How many of you are signed up for the Athearn e-mail news? Did you see what was e-mailed today? Six pages of blue box kits that are on the production schedule from now until April. They are even doing passenger car kits this time around. Athearn has made this production list available every year, yet as they note, they/we continually hear that Athearn no longer makes kits.
If you are not signed up, go to athearn.com and you too can learn all about the new products. Same deal with Atlas at atlasrr.com.
Jim Kelly once said that maybe the biggest difference between the ease of starting out and quickly having a good layout in N and a good layout in HO was that HO had Athearn.
The list is good BUT will the LHS have them? And will the dealers at swap meets have them? Maybe not because of the restrictive distribution policies. Also there is only so much shelf space in the world and if the space formerly occupied by BlueBox has the RTR stuff …
Dave,There are several on line shops that carry the BB kits at discount…I find these prices save me $$ on gas and wear on my car-not to mention my driving restriction due to health reasons and the nearest shops is 26 miles away-and the best part the mailman or UPS guy will bring them right to me in 4 or 5 days after I place the order.[8D][:D] Of course I never buy one kit when I order.I do stop at the hobby shops when I go to the doctors since he is located in the same city as the hobby shops and may pick up a single kit or other odd items.
Since I have started out in both HO (way back when) and N (more recently), I can say that this is no longer true. When Jim Kelly started in N, there were limited offerings and many locos ran poorly. Today, N locos run every bit as well as their HO counterparts and a beginner can start easily and relatively inexpensively with off-the-shelf products RTR from Atlas, for example. An N scaler who wants to build kits can do so with Intermountain offerings.
Not to mention that I left the hobby in the 70s partly due to extreme frustration with a wide-body athearn HO BB loco that ran horribly. The Blue Box HO mythology is interesting, but hardly the foundational element of the hobby it once was (if it ever truly was). Good quality HO kits from Accurail are a fine option for those who want to build today and the availability of RTR makes it easy for those who want to get started quickly to do so.
And it seems odd to me that the people who lament the unavailability of BB kits seem to miss the multi-page ads in Railroad Model Craftsman and elsewhere advertising these, as well as Accurail and Intermountain HO kits, month after month.
More misinformation…[V] The BB kits are still made in the US according to Athearn.
Greetings.
Although we continue to hear rumors that Athearn no longer makes kits, we make them every day
here in sunny Southern California. And to prove it, here’s our production schedule for kits
through May 2007. It’s self-explanatory. Find a kit that you want. Tell your dealer that you
want it. They’ll order it from the distributor. We’ll make it. You’ll get it. Simple, yes?
Thanks for making that correction Brakie. Don’t know where some of these rumors get started.
Pretty easy to tell that the blue box kits are not made in China by the USA flag on both ends of the box. And the “made in the USA” lettering.
If I may be so bold, any good LHS can easily get blue box kits. Anybody telling you something about “restrictive distribution practices” or whatever is just another way for a shop to tell you he doesn’t want to carry or order the blue box kits. Yes as a dealer you can only order from Horizon distributors, but the “restrictions” that Horizon has are certainly attainable by most real shops.
Dave makes a good point about shelf space for RTR and space for the kits. If I had less square footage to deal with, that could be a problem here…but even a shop with not much shelf space could still make the effort to special order the kits if a customer wanted them, rather than doing what I have heard some shops do and just say “they quit making them.”
They will be/have been harder to find at train shows and swap meets, but that’s a whole different deal there.
cuyama,
Athearn has been “the foundational element of the hobby” for years in the past. Check out the the 1980’s and early 1990’s. What else was there that had the selection at the price & quality of Athearn? And by quality, I mean all wheel drive and pick up, body mounted couplers on rolling stock, etc.
One Track Mind,
Doesn’t Horizon demand a minimum order of several thousand bucks a month, every month, for as long as your shop is running? I heard one tale that an LHS ordered $9000 worth of Athearn/Horizon goods, then nothing for two months. When he tried to restock, he found that his account had been canceled, and that he had to re-apply to be a dealer as if he never was (taking pictures of the store, etc.).
And of course train show dealers are now out of luck because they don’t have a store front and Horzion won’t sell to them. Meaning that train show dealers are hurt and don’t go to as many shows. Meaning that folks stop going to shows because there are fewer dealers, and those that are there don’t have the latest stuff. Meaning that the sponsors of these shows (mostly RR clubs) are hurt due to lower table rentals and show attendance. Meaning that clubs go under as the shows are their main revenue stream. Meaning that there are fewer clubs introducing the hobby to newbies. Meaning that the hobby is going to go down the tubes. Thanks, Horizon!
One Track Mind,I have notice very little space devoted to kits of ANY brand these days.As you know the current market trend is RTR and I dare say we are beginning to see the dawning of prebuilt structures as well.
nice list , unfortunatly nothing at all that i can use . thank goodness for MDC/roundhouse , us pre-1918 modellers would have to scratch or craftsman build everything if it wasn’t for them
Paul - not sure Horizon would want me to discuss the dealer requirements on the forum, but trust me, they are minimal. You do not have to order thousands per month. I believe you do have to order a certain amount each month…so if he went 2 months with no order…that could be the reasoning in that case.
As for Horizon ruining train shows, my admittedly biased opinion is that a lot of train shows are dead or declining anyway. That’s probably a topic for a separate thread if anyone wants to discuss why train shows are in trouble, for those who don’t already see the evidence. And I really don’t have anything against train shows, so don’t claim that I do. But Horizon’s decision to sell only to reputable dealers was only a drop in the bucket of what is hurting train shows.
Brakie - in deference to other dealers, I’m sure a lot of them are doing what they feel is best for their stores. But I also think there are some who are not keeping an open mind as to the viability of still stocking/selling kits. Trying to walk a fine line here by not talking/promoting my own store too much…but I still have a whole aisle devoted to kits. And you have to walk through all the kits to get to the RTR. Now honestly I still sell more RTR at the moment, but I also still sell a lot of kits. I think a lot of dealers would see the market is still there if they would accept that RTR may NOT be the future. And those RTR buildings are mainly getting balked at around here.
ereimer: yep that blue box list won’t help out those who model before 1941. But at least like you mentioned MDC/Roundhouse is still making the pre-'41 items as RTR.
And for what it’s worth, before anyone thinks I’ve been brainwashed by Horizon…we certainly have had our disagreements over the years. But I know they have listened to suggestions from dealers and implemented some of those suggestions for the betterment of the brands they now own and the future stability of our hobby.
Actually, that is the whole point. When Horizon purchased both Athearn and then MDC roundhouse, the opperations for both were merged into the Athearn facility in California. The decision was taken to define the brands and so Roundhouse has been re-branded as the prewar era (WW2) and Athearn as the post war era. Some of the post war Roundhouse offerings have subsequently appeared under the Athearn brand and I beleive visa-versa. So you will never see any old timer items under the Athearn brand again, they will always be under the Roundhouse brand.
One Track Mind,Since you carry lots of kits you are to be commended…I wish the 2 local shops would carry more kits.Also I will mention one shop stop carrying the high dollar engines like Atlas and Kato…He will accept reservations for new releases with a sizable deposit.
DOH !
thank you simon for pointing out something that should have been obvious to me if my brain was actually in gear today . this might move me back into newbie status (referring to another recent thread)