7-12.85 for those following the true path and model these the correct 1’ 10 ½” gauge.

Re-gauging Info

Truth is until I get my sticky mits on one we won’t know how easy or not it is to regauge to NG7-14 (I like it and I’m going to use, more so if it winds people up). My source tells me that its probable that the die cast chassis doesn’t allow for the narrower gauge so it will involve either a new chassis or an attack with as milling machine.

All I can really say at the moment is that I’ll be investigating it as soon as I have one and the scars from doing way too many Lionheart L&B loco’s have healed. Two enquires have already landed.

What does is mean for the Agenoria Range?

Well, it probably means that sales of the SL1 and SL3 kits for variants of the Alice class will drop significantly. These kits will continue to be available but won’t see any development in the foreseeable future.

However, Bachmann have got you hooked on quarry modelling you will realise that there were lots of other engines. In the Agenoria Range there is

• Jubilee 1897
• Dinorwic Port class
• Penrhyn Port class
• Penrhyn Large Quarry class
• Lilla

These are already getting some work to upgrade them to multimedia kits with ease of assembly a key requirement. Other models are in development such as Glyder, a Barclay copy of an Orenstein and Koppel that in its second career worked in the quarries.