Anyone know if there is a way to find out how many sets Athearn might produce of some of their more obscure road names they have done in the past. I have been looking for the Texas & Pacific F sets and the seem as rare as a Hallmark Eagle set. I have found a set of the passenger F7’s. But I have not seen the freight units anywhere.
I looked over Athearn’s site real well but could not find anything other than stock number’s and pictures. I would think even something like the Bangor & Aroostock would be produced in greater numbers than say brass runs of the 80’s and 90’s. But now I’m not sure? Anyone with any insight?
Only way to get this type of info would be to go directly to the source, in this case Horizon Hobbies who owns/imports Athearn. Very douibtful they would divulge this type of data ( trade secrets etc.) however.
Athearn, and its owners Horrizon Hobby, are a privately held business. As such they need not and do not disclose any financial or product production numbers. And it would not be in their best interest to do so.
It would allow their competition to anyalize the company’s strengths and weaknesses and could easily undermine their place in the market.
Only a very few model train companies in the whole world are part of any publicly traded company who must publish at least some such data in their anual reports - the parent of Bachmann, Kader is one such company.
However, it is very likely, that from a model train standpoint, Athearn is actually bigger in volume than the “Bachmann” portion of Kader.
Athearn, Walthers, Atlas, Bowser, MTH, Lionel, and Bachmann are the “big boys” of model trains, but compared to any household name like GM, Sony, Walmart, they are just little mom and pop operations.
Very few people know the answer to your question, and all of them know it is not for public consumption.
But, just keep looking and watch Ebay, what you are looking for will likely “turn up”.
I think I can understand in a marketing way why this business model has changed since the sixties and seventies,I think that in this case Athearn is losing out on some sales. Back then most importers like Bobbye Hall had no qualms about letting you know there are only X amount of these and there will not be anymore. As a result I spent those years prioritizing what I needed to get first acquiring the smaller numbered items she brought in like the GHB Texas Electric Interurban or the MKT 2-6-0. But with this business model, since I have no idea whether my efforts to track one down is realistic or not in my lifetime I will not wait any longer searching for this product. Instead I will get anyone’s F and paint my own. Maybe Athearn should adopt an inventory system like MTH has had, as I do really like their F units. Allowing their dealers the opportunity to let the customer know what is in stock at shops across the country.
I think you should let Horizon know your concerns. You should also understand this additional info if you are not already aware of it. Long before production was moved to China, ALL this product was made on a “batch production” basis.
Athearn for example never had machines or space to make more than 4-5 different products at one time. Back in the day they would run a big batch of F7’s, fill up their shelves, and fill up the shelves of distributors. Then those locos “trickled” out to retailers. Athearn all the while hoping they filled the demand while they made the next item for a month and the next after that and so on until they got “back around” to F7’s.
So when you bought an F7 in the spring 1969, it could have been sitting on a shelf since fall of 1967. I worked in the hobby back then. I remember some items being out of stock for years, the
Well, SB, while I can’t actually address the number of a given roadname/number, like Athearn’s T&P f-units, I can provide some insight into just how limited production runs appear to have become in recent years.
A while back LL produced a DL-109 in several road names. In the real world the New Haven operated the most examples of these units, but the first run of the DL-109’s by LL included only two gross in each of two road numbers in the NH paint scheme.
Initially, demand far exceeded this volume, spurring at least one additional run, maybe two, but this does serve to indicate just how limited many runs of a particular roadname and number, even by major loco manufacturers, can be today.
One other thought in this “information” connected world - It only takes one guy who bought these and now wants to sell them for you to find a set on Ebay or some other high exposure web site.
And on that note - if the hobby gets pushed any further toward the “LIMITED ADDITION COLLECTORS ITEM” marketing model, I think the market for these products will be seriously hurt, if it has not been hurt already.
This marketing model is contrary to the needs, wants, habits and interests of many of the more long term "model builder’ types in our hobby. They are already “rebeling” against “preorders” and “limited production”. Further moves in that direction will not be good for the hobby.
Yes this is exactly my source of confusion and consternation. Esepcially when we don’t know how limited or when they do very few undecorated. I preorder very few thing mostly due to the potential of the unknown. Future events can always make something you think you need today totally unecessary in the future. Especially when they get around to making it three four years in the future.
