What they should've done is used a n gauge or smaller motor, that way they can hide the mechanism better and make it more realistic. In addition to this as the figures just twitch anyway the was no need to over engineer to have the figures arms and legs pivoting so they could've just used more realistic static figures and just have the hands attached to the handles so they just rock back and forth.
Hey Sam - I bought a Bachmann Gandy back around 2000 and it has worked fine the whole time for me. I will say that it runs maybe an hour per year around the Christmas tree and the kids have always loved seeing it. It gets put away in favor of the other trains and we don't see it until next year.
Hey Sam, 2 possible projects in the making. - Produce a motorised 3D print version of your own. - Re motor the original version with a coreless motor. Or a simpler option, replace the figures with something more realistic. Internal body pivot instead of those rediculous hips. Couldn't find them on TMC website by the way, only a Christmas version at £48.
These are a lovely novel item to run around on an exhibition layout. There is always a wonderful moment of a kid smiling when they see the Gandy Dancer in motion.
Hey Sam, just a quick correction. The product name sort of implies that the vehicle is a gandy dancer, but that term actually applies to the men. It's an old-timey railroading term for track workers. The vehicle itself is simply a pump car.
I remember Leokimvideo used the Gandy Dancer as a donor chassis for a miniaturized Thomas the Tank for HO track, with rolling stock to go with it. The first version used a Thomas from a Pez dispenser, while the second used a take-and-play.
One of these featured in an episode of Dad's Army - season 6 episode 3 "The Royal Train". This was on British rails, of course. They didn't use the term 'gandy dancer' - I think that's probably American. But they did have one of these carts propelled manually by pumping the handles. In the Dad's Army episode, they had four people pumping the handles, two on each side - the vicar, the verger, the air-raid warden , and the mayor. They were chasing a train, trying to pass something to folks on the train, and the air-raid warden kept yelling "Keep pumping!" Then the train stopped and started to roll back, and they had to pump hard in the other direction to get away.
There's your Bachmann Bus, there's also a Van, Pick-up, Jeepster, 5 (ton) tonne truck, all of which have been improved since their first creations of the mid-1980's. Aside from the Hand-car/gandy-dancer vehicle, the other vehicles have since been converted to be powered by both axles, which increased their reliability to getting over/through insulated frogs. One other exception is the "Speeder set" which was always powered by both axles and pulled two carts (crane and tool cart) which, if one was clever, could be wired up so that there would be no problem going over the switch points. Two more track maintenance vehicles also come to mind and are more identified as U.K./European types. The capable speed is hilarious. A novelty... and I am sure glad you got this model at a very reasonable price. (Granted, I had to clean my monitor after you showed the msrp... Good thing I was drinking mint tea.) John
Love this! I have a 1970's version that still works. I would put this item in the same class as the Tri-ang R. 752 Battle Space Turbo Car. Perhaps you could find an intact example for another critical review!!!
Awesome and hilarious review. Been loving the reviews of these unusual Bachmann items. I first heard of these from a old early 2010s video made by Leokimvideo who used the motor and chassis of these to power Thomas Toys.
If you cut off the over size "Robo gangers" & added a scratch built cabin you would have a half realistic section trolley. The Eyre Peninsula town of Cummins , South Australia is the home of the Kalamazoo Classic section trolley races . Cheers for the video; David Barnes.
