After receiving the email from Horizon announcing the end of the blue box kits, I drove over to my not-so-local hobby shop (40 miles away over Crawford Notch) to stock up. It’s a beautiful drive, fall leaves are bright. Porkulus money is resurfacing US 302 making it all smooth and black. Came back with 6 blue boxes, a pair of green LEDs and a bottle of Floquil Depot Green.
That’s a good idea. My most Local HS has only a small selection of Blue Box stuff, and I’ve been through it many times. Too modern for my tastes, I’m afraid. However, it gives me a reason to go to a not-so-Local HS across the border this weekend. I’m headed up there to get lumber for the layout extension, but I might as well hit another shop while I’m there.
That’s what I’ve noticed. My LHS still has quite a bit of BB kits but most of it is 1980s and later. Not much from the transition era. That’s why I’m not too broken up about the end of BB kits.
Earlier this year I donated the few BB kits in my possession to a local club. Don’t see a need to buy any more. Good bye BB.
Mark
I would love to get at least one blue box kit, but none of them fit the era Im modeling.
The BB kits has/had a purpose in life.That purpose was a decent freight cars for those lacking deep pockets for hobby needs…
I freely admit I perfer RTR over kits of any kind but,still hate to see the end of the BB kits.
I still refuse to pay more then $20.00 for a souped up plastic car…After all under normal operation viewing you can’t see the iddy biddy details anyway.
I have to agree wholeheartedly with your entire post, Brakie.
It’s going to be hard(ER) to get the younger generation into model trains without an inexpensive way for them to build up a collection of cars. I don’t know too many who can afford $20+ each for freight cars. And consider that if they build them themselves, they have a pretty good idea of how the cars work, so if there’s a problem, they have a better chance of being able to figure it out.
Sure, they lacked detail, and a lot of them weren’t prototypically correct. But when the train is rolling, which is usually the whole point of model trains, at least for me, you can’t see all the brake rigging, or tell that the grab irons aren’t in the right place for that car.
I’ll freely admit that lately I’ve been impressed with the level of road-specific detail that they have been putting on locomotives. I’d rather see a nicely detailed locomotive and caboose pulling a string of generic cars that can handle being handled than see a string of cars that have pieces fly off as soon as you even look hard at them.
Maybe I’m just weird that way. [:D]
Amen to that, brother! For twenty bucks I should be able to get at least three cars.
I’m going to be in the town that has my favorite LHS on the planet this weekend. He has shelves full of BB’s. Boy, if I only had about a hundred dollars to spare I’d start hoarding them.
I did stock up…some years ago now.
However, I now find that I have more then I will use / need / want.
If you have interest, email me and I’ll send out a list.
I got started building up my freight car fleet with blue boxes. A few are still in use on my small roster alongside Athearn and other rtr’s. I enjoyed building blue boxes, and I have built quite a few armor models and played many miniature war games. As much as I enjoy building and detailing models I don’t really mind buying ready to roll models. In general my rtr’s are great runners and even if they are a little more expensive than a kit I am ok with that. Also, I can usually get most rtr’s I want for a reasonable price under $20.
I have to agree about the affordablity of the BB kits as stated above. By pulling the BB kits out of production they’re doing their best to put the death nail into the MRR coffin for those with an interest in starting out into this hobby. How many of us in our younger days bought the BB kits to get a railroad started that was affordable on our meager salaries that are common place at a younger age?
I’m with Brakie in that i’m not going to pay over $20 for a piece of rolling stock that has all the bells and whistles that can be just as reliable and authentic as the BB kit models with some paint and detail parts added to it.
If you ask me I have a sneeky suspicion that Horizon is up to something else when they announced the end to the BB kits. Only time will tell…chuck
Ready to run cars range $16.00 to $17.00 with blue boxes between $7.00 and $8.00 for the same model. There isn’t a whole lot of labor spent in assembling a blue box versus counting out all the pieces and boxing them. My guess that Athearn was looking at a cost increase to about $14.00 for a blue box kit. With sales lagging at half that price I think the decision was obvious. Why are kit sales lagging? HO railroading has gone the way of tin plate where collectors rule the marketplace.
I’m going to have to keep an eye out for the ATH1850 round roof 70’ standard coach. Rock Island used very similar cars in commuter service, and several of them are used now by Minnesota Transportation Museum’s Osceola and St.Croix RR excursion trains. I’ll probably try to pick up some standard RPO and Baggage cars, and a couple of undec extended vision cabooses too.
No you’re not weird. I think the s
Look in your hobby shop everything is in display boxes. Ask the hobby shop operator who are his best customers. This not my opinion, it is the way it is. More and more HO model trains sit in boxes that run on layouts. Plastic models have improved so they run better and they look better too. Look at some of the pictures people post of their modeling areas. Some of them have car and locomotive boxes stacked floor to ceiling. I don’t think hoarding bothers them.
I started buying blue box kits back in the 70’s for that big HO layout that I planned to build some day. As things go, I never got the layout built but prospects for starting this winter are looking good. Finally fully retired, I’ve installed 40+ sets of knuckle couplers as I started finally building the kits a few months ago, and chalk-weathered them all. I’ve probably got at least that many to go. Got to tell you, stocking up on blue boxes, a few Ulrich and Roundhouse kits back then is giving me a whole lot of pleasure right now, without having to go out and buy stuff at current prices. Get them while you can.
My [2c] [2c] worth.
Does anyone think perhaps that Horizon will use the same tooling and have them put together in China and sell them for a few more bucks per car like Athearn did with their special ones? Yes, the detail and authenticity is not there but maybe for a few more bucks–folks will buy?
Absolutely. With the exception of the models branded Genesis, the Athearn RTR line looks like the blue box kits, only assembled and at triple the price. My personal prediction, Athearn will take in about the same amount of money, over 1/3rd the number of units. People are not going to up their hobby budgets, especially in the midst of Great Depression II. So instead of buying three $6 kits, they buy one $18 RTR.
That is exactly what Horizon is doing. Most of the RTR cars are assembled Athearn and Roundhouse cars with nicer paint jobs, better lettering & logos, and metal wheels.
Yeah, I need to go to my LHS so I too can experience putting one together. [sigh]
It’s just sad, whats it is.