Can we start a petition that Athearn re-start with the Blue Box Kits.
They where fun to build and also affordable
To quote Monty Python, they are not quite dead yet. I sitll see lots of them at train shows. OTOH, I haven’t bought an Athearn bb kit in years. Many others seem to be the same, which is why Athearn probably decided to drop them. Regardless, there are still alot out there - go get’em.
…and now we have Branchline´s cars…
Both cheap AND better looking than the BB kits [swg]
First we need to buy and built the 100,000 or so that are still floating around out there in the hands of dealers.
Sheldon
Try building some Athearn Genesis undecorated kits, they are fun to build.
About 2 weeks ago I did a informal count of bluebox kits for sale at a train show. One dealer, a friend of mine, had over 500 kits available. There were at least 4 other dealers who had over 100 each pushing the number closer to 1,000. Add in all of the other tables that hadsmaller piles and I would guess the number went up to the 1,500 region. That was just at one show. How many shows were there that weekend? (Sat/Sun before thanksgiving) Oh, and the average price per kit was about $5.00.
I do remember a year ago or so I was at a show and one dealer had over 5,000 kits stacked up on tables. He had about 5 or 6 tables stacked about 10 deep. it was like a feeedig frenzy with guys and gals 3-4 deep at the table almost all day long. Average kit price $5.00-$7.00. So, there are plenty out there yet.
I have a bb kit of an N&W baywindow caboose that I have been trying to unload at shows but no one ever buys it. It is new in the box unassembled but there has been no interest in it for the last several years. I even priced it at $1.00 at the last show and no one grabbed it. I am going to put it together and give it to my son, he is getting old enough now to appreciate it. I can see why they stopped production after seeing all the others for sale at shows and I never see anyone walking around with one in their bags.
Hi!
If it wasn’t for Athearn (and Atlas, MRC, and a few others), I doubt there would be near as many older MRs as there are today.
My first HO stuff was all Athearn cars (1960), and they were the staple of my collection and layout operations thru the '80s. They are still the majority of my cars, many still in kit form. What a joy it was to get them for Christmas and birthday and Father’s Day gifts when I was younger!
Believe me, with KDs, IM wheels, a bit of mild weathering and some Dull Cote, they are as good of runners as you can get.
Like Mobilman44, I started in HO with Athearn- not only the BB kits, but one of their train sets that my Dad gave me one Christmas as well in 1965, after the Lionel set was getting too cumbersome. That train set led me down to my LHS and I discovered the BB kits, It was sort of “magical” that a kid could save his quarters and dollars (shoveling driveways and sidewalks, etc) and go down to the LHS and get one or two BB kits that would become treasured parts of a layout-in-progress.
Well, time passes, and at my age today-56- I STILL love those old BB kits. Perhaps it’s nostalgia on the part of many of us, but that same nostalgia feeds our present participation in the hobby today, does it not?.
To me, the quality of a ready-to-run present day Athearn car may be better in detail and aspect, but those sentiments from my youth echo often when I pick up a few BB kits at a local model railroad flea market.
You never tire of a great old movie you liked as a kid- that you still watch once in a while as a DVD- and you never tire of enjoying the memories of youth. Athearn BB kits were my gateway into the hobby- and I still enjoy those I can get today!
It would be nice if they were re-issued as “retro” packages today, but I will take what I can find.
Happy Holidays All!
Cedarwoodron
What I would like is that they offered their current super-detailed models as kits. Not only BB kits with molded grabs and underframes but complete kits with etched metal walkways and all those wire details. The new tooling gives much finer detail when compared to older BB kits. The same would be nice about Atlas and Walthers too !
Martin
Québec City
SP - The crux of the matter is that RTR models result in a much better profit for the manufacturers than did those old kits. Concurrently, with the influx of the host of model building challenged individuals since the late 1990’s for whom assembling even simple kits seem to pose a real difficulty, when taken together with increasingly limited runs that amount to creating “forced” purchasing by hobbyists, manufacturers are seeing a far better and more prompt return on their investments than ever before.
So…writing all the petitions in the world won’t get the major manufacturers to produce kit versions of their current RTR product lines, nor to re-introduce shake-the-box Blue Box-like kits and thereby cut their own overall profits. At the same time, the start-up expenses and the uncertainty of success in these financially challenging times that face any small company entering the market and exclusively producing inexpensive, low profit kits, make it virtually out of the question.
