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Atlas Model Railroad Co. purchases Branchline Trains rolling stock assets
Does this mean the end of kits!!
What does this mean about kits? Will they still make and distribute new ones?
I note that the (very nice) parts from Branchline that were listed on the Walthers website are now either sold out or to be discontinued. Too bad as some of their passenger car parts were very nice castings.
Another kit maker bites the dust. Soon all you will find is high priced rtr kits.
Let’s hope that Atlas shows at least some interest in the HO passenger cars and the 40’ boxcars from the Blueprint Line.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen kits cost much less than RTR, any more than a marginal amount anyway. Kits seem to be priced comparably to undecorated RTR pieces.
I really do not like rtr but it seems the manufactures do not care what some people want. Some of the Athearn stuff has been nice but I hate having to disassemble things when they shouldn’t have been put together in the first place. Seems hobby shops would sell more stuff if kits were around. I’d be screaming if I owned one.
You know, I’m right in the niddle on the Kit v RTR when it comes to Branchline passenger cars. I hate building just one.
I found a dealer who had a one day sale of these at 13.00 a car. I bought 6. And I spent a few hours cutting the parts off the sprues and runners. When that was done I did a mass assembly of the kits. 4 hrs later I was done and weathering.
Now if Atlas can bring them in at 36-40.00 RTR that would be great
Pity. Branchline passenger cars were very good. I fear Atlas will find a way to cheapen them/dummy them down and put them in a box for K-Mart or Wal-Mart
I think Atlas is still just a manufacturer. If they’re also a distributor, then Walthers will no longer carry Branchline or whatever Atlas renames the product line. It seems that kits are dying out. When Accurail gets sold (have they?) to an RTR manufacturer, then better stock up. RTR bashing (can’t call it kitbshing) where an RTR model is used as a core may still be possible. I’ve bought some Walthers RTR passenger cars when the price is low enough to use as cores for some passenger car bashing using laser cut sides as outlined in articles in some hobby magazines. Too bad about the cost. I’ve been in a hobby shop where a man and young kid came in to see if model railroading could be their hobby together. After looking for around 5 minutes, the man quickly escorts his kid out, using some excuse. This has happened several times; sometimes it’s a mom or grandpa/ma. Bet they were shocked at the prices!
This is really too bad as good kits are getting harder and harder to find. 
Living on saving and S.S., it would be nice if more reasonably priced kits were available, to those of us who enjoy putting things together! With only RTR items available from so many manufacturers, I’m being priced out of the hobby!!!
Like everything else these days, we live in a world of “instant gratification” . This is one of the reasons in my opinion why we are becoming a country of button pushers. It is sad that the majority of younger people will never experience the gratification of building a shake the box beginners’ kit, and then try a more complicated kit, or maybe even try their hand at scratch building. A great many skills are developed in doing these things in the hobby, and can also be quite useful in adulthood as well.
It is too bad Branchline got out of the model train car end of the business. I always like the old Athearn “shake a box kits” as they provided me with easy and afforable trains. As one writer for MR “good enough”. I don’t know who they are helping or want to sell to, Collector is my guess. At $20 to $40 per car you can’t afford too many for a railroad. So what is their real goal? Make as much money as they think it will bear and then sell out or discontinue the business? Sorry about the rant. But no young, or older, gereration can or will be able to afford model railroading.
I have built 25 of the Branch line cars and about that many Proto 2000s, And it was a great deal of relaxing at workbench for me. It is a shame to think that form of modeling is going the way of the Condor!!!
Those that can afford RTR will support that market; and the way the market is going; it seems RTR is the future. Like the old Lionel trains, buy them and run them. In HO; there is no need to build anything anymore if one just wants to run trains. For those that can’t afford/don’t want RTR; MR has published plans for all types and varieties of freight and passenger cars over the years and it isn’t impossible to create a nice car using nothing but Strathmore board (a paper product that comes in 1, 2, 3 and 4 ply thicknesses where I live). Way back; Bill Clouser showed how to produce cars using just Strathmore and they were among the best looking models I have ever seen including today’s high end RTR cars. That article was in MR and I’m sure copies of it can be obtained from MR. There were also several articles showing how to use sheet styrene of various thicknesses to produce cars and any number of other railroad related items. No one is priced out of the market if they’re willing to get their hands dirty. The results of scratch building can be very gratifying and it isn’t really all that hard once one decides to go that direction.
Broken Tie
I do not think of extremely involved kits as being the high-holy epitome of model railroading as some folks seem to. I prefer to think of railroading as “running trains” in a prototypical fashion, not endless obsession with self-installed microscopic details. At the end of a long aggravating workday sorting out endless detail, I don’t need “even more” detail work, I need to see a train roll. Incidentally I am not a “button-pusher”, far from it, I’m much too old.
My eyesight is not very good anymore and my hands not so steady… yet through high quality RTR I too can enjoy a highly detailed train on my layout. I can still appreciate the detail, I just cannot get it done like when I was young. I bought a Walthers gold-line caboose with user-installed handrails and I just could not get those things on, ended up paying someone to do it for me.
RTR is great. Let’s have more.
You/re right John Cannon, people on fixed incomes that have enjoyed the hobby for years are now realizing that price is beginning to boot them out of the hobby.
That’s sad too because building kits and personalizing them for your railroad is such a treat and great stress reliever. Even for those that do work can’t afford the hobby anymore because prices keep going up and wages don’t or they keep going down.
I wish Atlas will continue to manufacture Kits, made in North America…
I have a lot of Branchline Kits and those I built run great and they are affordable to…