Especially when you keep in mind the very competitive pricing of Bachmann in the 1990s while they were trying to break into the UK market, and the availability of complete mechanism replacements slightly below half the complete model price and quite regularly cheap body 'seconds' too. Bachmann did themselves no favours with this! There was a general expectation that this 'spare mechanism supply' would continue when they introduced the Blue Riband range, and some real unhappiness expressed over about the first ten years of this superior product supply when they didn't...Bufferstop wrote:... Hardly the disaster story most people tell of split chassis. I think MAZAK rot was the real killer.
I had an OO garden line in the 1990s, and the heavy loco drive Bachmann steamers were good for this, the only competition Hornby's traction tyre dependent tender drive steamers which just don't work outdoors, pathetic traction. And of course Bachmann's 'Spectrum drive' Peak, a heavy centre motor drive ideal for outdoors, which mechanism was readily transplantable into EE type 4 and Deltic bodies. What with cheap mechanisms and bodies from Bachmann and several other sources of bits and pieces, much could be done for relatively small expenditure
For more steam variety I transplanted the A4 mechanism into Hornby A3 bodies, and a B1 drive with A4 wheels into a B17 body, and used the V1 mechanism to make K3s in combination with parts harvested from V2s and J39 bodies. The real lack was an eight coupled goods, but converting the old Hornby 9F to loco drive using the Dapol N2 motor and gear train was no trouble at all, so there was the heavy steam freighter my garden mainline required. Ten ER steam types and four of the early BR diesels, bliss.