Happened to cross the forum discussion dealing with AHM/IHC. I was into HO trains in the late 1960’s into early 1970’s and remember the great sales they used to have at the old Philco plant at “B” & Tioga streets in Philadelphia. Not being a wealthy young man, we were in awe of all the HO rolling stock and buildings, etc., for sale from many different companies(If I remember correctly) at the defunct Philco assembly site. They (the HO “flea” market) were there for only a couple of years at the most. Occasionally, my brother and I would manage to buy a few items for our setup (Sadly, now in storage or gone. Once in while, I’ll break the engines out and run them so they don’t stiffen up) In any event, thanks for bringing back some fond memories of the past. I never did get the final reasons for AHM’s problems or transition of AHM/IHC’s history. It would be interesting if someone could develop a timeline of the company’s evolution/demise. It’d make interesting reading…
The history of AHM and IHC has been discussed here sevaral times over the years. Try using the search function and see if you can’t find one of these discussions.
In just a few words: Money and the lack of it!!!
I purchased several of the Big Boys for the almost give away prices of $25 and then they raised the later ones Big Boys and challengers to $55. Spent some money on these also and they are still in the box. The large flanges and extremely poor motors prevented any use of those models.
AHM, was a mainstay company back in the day, had allot of loco’s, cars and building kits. They even had their own track and switch machines. I had some steam loco’s and enjoyed them very much when they were new, Over the years though the motors gave up the ghost and I updated them to a quaulity replacement motors.
I never did figure out what really happened to AHM. I do know and beleive that IHC stepped up to the plate and took over operations at the end of AHM.
Their are still allot of AHM collectors out their, do a search of the web and see what you find.
Dang, I remember that old Philco plant!! My grandparents lived in Kensington back then. I remember my dad and grandfather talking about “bargains” on HO trains. I guess that’s where they were going. I was only 7 or 8 at the time…
AHM is a name that brings back many fond and also frustrating memories. Most of the frustration came from the cheaper Mehano locos they carried; the Rivarossi stuff was better quality, but could be temperamental. Still, I never had one of their motors fail. I did spend my last [2c] on a Heavy Pacific as a young teenager, only to have the motor melt the plastic motor mount. That loco became the bane of my existence for many years, but it still runs today with a better motor. The old one still runs too, for that matter. They don’t take much maintenance to keep running for years.
DANG! The exact same thing happened to me! I remember showing my trains to some of my nieces & nephews who had stopped by with their mom & dad. The Pacific had made about ten laps of the layout with a nice string of cars… then I heard a slightly different sound come from it… by the time I got it slowed down & stopped, the plastic motor mount had softened and the motor was out of allignment. I never could get it to work correctly after that.
Of course, you ALWAYS have trouble when you have company!
dlm
Glad to know I wasn’t the only one! I think we were victims of a cost-saving measure, because I think it was originally steel. For my first remotor job I removed the mount and used a round NWSL can that the LHS recommended, but it was a bit large, and the RPM’s were too high. I’ve since created a cab floor and have a smaller flat can mounted so that the cab is about half empty.