I received my Athearn e-mail news today. They offered no Ready to Roll locomotives and very little rolling stock. Are the poor economic times finally hitting one of the largest manufacturers of HO? I have never seen Athearn not release an rtr locomotive, or rolling stock. It makes me think something is wrong at Athearn. I hope not!!!
I doesn’t surprise me. The market is kinda saturated, and all manufacturers seem to be slowing down compared to years past, but that goes back at least a year or more. It’s just not this summer that’s been the only cause of a slower production rate. It’s part of it, but not all of it.
BTW, just for a point of reference, Athearn in the 1980’s released approx. 6 new loco models: GP35, GP38-2, GP40-2, GP50, SD40-2, & SD40T-2. Yes, just 6 new locos in a decade. I find I’m not that concerned if Athearn doesn’t release something new every month.
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
I recieved the same email today. I prefer to see it as Athearn being careful what they release in this season of hard times. I think they are releasing items that will sell. But not releasing TOO much.
This is probably the first time I have seen a Athearn New Product announcement that had nothing in it for me. And I do like something everytime they announce something, I have hobby shop orders well into 2009 to prove it.
Oh one other tidbit. Ebay’s HO scale offerings jumped from 31 thousand items to over 100,000 HO scale items for sale. I dont know if I had something set wrong with my computer on ebay or not but I gotta tell you… that flood you are seeing is a lack of MR Buying.
I just cannot understand it because with the layout construction I am doing plus some orders waiting for me on the shelf to be picked up this month, the hobby spending in my home is stable as ever… for now…
Hello Todd
I noticed the same thing as well, but I just believe everyone is hunkering down to ride out the econimic storm we will eventually pull out of. They are claiming sometime in 2010. Manufacturers are surely bracing for slow times, and consumers, who knows, maybe instead of traveling or doing something lavish, maybe they’ll stay home and model instead. Perhaps this is the case with some posters seeing the local LHS’s busier than before.
One other thing. I just hope that wall street can hold it together long enough for our dear Chinese investors to stay where they are, or that 14 dollar Athearn Boxcar is going to rise to 50 dollars and BITE me 6 months from now when the coming financial storm sweeps China after laying waste to the USA.
Atlas offerings was all that either other then a Trainman GP39-2…I notice this was release in the Trainman line rather then their high end lines which could be the signs of the times.
Both Atlas & Athearn seem to be in a foot race seeing who could release more models and this slow down may be a pit stop in order to start anew after the first of the year.
We shall see.
New releases for the steam era seem very few and far between these days, from almost all the manufacturers.
Let us not forget the cost of R&D, plus the cost of tooling for anything, from a coupler to an SD90MAC Shell.
With tough times, I would certainly understand taking caution with new releases - maybe it’s time to pull the dust of some of the older items for re-release. [:-,]
My first reaction was the same but when you think about it, maybe we are just spoiled, Off the top of my head they have two new tank cars, SW1000, SW1500 & a UP turbine coming out. They just bought the t55 tooling of the sd70ace and ES44ACs etc. And at trainfest they stated that they have under development to do the full variation of a genesis quality GP15-1 & GP15T & GP15ac etc. Thats alot of new products, they also have to catch up with the road names for their prior new releases which amounts to what the last email is all about. If you search their web site for not available products 1107 HO and 313 N scale products show up. It is amazing we as group that is supposely getting smaller can support that amount of new products
My thoughts exactly…I talked with Athearn at Trainfest as well…They stated in regards to the GP15-1 series (which is relevant to the market situation) that they will release them in phases…since the market couldn’t handle all the different phases at once…But they have alot of new products that have been announced that need to get to market first anyway…Bring on more of their Fruehaufs!!
I don’t mind the slowdown myself…I am saving money for a ton of GP15-1’s!!
My goodness,
There have been release after release of 1st, 2nd and 3rd run tunnel moterls, 1st and 2nd run SD45’s and Genesis F units, etc etc. I can’t keep up. A breather is a damn good thing! Atlas now has 6 numbers of GP40-2’s. Help! I’m drowning in releases!
I second the motion that Athearn should rerelease some of there older stuff…like blue box kits!! Of course, I guess I can keep buying them on Ebay.
Athearn still makes BB kits but,getting a shop to order them is another thing.
You might have your eBay search set for all scales in MRR. It’s currently 92K.
There is a typical Christmas seasonal bump in number of MRR auctions that usually starts about now. I’ve noticed the number of N-scale auctions jump up to over 11K, although a lot of the starting bid prices have not come down much.
I have a feeling that the after Christmas clearances are going to be awfully good this year…