CNJ831
At the 3 shows I have attended so far this year the BB cars and locomotives are still plentiful.I bought 3 new BB engines at $22.00 each…BB cars was 3/ $10.00 and still being overlooked in favor of RTR.
Why?
Because the RTR cars is superior to the old BB cars in many ways.
The only reason I bought the engines is for club use other then that I would have past them by.
In many cases we have that already. Have you looked at an Intermountain, Branchline or Proto kit?
Many of the best Athearn Genesis and Ready to Roll items come in kit form if you buy them undecorated. The covered hoppers and 50’ reefers being two fine examples.
Support the kits that are out there and you will see more.
Sheldon
2009 called … it wants its controversy back.
Plenty of kits around now still. Non issue.
I guess the question is, do you want the Blue Box kits for their own sake, or for nostalgia’s sake.
Whether you are looking for kits or RTR, there are now better and cheaper options out there. Time to move on.
Also, this was a business decision on Athearns part. No petition in the world will get them to overturn it. The only way to make them rethink would be for BB’s to suddenly start selling like hot cakes (not to end users, but to dealers and wholesalers).
While I understand your point in your first sentence, not sure I get the second sentence - better and cheaper?
I’m not saying Athearn should bring them back, I was the first poster to comment as to why not. But I would like to understand what options are both better and cheaper? And for that matter let’s just talk about better. Better in what way? More detailed? OK, but I don’t see any of those at prices below BB kit prices. In fact I don’t see anyhing in the market place good, bad or otherwise that is lower in price than BB kits were.
I still buy lots of BB kits when I find the ones I want. I upgrade trucks and couplers, ad some details, etc. But I was doing that 30 years ago and today I do a lot of that to $25/$35 RTR cars as well.
AND, for those not paying close attention, a great number of the Athearn Ready to Roll items are just BB kits with better paint jobs, metal wheels, and a few detail upgrades. And they seem to be selling like hot cakes. The detail must not have been that bad.
And while there are many newer and better detailed products out there, many that are out there are just “similar”. Accurail does not have me real impressed compared to Athearn BB, CB&T kits are junk that does not fit together, Bowser/Stewart stuff is similar in quality to Athearn BB.
Let me be clear - DETAIL and QUALITY are two different things in my mind. QUALITY is do the parts fit, is it neatl
Why?
It’s 2010, and there are much better QUALITY KITS out there, Athearn knew the BB’s have run the course.
BTW, as mentioned, there’s still a million of them in circulation, what’s the issue?
As far as the crusty old belief that no one builds kits anymore, remember that it is a crusty old opinion, and opinions are not fact.
Look at all of the websites, DVD’s and shows about craftsman structure kits alone. Sorry, I ain’t the BS that some members here dish out. They need to come out of the basement and see whats going on. Trains.com isn;t the only website dedicated to model railroading. [D)]
Please define QUALITY in the context you meant it. By my definition of QUALITY, that was not the reason for the BB decline.
I build all those other brands of kits, going back some 40 years, detail, prototype accuracy, only available model, etc, are all reasons to build whatever. But the QUALITY of BB kits was just fine. As previously stated, many of Athearn’s currenty hot selling Ready to Roll models are only slightly upgraded versions of BB kits. It’s more complex than “much better QUALITY KITS out there”.
Sheldon
I have some unbuilt Blue Box kits (amid a mountain of unbuilt kits including Ambroid and Silver Streak and Red Caboose etc etc.). And I see plenty at swap meets.
I do feel sorry for a kid who likes HO trains, is not yet ready to tackle a difficult kit, and has a modest budget. Our own supply and what we see at specialized train shows and swap meets is not useful to that kind of customer. Jim Kelly of Model Railroader once opined years ago that N scale would be as big as HO – but HO had Athearn and there was nothing comparable for N.
Dave Nelson
I have had a lot of fun building the Athearn BB kits and most of my freight cars are just exactly that. I add weight, metal wheel sets and Kadee #5s and I am happy! Like I have said before - just run your trains a little faster and who can tell the difference![;)]
Dave