Hi Sam, i wonder who was the importer of thi model as it is stateside model not uk? When my local model shop had Bachman deal on a few years back i brought two GP38' at an excellent price£25 each !with DCC on board, the chips emmited a lot of "electriical noise " at certain settings,Bachman uk said they had batch of old/surplus stock from Bachman USA and recognised my queery but said that it was standard US market fit and as it was a US model they couldnt help!, but i am sure it was a UK import. I beleive that UK and USA are seperate operations so the warranty is for the USA market,still under the Sale of Goods act the dealer who supplies it to you is the person responsible in the event of complaint ! Keep the sale receipt handy,
That rig isn't called a gandy dancer. A gandy dancer (at least how I've grown up knowing it) is a railroad worker. So the two human figures on that piece are the gandy dancers but the rig they're on is a Handcar
I have an idea for a 3D printing project! What if you tried building a diesel locomotive. Bonus points if it’s a model with bogies (or as we in America call them: trucks)
Sam, I think they should have geared down the drive ratio, to give a more realistic speed and maybe improve the performance. How about you designing and building a much better model ? 😀
Fun. Yes that is the right word. Thanks for the video. Perhaps these were more used in North America where tracks were not available by road to do maintenance. They were called "hand cars" or "hand trucks" They were eventually replaced by a powered version about the size of a golf cart with iron wheels.
@@allenginesgofan101iambeing4 you can actually find quite a number of videos of people converting these into speeders. Heck there was a kit from before I was even born to convert them. Seem to be rare though.
Old Gandy Dancer Men: Crooked Andrew (Green Shirt) Sunny McGridel (Yellow Shirt) New Gandy Dancer Men: Fredrick Pete (Blue Shirt) Jackson Pete (Green Shirt)
I wanted to ask you, do you have a favorite color, my favorite color is blue, mainly because Thomas is blue, but the tone of color blue doesn't matter to me, I was thinking if I send you an N scale locomotive with a matching caboose, I wanted to costom paint them in your favorite color
I had no idea Bachmann did so much re-tooling on their handcar! I figured it was too small to fix besides making both axles driven or all-wheel pickup. Maybe they could've used a Z scale motor to power this thing These guys look a bit like Pez dispensers with limbs to me! I bet they're supposed to be robots with how inaccurate they are
Other than the performance, they made it worse... It looks less realistic and costs way more. I bought one as a birthday gift for a friend back in 2011 and it was $21 brand new, now it costs more than some locomotives.
Good review Sam, I'm wondering 😔...well....if aliens 👽designed the men???🤔🤔. I bought one for my wife's layout because it was cheap but a fun thing to watch. Price always a road block 🚧 when purchasing.
This is definitely a funny little locomotive(?), it's great to see that you got a running one. Do you think you can print a new base keeper plate for it? The base keeper on this one definitely looks faultily made and I wouldn't doubt it could be causing some of the running issues. Also your idea for a full size one would be hilarious, but it does give me an idea, what if you designed a 3D printable O-scale version of this? I think you should remotor the old one too, it's a bit of a shame that it basically only burns now and it might be interesting to compare the performance if you upgrade it to a better motor.
Lol, this cracked us up and made our day hahah. You’ve completely knackered Fred and Jack for the next days, lol... But 60 GBP RRP..., seriously? How on earth can they justify such as it is, even if it had been trouble free (Einwandfrei as we say in Germanland tongue). 20 GBP is indeed more like it. Funny, seeing it running on the lay out with the blokes hahah. Poor little guys. Do you think you can repair the older one Sam? Cherio and Ciao.
and at that price both Bachmann and TMC would still be making money, so begs the question..... are we being ripped off? I think you should print a Gandy Dancer man HAHA If you have ever seen Still Game :Big Yin: episode he looks like a Gandy Dancer LOL
hi sam. crikey havent seem one of those in decades!!!!! pity the men pump and model speed is unrealistic.. they would be dead with fatigue by they arrive at their destination.
In the us we call them hand carts and those things are a work out to use. My granddad has on from his grandfather and they were used for things like going over track that couldn’t handle the weight of a locomotive or for inspection and other things.
I sold my Gandy Dancer because I couldn't see a way to fit a DCC decoder. I agree with other comments - perhaps you could cannibalise the burned-out one and get 3D printing to create more lifelike humans and machine
So Gandy Dancer was a slang term for US railroad section crews and work gangs that built tracks and maintained track. They wouldve used the "Hand Car" which is what this is supposed to be. By about the 1910s/1920s railroads moved on from the hand car to the Rail Inspection Motor Car better know as Speeders for decades after till Hi Rail pickup trucks took over. Obviously Bachmanns gandy dancers are more of a toy and what not but at least one can have a working handcar on their layout and not just be a static display.