CNJ thanks for this info. This is pretty much what I think is now the norm, A little more than the brass runs of the 80’s and 90’s.
And on that note - if the hobby gets pushed any further toward the “LIMITED ADDITION COLLECTORS ITEM” marketing model, I think the market for these products will be seriously hurt, if it has not been hurt already.
This marketing model is contrary to the needs, wants, habits and interests of many of the more long term "model builder’ types in our hobby. They are already “rebeling” against “preorders” and “limited production”. Further moves in that direction will not be good for the hobby.
Yes this is exactly my source of confusion and consternation ,especially when we don’t know how limited, or when they do very few undecorated. I preorder very few thing mostly due to the potential of the unknown. Future events can always make something you think you need today totally unecessary in the future. Especially when they get around to making it three four years in the future.
CNJ thanks for this info. This is pretty much what I think is now the norm, A little more than the brass runs of the 80’s and 90’s.
blabride,
You will never, ever get that information out of Athearn. They will never, ever confirm any production numbers and there’s no chance that any company rep. will share that information. It’s the most secret part of their business, even over new models coming down the road. For example, I have heard of many new products coming long before they were officially announced as I was either helping the product to be made or knew someone who was helping. Still, I never found out just how many of a model they made.
And it’s not just Athearn. Atlas has gone on record as saying that they won’t say, either. And other than CNJ’s numbers on the DL109’s, I’ve never heard a loco production total from any other plastic manufacturer. Even CNJ’s DL109 numbers are at best 2nd hand as AFAIK he never worked for LL.
I know from talking to people in the model railroading business who speak in generalities that a modern Chinese production run of 6000 is not uncommon, and that would include all paint scheme and number variations. I know from my model railroad club that custom runs of equipment are 300 (Atlas), 500 (Athearn), or 1000 (Walthers), and Accurail is something like 50, IIRC.
BTW, brass companies have always been different. They are a “collectible” and they provide production numbers to increase this “collectible” value. You can go and buy a Brown Book on brass models and get just about every production number that was made when the book was current.
But there has never been a “Brown Book” for plastic. And there never will be. Athearn, Atlas, Walthers, et al, have never given production numbers out. Nothing has changed in that regard.
BTW, imporant note: if it wasn’t for limited runs, there would be no T&P F-units made by anyone other than in brass. There would be no DL109’s. No U18B’s. No Gensets. Certainly no road-specif
Thanks, this info is exactly what I was looking for. Ballpark figures. But as an economics teacher for 25 years just what is the thinking behind being so secretive about how many models are made. Is there a fear someone won’t make an announced model because company X made 5000 USRA 4-6-2’s?
Seems like that might be an advantage to announce numbers, instead of the constant one upmanship of the same locomotive from three different builders flooding the market like the N&W J.
SB,
I hope you realize that the “ballpark” is a very large place. It may vary by thousands of units…I have no idea. And it does not tell you just how many of each paint scheme, unfortunately. Say a company makes 5000 engines in 10 paint schemes with 2 numbers each. One would think that each unit got 250 copies made, right? Well, not really. A popular road might get 500 copies each while a less popular road might only get 100. There’s no way to know, and there’s no way they’re telling.
As for why? It’s a limited marketplace with limited dollars available. There might be something like 250,000 model railroaders in the USA, of which just a little more than half are in HO scale. A miscalulation in demand for any product could prove very damaging if they make too many, while if they don’t make enough they are leaving money on the table. It’s a very fine line between profit and failure in this hobby.
Putting all the real production numbers out there would allow any company to use another as a marketing dept., gauging the interest of various road names and types of engines. For example, Atlas takes the risk and makes some models for a shortline. It proves to be popular, and they want to make more. It can take up to a year to make a new model from beginning to end, and other companies, if they know it’s popular, will make some for themselves. But by not releasing the sales info from the 1st run, it allows Atlas to get it’s 2nd model in that roadname in the pipeline faster than anyone else because they aren’t sure it’s really popular or not. And so on.
Does it help us out? Well, no, not really. But then for us, it’s a hobby. For them, it’s their living.
Yes its a big ballpark but these numbers put things in perspective that there is probably enough out there that I can eventually find the freight units as there just are not to many people interested in the T&P.
You have also cleared up my confusion over the need for secrecy in the plastic market. Sometimes I see this works to our advantage with great overstock deals.