I was wondering how many and what model railway companies have closed shop in the last 50 or so years? What becomes of their line of products if no body buys the company? I’m just curious as I’ve found a few kits from companies that I’ve never heard of.
Over the course of fifty years, Shawn, the number is likely more than you’d ever imagine. Certainly, it runs well in excess of a hundred, perhaps even two or three times that many! I would say that 90% to 95% of the HO products ever offered by U.S. manufacturers have totally vanished from the hobby scene. And this has proved especially sad for those of us who are not among today’s RTR fanatics.
Walthers bought up many of the smaller car kit and model suppliers over the years but typically kept their items in production only for a very short time. To a lesser degree, the same has been true of Model Railroad Warehouse. However, the greatest number simply ceased production for one reason or another over the years.
CNJ831
Just a few of the dear (and not so dear) departed:
Varney, Ulrich, Globe, John A. English, Penn Line, Strombecker, United (and its importer, Pacific Fast Mail)…
Some were absorbed, some just went away.
A lot of the brass importers were one man shows, that curled up and blew away when that man retired or died. The same can be said for some of their overseas suppliers - little machine shops in spare rooms of the houses of people with day jobs.
Some of those overseas suppliers withdrew from the American market, but are still in operation. Katsumi and Tenshodo are in that category. There are others.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
As said, other manufacturers will often pick up the brands but many times they use the tooling for their own products for many years.
Bowser has continued to produce many of the PennLine and English models. I think the IHC GG1 shell was originally a Pemco model?
I have a Varney caboose from the 50’s from my very first train set, (and yes it is just a bit beat up.) But I bought a Life-Like trainset caboose some years back at a garage sale and it sure looks like the same shell.
I built a C on-Cor yardmaster office kit (the one with a caboose on a platform) some years ago. I have the same model that I built as a kid in the mid-60’s when offered by Revell.
I am sure there are many other examples.
For those of you who haven’t been there, the HO Seeker website is a good place to do research on brands of the past.
And Ambroid, Quality Craft, Northeastern, Central Valley (car kits and trucks not track supplies), Mainline, Kinsman have all faded.
Sometimes at train shows you can pick up the old kits, although I have seen collector type prices such as $50 for a Central Valley boxcar kit.
Enjoy
Paul
AHM
MDC/Roundhouse
Tyco??? (dont know if anyone misses them though)
In narrow gauges there have been about as many “cottage industry” shops over the years as in any other guage, just a couple from my HOn30 days:
Joe Works, havent seen anything from them in years
Puffing Billy, he’s now in G gauge R/C controls systems
Hobbytown of Boston is gone from the scene…These locomotive kits was under Bear Locomotive Works until they closed shop.
As is true in most industries, mergers and acquisitions are constantly changing the model railroading landscape. Sometimes, product lines die with a company but probably at least as often, the same product will be sold under a new brand name. This is especially true of structure kits. I know of some old favoriites that have been marketed under at least five or six brand names. For example, how many different companies have sold the old Rico Station kit. A few years ago, I purchased a Walthers two stall engine house and the Pola brand name was still stamped on the bottom of the foundation. Many of Walthers Cornerstone kits are styrene versions of the old resin kits formerly made by Magnuson company, now sold as Scale Structures Ltd. I’ve even seen cases where the same kit is marketed by multiple companies at the same time.
The bottom line is, if a good product is being produced, it will often outlive the company that produces it. Products that do not survive maybe weren’t worth saving anyway.
To elaborate a bit further on the statement above, I note that of the 90-odd advertisers that are listed in the January 1960 issue of MR (49 years ago), only 12 are either still in operation, or at least have some of their products still being produced by the companies that bought them out.
Now, since about 8 of the 12 could probably be considered major names in the hobby both back then and still today and assuming a similar change over in advertising companies occurs at say ten year intervals, it could be reasonably estimated that the longterm survival rate for model railroad companies is probably somewhere around 3% !
CNJ831
CNJ:
It might be neat to go and check a 1935 Model Craftsman and see how many advertisers in there are no longer in that 1960 MR, because there were some big names and many small ones that went away; Conover, for instance.
It sometimes seems that companies come and go but their products just keep going, long after many modelers have apparently forgotten them. I had no idea LaBelle was still going, or that Alpine Division was producing the old Suydam kits, some of which were inherited by Suydam (from Argy, I think). Herkimer is still making aluminum “OK” streamliners.
There are weird gray areas of continuity. Life-Like is basically a continuation of Varney; Mantua spun off Tyco but their freight cars are mostly Lindberg, and the Tyco ex-Mantua cars ended up with IHC with a lot of other Tyco equipment - the 2-8-0 is that old Chattanooga Choochoo on a real drive. A lot of Model Power stuff is Cox and Marx HO.
Actually… Northeastern Craftsman Structure Supply is reworking the old Ambroid B&M Coaches, and will be releasing them as modern laser cut kits!!!
I still have old HO from some of those old manufacturers already listed on this thread. Adding to those companies, I have some JC Models passenger cars and I have some Silver Streak freight cars.
How about “Details West” boxcars? They made some of the finest looking boxcars in my opinion. I have several.
I still have the following Joe Works HOn30 Locos: Climax Shay HO: Falk River Gypsy I wish I had more. Peter Smith, Memphis
How about the tons of structures and building Kits that AHM and Tyco had, you see them pop up on ebay from time to time, and they bring fair prices.
I aquired some old Varney Steamers a few years back, they ran ok, but had allot of noise. The oldest Train Items I have is an old Marx engine and a A.C. Gilbert 4-4-2 complete set with original power pack, and it still runs just fine.
Its hard to beleive that how many company’s have came and gone.
I still have a number of the old Athearn metal kits running on my MR (along with Varney and Ulrich) and for a while, there was another company that had bought the Athearn tooling for these kits. They’re still extremely viable and well-detailed.
Not too long ago, a poster was showing a Hart gondola that he’d built from a Ye Old Huff n’Puff kit, and it looked remarkably like an old Silver Streak wood and metal kit (of which I’ve still got quite a few). I’m wondering if that company might have bought out Silver Streak. I understand they’re still in business. Silver Streak put out some very good kits for their time–their caboose kits still look as good as almost anything on the ‘craftsman’ market today. And they were NOT easy to build. They took a lot of care. I’ve still got one of their C-30 SP wooden cabooses on my layout, and an absolutely terrific 'drover’s caboose, also. I’m certainly not afraid to run them.
Tom [:)]
Ye Old Huff n Puff http://www.yeoldehuffnpuff.com/ list Silver Streak as one of their lines.
Good to hear, be nice if they would do them in S scale also.
Enjoy
Paul
Looking at a lot of my old MRR’s from the 50’s/60’s I’m left kind of wondering after the firms fold up/go bankrupt or whatever the molds used to make the product lines—where do they go?
Paul–
That’s nice to know that the Silver Streak kits are still available from Ye Olde Huff n’ Puff. They were not only good wood kits in their time, they can also be used as a good basis for craftsman-style kitbashing. I was pleased to look at the variety they still offer.
Think I’m going to hit their caboose line for some goodies. Thanks again!
Tom [:D]