You should 3d print one and see if you could make one any more realistic. Could become a smallest 3d printed loco experiment or something. 😃👍
Was about to comment this but you beat me to it!
Resin would work better
@@mandowarrior123 yeah it would but Sam has already explained why he can't use a resin printer 👍
What they should've done is used a n gauge or smaller motor, that way they can hide the mechanism better and make it more realistic. In addition to this as the figures just twitch anyway the was no need to over engineer to have the figures arms and legs pivoting so they could've just used more realistic static figures and just have the hands attached to the handles so they just rock back and forth.
Truly, my thoughts exactly. An N guage 4 wheel loco bucked up to HO track width. Come on, Sam, you can do it, we know you can.
this would've certainly worked better, you don't even have to worry about power because its not supposed to pull anything.
Hey Sam - I bought a Bachmann Gandy back around 2000 and it has worked fine the whole time for me. I will say that it runs maybe an hour per year around the Christmas tree and the kids have always loved seeing it. It gets put away in favor of the other trains and we don't see it until next year.
Hey Sam, 2 possible projects in the making.
- Produce a motorised 3D print version of your own.
- Re motor the original version with a coreless motor.
Or a simpler option, replace the figures with something more realistic. Internal body pivot instead of those rediculous hips.
Couldn't find them on TMC website by the way, only a Christmas version at £48.
These are a lovely novel item to run around on an exhibition layout. There is always a wonderful moment of a kid smiling when they see the Gandy Dancer in motion.
Hey Sam, just a quick correction. The product name sort of implies that the vehicle is a gandy dancer, but that term actually applies to the men. It's an old-timey railroading term for track workers. The vehicle itself is simply a pump car.
I remember Leokimvideo used the Gandy Dancer as a donor chassis for a miniaturized Thomas the Tank for HO track, with rolling stock to go with it. The first version used a Thomas from a Pez dispenser, while the second used a take-and-play.
One of these featured in an episode of Dad's Army - season 6 episode 3 "The Royal Train". This was on British rails, of course. They didn't use the term 'gandy dancer' - I think that's probably American. But they did have one of these carts propelled manually by pumping the handles. In the Dad's Army episode, they had four people pumping the handles, two on each side - the vicar, the verger, the air-raid warden , and the mayor. They were chasing a train, trying to pass something to folks on the train, and the air-raid warden kept yelling "Keep pumping!" Then the train stopped and started to roll back, and they had to pump hard in the other direction to get away.
I remember this one ep.Coulnt they have jumped of by the way i wondered.
I remember when Leokimvideo used these for his old model train mods. He used them to power smaller Thomas and Friends toys.
Gandy Dancer was actually a slang term used for early railroad workers in the United States.
There's your Bachmann Bus, there's also a Van, Pick-up, Jeepster, 5 (ton) tonne truck, all of which have been improved since their first creations of the mid-1980's. Aside from the Hand-car/gandy-dancer vehicle, the other vehicles have since been converted to be powered by both axles, which increased their reliability to getting over/through insulated frogs. One other exception is the "Speeder set" which was always powered by both axles and pulled two carts (crane and tool cart) which, if one was clever, could be wired up so that there would be no problem going over the switch points. Two more track maintenance vehicles also come to mind and are more identified as U.K./European types.
The capable speed is hilarious.
A novelty... and I am sure glad you got this model at a very reasonable price. (Granted, I had to clean my monitor after you showed the msrp... Good thing I was drinking mint tea.)
John
Love this! I have a 1970's version that still works. I would put this item in the same class as the Tri-ang R. 752 Battle Space Turbo Car. Perhaps you could find an intact example for another critical review!!!
I like Gandhi dancer, I saw in my childhood. Some Thomas modelers use it for many small Thomas toy.
