Hornby Gordon vs Bachmann Gordon - Which Is Better? - YouTube

hello there everybody some strings here welcome back to the railway and today I

thought I will try something very exciting and a little bit different I'm

going to be doing a bit of a comparison video today so loads and loads of people

have asked me to do this and finally I've given in and that here it is so

today I'm going to be comparing two very popular models firstly of course is the

hobby Gordon I'm going to be comparing that with the ever-popular Backman

Gordon now first of all I thought I would give you a little bit of

background on these models so we'll start with Backman because those are the

newest now the Backman Thomas and Friends range began in 2002 with the

first three locos I think that was Thomas Percy and James Gordon came along

a little bit later he came along in 2005 I believe but it wasn't until 2008

onwards that Thomas and Friends the TV show began to be made with CGI rather

than real models so it's safe to say that the Backman Gordon is based on the

models from the show now the Holmby range is quite a bit

older now this started back in 1985 when the TV show started or shortly after the

TV show started but I would say that these zombie models are still based on

the TV series some people disagree but I'm going to talk a little bit about

that now so there's a crucial difference between the Holmby and Backman ranges

now with the fact that Thomas and Friends range Gordon included these

models were completely designed specifically to be Thomas and Friends

models they set out to build the Gordon when they did the Batman Gordon and

Gordon is what they got now that was not the case with the homvee range in fact

what jambe did was they took existing models that they had in their range from

years gone by and they repurposed them as Thomas and Friends models so for

example Gordon here was made using an old a one locomotive model Henry for

example was made using the black 5 tooling Edward was made using the jambe

d49 tooling and to varying degrees of success

most people that talked to me about the homvee Gordon say that it was a pretty

good one most people when they talk about the home be Edward for example say

that it's pretty awful because of course Edward was not a d49 in real life he was

a furnace railway k2 or something like that definitely not a d49 and so he

didn't look in proportion another bad born he's Emily from home B of course

Emily was a sterling single but homeless version was Dean single I think which is

