It has been inconvenient for the Athearn products to not be in the Walthers catalog these last few years especially for those who seek Athearn parts. Some hobby shops that sell Athearn did not have information on all of what was actually available or not available. And since my primary hobby shop is the Walthers show room here in Milwaukee essentially Athearn products do not exist unless I see them at train shows.
Anyway in the latest Walthers sale flyer they advertise their new run of Superliner cars in HO – and also advertise an Amtrak GE P42 especially and exclusively painted for Walthers. So their expected products for September 2008 include a “140” (the Athearn product code) for the first time in a long time. Maybe this is the start of a truce? I am not going to tell Athearn or anyone else how to run their business but to my way of thinking, having some kind of presence in the Walthers catalog should be the goal of all manufacturers even if other distribution is used for the products themselves.
#140 is indeed the product code for Athearn on the Walther’s site. There are currently two items listed. The models are exclusuve to Walther’s. Here’s the link to the page on Walther’s.
It’s more likely that Walthers simply contracted with Athearn for a special run of the units. Thing is, Athearn is now owned by Horizon, which is another distributor of hobby supplies. Horizon purchased Athearn way back when and made themselves the sole distributor of Athearn products.
But to find Athearn, all you have to do is look around…most of the good train suppliers who have online presences carry them. [:)]
This is a little off topic, but I just recieved a Horizon catalog.Upon first getting it I thought “Oh Boy, Athearn stuff” Sorry Charlie, Just cars and planes. I would like to see a truce or something to see Athearn shown like it should be shown. Wake up Horizon. You may be on your way to China!
Well it wasn’t that long ago, I think Athearn was bought by Horizon in around 2000?? Anyway, since then there have been a few limited special-run train sets and such that Walthers had carried that were made by Athearn, I suspect these items fall under that category.
Naw not the fictitious Icons but,the upper management…After all what’s a few games of golf?
What makes you think they would “hate” each other?
Then in small cities like Bucyrus the restaurant owners and managers know each other and its not uncommon to see these guys playing golf with each other.
Did you have to buy that Horizon catalog or do they have a free monthly mailer like Walthers has? I wouldn’t mind seeing their RC stuff. (got a link to it?)
I get the R/C catalog from them fairly frequently. Since I don’t do R/C anymore (gave it up several years ago to focus on trains and internet radio) I don’t even bother looking at it. I’ll send it to you the next time I get one if you’d like.
I was gonna add that I purchased something MRR related from Horizon a couple of years ago, and have gotten the RC flyers ever since. They aren’t a monthly thing, and seem to come once a quarter. One half of it is planes and helos, and the other half is boats and vehicles. There is some really AWESOME stuff in there, but the last thing I need to do is pick up another hobby like that.
Horizon Hobby (R/C Distributor) and Walthers (Train Distributor) are both pursuing business strategies to survive a shrinking hobby market. Horizon bought a train manufacturer (Athearn) and made itself the exclusive distributor for that line. Athearn bought Life Like / Proto2000 for similar purposes.
Horizon/Athearn and Walthers will never make nice, unless one buys out the other.
It’s funny some dealers who are Walthers dealers refuse to carry Horzon products and vice versa. The local dealers in my area are PRO walthers people. From what I have been told, Horizons policies are life stiff arm techniques, but some distributors are like that. Unless the hobby stays the same size or grows, companies will have to work tomorrow.
Reasons:
Tooling, sharing the dies across many projects
Economies of scale on purchasing and using offshore jobbers.
Improving supply chain management.
Collaboration with projects ie, atheran locos with walthers passenger cars.
But do GM and Ford get along, Molson and Labatt, Sears and the Bay, YES to a point.
My LHS handles both Walthers and Horizon products. The Athearn section is pretty small, but the shelves don’t completely empty out. In fact, I’ve got orders in right now for both Athearn and Walthers stuff. So, it’s not that either of the distributers demands exclusive contracts.
Obviously somebody hasn’t seen the over 15 different road numbers that Walthers/Athearn have done over the past 7 or so years with the Special Edition Amtrak engines. The ones this year are advertized simply beause Walthers has the Superliners. Walthers has a special liscence for making Amtrak that Athearn(HH) doesn’t.
Anyways, it wouldn’t be Walthers and Athearn…it’s Walthers and Horizon Hobby (Athearn, MDC, and McHenry combined…)
“And since my primary hobby shop is the Walthers show room here in Milwaukee essentially Athearn products do not exist unless I see them at train shows”
I can’t imagine having Walthers as my local hobby shop, I’d stay broke(r) [:D]