The real strength of this model's ratings will be as a point of comparison when something scores below it.
Awesome and hilarious review. Been loving the reviews of these unusual Bachmann items. I first heard of these from a old early 2010s video made by Leokimvideo who used the motor and chassis of these to power Thomas Toys.
I can't watch anymore I'm crying with laughter was hilarious 🤣🤣 nice video Sam
If you cut off the over size "Robo gangers" & added a scratch built cabin you would have a half realistic section trolley. The Eyre Peninsula town of Cummins , South Australia is the home of the Kalamazoo Classic section trolley races . Cheers for the video; David Barnes.
No DCC chip then? 🤣🤣🤣
Repaint the men black and it can be the cart in "Blazing Saddles"!
"Why is the world going up? QUICKSAND!"
Hi Sam, i wonder who was the importer of thi model as it is stateside model not uk?
When my local model shop had Bachman deal on a few years back i brought two GP38' at an excellent price£25 each !with DCC on board, the chips emmited a lot of "electriical noise " at certain settings,Bachman uk said they had batch of old/surplus stock from Bachman USA and recognised my queery but said that it was standard US market fit and as it was a US model they couldnt help!, but i am sure it was a UK import.
I beleive that UK and USA are seperate operations so the warranty is for the USA market,still under the Sale of Goods act the dealer who supplies it to you is the person responsible in the event of complaint ! Keep the sale receipt handy,
Decent review here Sam, bachmanns ability to make something so small motorised is amazing.
It's true - quite impressive that it's motorised at all!
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
DECENT!?
@@awesomealbertt1150 what’s wrong with using the word “decent” I have used it many times on Sam’s videos and he doesn’t have any issues.
@@davidstrains4910 oh, whoops
I have the original one which is still working. It's not the motor that breaks it's the men getting tired. Mine are called Bill and Ben. Cheers Paul.
Sam… I recently bought the hornby terrier 735. It’s the model made with the front coupler. I would love to see a review on it
Hi Sam, Fair review, as you say a good bit of fun, All the best Brian 😃
That rig isn't called a gandy dancer. A gandy dancer (at least how I've grown up knowing it) is a railroad worker. So the two human figures on that piece are the gandy dancers but the rig they're on is a Handcar
Thanks for sharing! I've just always known these as Gandy Dancers!
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
Frankly, I'm surprised Bachmann sells this as a 'Gandy Dancer'. It's the sort of history we white-wash these days.
I have an idea for a 3D printing project! What if you tried building a diesel locomotive.
Bonus points if it’s a model with bogies (or as we in America call them: trucks)
Bachmann also have a Road Rail Bus also it is american with Lead paint, try one of those
12:50 they are so jacked and more to the point, in human, that they can move the handcart at insane speeds with only their wrists
Your mission Sam if you choose to accept is to design and build your own smaller and better Gandy Dancer be it in HO/OO and or one in O gauge
Great video as always, but what is the music at the start?
Sam, I think they should have geared down the drive ratio, to give a more realistic speed and maybe improve the performance.
How about you designing and building a much better model ? 😀
That is a Hand car The Gandy Dancers are the men/track workers.
how they got the name Gandy Dancers is from there shovel that used is the Gandy shovel
Funny little thing, it’s good it runs better than the old one and would it be possible to repair the old one or is it just too complicated
I have one just like that I got for Christmas I absolutely love the little thing I also have the older model that is yellow
🎶And she said softly, sloooooowly;
HOLD ME CLOSER GANDY DANCER🎶
You totally need to make an O gauge gandy dancer as a 3D print project 😝🤣
I wonder if it's the loose base plate that's causing the erratic behaviour of the cart operators. Maybe the gear is not engaging properly.
When a model that falls apart is an improvement haha
Fun. Yes that is the right word. Thanks for the video. Perhaps these were more used in North America where tracks were not available by road to do maintenance. They were called "hand cars" or "hand trucks" They were eventually replaced by a powered version about the size of a golf cart with iron wheels.
