The Athearn website (www.athearn.com) has been updated with a slightly cleaner look. There is even an “O” scale section and some interesting N scale engines that are to be relased.
Funny…it looks remarkably like the ummm Horizon site…
I do like they now tell the production status or each item.
Now to the criticism:
- They should have used the format like they had for locomotives. An example would be under freight cars there would be boxcars, flatcars, hopper cars sections along with others.
- I noticed that the SP Daylight F7 kits have been discontinued. Presumably this is because they are not prototypical. However, they are still making the RTR version.
- Not all locomotives are listed. One example is the SD40T-2. Is that locomotive discontinued? If so, why don’t they do what they did with many other discontinued locomotives and list them with discontinued on the listing?
I see what you mean Eric SP.
I just started typing in the “Search” box. I typed in SD9, F45, FP45, and U33. The cowls are listed as “Temporarily out of Production”. But this is normal. The SD9 does not show up at all, just some of the parts. U33B or C; nothing at all shows up.
I was surprised to see that the DD40 is still available, especially considering that this unit did not exist. I’ve always wondered why Athearn didn’t try to upgrade to the DDA40X body.[%-)]
In Athearn’s defense I can understand the SD9 no longer being produced as Atlas and Proto have offered this model. Atlas makes a U33 C. Nobody makes the two cowls or the U33B though.
Umm…, ok it’s the exact same website as ebfore, they just remove that intro page with just thepicture on it and added a “buy direct” link to the main page, otherwise it’s exactly as before Horizon bought them. don’t see the big deal here folks.
NDTN. only the first page looks the same. Try clicking on the buttons up top, like the “New” button. The link takes you to a page that looks like the Horizon website’s format, and nothing at all like what it looked like just 2 days ago. If you’ve surfed the Athearn website last week and surf it now, the differences are very substantial. I don’t like the new format, myself. It’s harder to know what’s being planned and you have to do too much Searching. The results from the Search are too large and generic, requiring you to do further manual searches, which is a real pain. I hope they are still tweaking and refining it, with additional changes for the better still forthcoming.
Take care.
Greg
Greg,I fully agree with you…I like the old format better as the new format is a pain to get around on…I don’t really care what’s the best sellers are,I need to know whats new…