a little bit scary actually if I show you a photo I mean look at this even

annie and clarabel will may be using existing models and in fact across the

whole range that I own the only model I can't find a duplicate of is Percy so

you might even want to use the word lazy when you talk about the whole be Thomas

and Friends range it certainly doesn't seem as though they were willing to

spend the money and the time to produce an accurate range of models it certainly

seems there were some commitment issues there and potentially that is the reason

why the Hornby range will cease to exist as of this year and yet the Backman one

continues to live on so one thing that people in the comment section always

tell me is that the home beat versions for all of the range really were

designed to look like the Reverend Audrey's drawings and things now I

disagree with that I think they do in many cases look like the Reverend

Audrey's drawings but I don't think that was by design

I think that was just a byproduct really of hormuz decision to save a little bit

of money by not designing their model specifically to look like the TV

characters and instead repurposing older models to look like their characters on

TV in a looses possible way I don't think they looked like

Audrey's drawings by design but that's just my opinion a lot of people say they

were designed to look that way I would just correct that slightly by saying

they do look a little bit like Reverend Audrey's drawings sometimes but that

isn't by design I think that's just a happy coincidence equally the baton

range looks a lot more like well it looks a lot more TV accurate most of the

time and of course that's because Backman didn't use existing models to

just convert into Thomas and Friends characters they designed this entire

model specifically to look a lot like their TV characters which is of course

why most people most of the time feel that the the Backman range is a lot more

TV accurate so that is a difference that is common with most of the Backman and

Hornby Thomas ranges but now let's get on to more specific differences between

the two Gordon's so let's take a look at some of their

different features then shall we so let's start them by taking a look at the

faces now of course I've reviewed both of these

models already and in the comment section of both of those reviews people

have always said that the faces on both the Holmby and the Backman ones are

pretty good so here they are now the Backman on the left and the Holmby on

the right to be honest I can't decide which one I like the best if we compare

them with a photo of the face from the show that model that is not the CGI

version you could tell but they both look pretty good it is difficult to

decide so you guys let me know I'll include the poll right now decide which

one you think is the best obviously bear in mind that the Backman

version does have the moving eyes unlike the Hornby version where they're just

static painted eyes but apart from that there's really not too much in it as far

as I'm concerned so a big difference between the two ranges is the size and

this is consistent with all of the models from the Rangers more or less as

you can see the Backman version at the back there you can tell because it's

shiny is quite a bit smaller than the humvee version now I think the reason

for that is that the Batman range is in a Cho scale and the HMMWV range is in

double-o scale now when I've said that in the past people have disagreed with

me and said they don't think that's the case but as far as I'm concerned the

baton ranges from America and it's clearly quite a little bit smaller so I

would say that they are gonna be a Cho scale and if you want to contest that

you'll need something pretty solid because as you can see there's quite a

big size difference there as you can tell also there's quite a bit of color

difference between the two the Holmby version is more of a sort of milky baby

blue it's certainly I don't know you call it a little bit watered down

perhaps whereas the Batman version is a little bit richer and of course it's

quite a bit more glossy as well which i think is a little bit more accurate to

the TV series so here are a couple of other key differences then as you can

see the Batman version has tall rectangular windows which is correct to

the show the Holmby version has more sort of square windows which don't look

quite right but both have the yellow lining on them which look pretty good

now the home B version has round buffers which aren't accurate to the show the

batman version does have the correct gordon sort of oval squarish looking

buffers which is correct at the show now as you can tell the whole new version

has separately fitted handrails on the side of the boiler but the batman

version as is pretty clear there is just part of the molding and painted on now

if we look at the real thing from the show you can see

that they were clearly separately fitted and not just part of the molding but

like the Backman version they were silver and not black as with the Holmby

version now the Holmby version doesn't have a whistle strangely it's just got

the safety valves whereas the batman version does have a separately fitted

whistle on there which is a clear difference a big point in Batman's favor

the lam finds on the whole B version are clearly incorrect jambe for some reason

always put the lump irons in upside down I personally think that's because it's

easier to fit them in the factory that way rather than having to poke them

underneath and suddenly they are glued in that way so you can't just pull them

out and rectify them but as you can see the Batman alum pines are correct which

is another point for Backman as you can see the shape of the Batman firebox

closely resembles that of the Gordon on the show the Holmby version looks very

different to that on the show it's not necessarily a huge criticism but it's

definitely not all that accurate now the Batman version quite

interestingly doesn't have any cap detail it does have a physical cap space

but there's no detail inside there if we look at the whole B version you can see

there is a little bit of cab detail on there because obviously the original

horn ba one did have a little bit of cab detail but as we know the Gordon in the

show did have a realistic-looking cab which is another point in Hornby's favor

now if we look at the two tenders now very very clearly the back man tender is

much more show accurate to the homvee one pretty much all of the whole B

Thomas and Friends tenders look the same I think it's the same one for Edwin it's

the same one for James just with slightly different paint jobs yet the

backward versions are all different and I can confirm that looking at photos of

the tender from the show the Batman version is leaps and bounds more

accurate so both of these locos have points in their favor and points against

them but overall the clear winner in terms of accuracy has to be Backman

let's talk a little bit about performance though so the subjective

performance then is quite a big can of worms because the mechanisms in both of

these models are vastly different I think there are differences in quality

as well which I'll talk about but first of all let's talk about the Batman one

now the Batman version is local driven ie there is at the motor inside the

locomotive I think that is at least more so accurate because in real life when

they used models during the show at least they used markleham jerseys I

think for the locos which were loco driven and

I think that because you sometimes see the wheel slip during the show so in

terms of realism that is more accurate but the hobby version is tender driven

which means the motor is inside the tender now this is less accurate because

you can't make Gordon wheel slip for example these wheels on the local won't

go around if you put a big load on in which I know some people like however it

doesn't mean that there is a little bit more power behind the whole be version

because there are rubber on the tires now I personally don't like rubber on

locomotive tires but it does at least mean that the palm B version is more

powerful now as far as quality goes I have got to say that the homie version

in my opinion is much better quality than the Batman one I've seen lots of

Bachmann Thomas and Friends locos have motors burn out and I know a lot of you

guys have told me that that in the comments as well I've never come across

a Hornby version that has burned out and also in terms of quality the Hornby

version has a lot more pickups so you will see that it runs more reliably on

the track three pickups go to each rail from the locomotive and the tender also

picks up obviously the Batman version doesn't

have any wise going to the tender at all so all of the picking up is done by the

locomotive and another little thing to note is that the the Batman Gordon

tender was extremely light in fact it kept derailing when I first got it so I

actually had to open it up and add some extra weight so I think the Batman

version is more accurate but as a toy which needs to function as a toy I think

the Holmby version is better quality but as I'm going to show you they both run

similarly well let me show you that so as you can see a nice smooth slow

performance there from the Batman version let's see how he does on the

points Express points with very large dead zones okay yep no problem at all

and the Holmby version of course here we go it's actually slightly smoother as

you can see I think better motors it might even be a 5 pole very slightly

smoother also a little bit more quiet as well obviously the homie version does

have proper bearings inside it the back and one just the actual rub against the

chassis and as you can see the Holmby version is going over the Express points

once again with zero problems they're both pretty good in terms of

performance I personally think that the home be warm wins but there's not a lot

in it okay I'll get these couples to some coaches then and let's have a

little running session so there you have it then you've seen all of the evidence

I've told you basically all I know about these so it's all down to you now you

have to decide which one you think is the best I personally prefer the pikemen

version I think they're both good and don't get me wrong in some areas the

Hornby one does beat it but for me I think pikemen wins overall it's got the

moving eyes and it's just more shell accurate it's definitely quite a nosy

runner we can hear sort of metal-on-metal grinding going on with

the batman version but touchwood it seems to be okay so if you have been

able to make a decision on which one you like the best answer it in the poll and

also let me know in the comments why you've made the decision you have what

was it about your choice that made it the winner just waiting for Hornby

Gordon to come around the curve now here he comes

very powerful as you can see slightly longer train this time okay folks well

that will just about do it for today let me know in the comments if you enjoyed

this and if I should do more if people will say they want more of this sort of

thing then I will of course do some more and if you've got any other ideas on

which other locos I should compare then I would be very glad to hear them and

probably do them as well at some point but for now folks that's all for me so

thank you very much once again for watching and I will see you all very

soon cheers everybody

you