Un Sam was there a odd one out ?
Cheers Jasper & Willow
Probably not this time!
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
It would be nice if they done another Santa and elf version, with the coreless motor instead of the unreliable version.
I made a Thomas Minis into one of these, It's very funny
Cheers Jasper & Willow
haha that sounds very entertainment!
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
I have seen people convert these into rail speeders. Interestingly enough it works and looks good too.
JUST the comment I was looks for!
Been making some AEG HO/OO locos and I was checking if MAYBE this could work for Sandy the rail speeders chassis
@@allenginesgofan101iambeing4 you can actually find quite a number of videos of people converting these into speeders. Heck there was a kit from before I was even born to convert them. Seem to be rare though.
Hi Sam.
Here’s an idea.
Make your own bill and Ben pumping men and really show Bachmann up. 👍🏻
Old Gandy Dancer Men: Crooked Andrew (Green Shirt) Sunny McGridel (Yellow Shirt)
New Gandy Dancer Men: Fredrick Pete (Blue Shirt) Jackson Pete (Green Shirt)
I wanted to ask you, do you have a favorite color, my favorite color is blue, mainly because Thomas is blue, but the tone of color blue doesn't matter to me, I was thinking if I send you an N scale locomotive with a matching caboose, I wanted to costom paint them in your favorite color
I am curious to know which rail would fit with this Gandy dancer?
I want to see this pull the Oxford rail gun :D
Did it ever appear on Camberwick Green?
Honestly I would use this on a smaller desktop layout. I Do love it. Its cute
would be cool as hell to have modern versions of (probably would be electric powered) this but I'm sure they don't make them.
Hey Sam My hornby A1 flying schotman is thumped as it runs, do you think that the gears are cracked?
Cheers Jasper & Willow
It could be - does it look like it's running normally?
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
I laughed in the intro, those tiny movements are quite silly
The mechanism for the blokes lol
It returns...
I need one, pity I can't afford it 😫
haha, nobody really can, lol! ;D
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
I had no idea Bachmann did so much re-tooling on their handcar! I figured it was too small to fix besides making both axles driven or all-wheel pickup. Maybe they could've used a Z scale motor to power this thing
These guys look a bit like Pez dispensers with limbs to me! I bet they're supposed to be robots with how inaccurate they are
The one in the red hat says to me 'Bill and Ben'!
Other than the performance, they made it worse... It looks less realistic and costs way more. I bought one as a birthday gift for a friend back in 2011 and it was $21 brand new, now it costs more than some locomotives.
One of the great Elton John songs too. Oh, "Gandy" Dancer...
To save engineering I would have the arms on axls still but the legs fixed with lose pins to hold the man down but alowing him to rock.
Awesome video Sam's trains
Cheers Brian! :D
@@SamsTrains you're welcome my dear friend
I’m 6’6”, I will start calling myself “Wild Bison”. I have a workers trolley in my shed, I am in a club where we rent the track for a run.
IM GETTING THE TORNADO PULLMAN EXPRESS IN NOVEMBER
Good review Sam, I'm wondering 😔...well....if aliens 👽designed the men???🤔🤔. I bought one for my wife's layout because it was cheap but a fun thing to watch. Price always a road block 🚧 when purchasing.
I wasn't prepared for another X rated Sam's Trains! What are they DOING? Xd
You or Bachmann need to make one with dcc sound, grunting to get started and more grunting when going up grades.
Who remembers when leokimvideo made those PEZ thomas character fit in one of those?
This is definitely a funny little locomotive(?), it's great to see that you got a running one. Do you think you can print a new base keeper plate for it? The base keeper on this one definitely looks faultily made and I wouldn't doubt it could be causing some of the running issues. Also your idea for a full size one would be hilarious, but it does give me an idea, what if you designed a 3D printable O-scale version of this? I think you should remotor the old one too, it's a bit of a shame that it basically only burns now and it might be interesting to compare the performance if you upgrade it to a better motor.
I remember Leokimvideo custom making a miniature thomas using one of these!
Ahh fascinating - will have to look that up!!
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
@@SamsTrains your welcome man!
Does it still burn out too easily
I like how he calls being 6 foot 5 is massive and then my brother and my father both are over 6 4.
Sam..... plz build a 3D printed Gandy Dancer!!
Could have used a z/n scale motor with soft dolls to scale.
Again, amazing video
Thank you!! :D
Can you run this one without the base plate?
Lol, this cracked us up and made our day hahah. You’ve completely knackered Fred and Jack for the next days, lol... But 60 GBP RRP..., seriously? How on earth can they justify such as it is, even if it had been trouble free (Einwandfrei as we say in Germanland tongue). 20 GBP is indeed more like it. Funny, seeing it running on the lay out with the blokes hahah. Poor little guys. Do you think you can repair the older one Sam? Cherio and Ciao.
Ello again Sam, quirky little model isn’t it
Hello! Yes it's very quirky! ;D
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
good vid thanks lee
Thanks very much Lee!
BUT SOUND on that would probably be ONE of the Best USE of IT
Came to ask do you think you could do better but looks like everyone has beaten me to it
I'm tryna save up £100 to buy a loco at National Rail Museum any suggestions
Well there's me thinking, I might get a hornby merchant navy next, but no... a gandy dancer would be perfect! Lol 😆
haha, no comparison really xD
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
Why are there no NEM sockets or sprung buffers ?. They should have added these for this RRP. LOL.🤣
Sam when will you release the Rivarossi USA dock tank review?
Soon! :D
Me: looks at the gandy dancer.
My mind: IM USING IT TO CUSTOMIZE A HOT WHEELS CAR AND PUT IT ON TRACK.
haha!! xD
i smell leokimvideo making new non-HO/OO small thomas toys as HO/OO engines again
Sam, take the pump arm off and drill a hole closer to the pivot, that should make their pumping movement a bit more pronounced.
and at that price both Bachmann and TMC would still be making money, so begs the question..... are we being ripped off? I think you should print a Gandy Dancer man HAHA If you have ever seen Still Game :Big Yin: episode he looks like a Gandy Dancer LOL
Put a coupling on it and pull some rolling stock
How many coaches?
hi sam. crikey havent seem one of those in decades!!!!! pity the men pump and model speed is unrealistic.. they would be dead with fatigue by they arrive at their destination.
Yeah true, they do twitch pretty quickly, though that does add to the entertainment factor!
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
The price is crazy
It is xD
Yeah Lol
Awesome video today Sam really enjoyed the video today and have you got the Bachmann Percy yet and when will u review it
This is perfect for a take along thomas if you know what do i mean
Sorry about that, but my A1 keep jumping off the tracks
In the us we call them hand carts and those things are a work out to use. My granddad has on from his grandfather and they were used for things like going over track that couldn’t handle the weight of a locomotive or for inspection and other things.
Those two men have seen better days. Whom I’ll call, Garry and Darry
I have one of these. Mine burned out too. I wish they would have made it a little better like having polls that go across instead of a hook in hands.
I sold my Gandy Dancer because I couldn't see a way to fit a DCC decoder. I agree with other comments - perhaps you could cannibalise the burned-out one and get 3D printing to create more lifelike humans and machine
So Gandy Dancer was a slang term for US railroad section crews and work gangs that built tracks and maintained track. They wouldve used the "Hand Car" which is what this is supposed to be. By about the 1910s/1920s railroads moved on from the hand car to the Rail Inspection Motor Car better know as Speeders for decades after till Hi Rail pickup trucks took over. Obviously Bachmanns gandy dancers are more of a toy and what not but at least one can have a working handcar on their layout and not just be a static display.
Yeah I guess hand car is a better term - definitely a good bit of fun anyway!
Thanks for watching, Sam :)
Wow that’s new