I just bought a new Athearn kit, # 5822. This kit is a 50’ PS 5344 boxcar painted as Wisconsin Central.
When did Athearn start making kits that require you to drill holes for the grab irons, brake wheel, etc? It was quite a surprise when I opened the box.
That was the last Blue Box Kit they came out with. It was an atempt to compete with the likes of Branchline Trains, and Intermountain. However shortly after its release Athearn was sold to a group of investors and they started shifiting away from Kits to more of a ready to run focus. THen it seems since the Horizon Hobby Take Over Kits have dissapeared entirely. Athearn Claims to be making Blue Box Kits at maximum capacity. However horizon has yet to deliver any to any of the hobby shops in my area.
Athearn is still making blue box kits, infact you can what the new ones are because they come in a retro ATSF F unit box taken from the 1960’s. My shop has a ton. There seems to be an increase in paint quality on the new models.
I got a new Athearn caboose kit for Christmas. I can tell it’s new because the shell is made of gray plastic, it has painted end railings and it has phillips screws. I just wi***hat the hobby shops around here would keep selling them. There’s one store that I would always go to because of their large selection of Athearn cars, but they don’t offer Athearn kits anymore.[:(]
A lot of shops don’t carry Athearn anymore because of Horizon’s minimum purchase policy. When Walthers distributed Athearn, a dealer could order what they wanted/needed. A lot of smaller sttores can’t meet that minimum and have therefore had to drop Athearn. A real shame IMHO and an arrogant and stupid policy.
Horizon will only ship what your LHS orders.
If your LHS doesn’t order Athearn, they will not get any.
My LHS has loads of BB kits in stock.
Gordon
well, a kit is a kit, but I never had to drill holes for Athearn stuff.
do the instructions say to drill holes for them?
I have literally hundreds of BB Athearn kits, and this is the first one with “pre-cast” holes for the drill bits. The starter holes are smaller than #80 bits, and don’t go deep enough to seat any of the grab irons.
I recently got a blue box engine and was horribly disappointed to see all the handrails were plastic!! When did this happen? Every blue box I got before had metal rails. They still are the cheapest cars/loco’s I’ve found with a pretty good quality. (good enough for me anyway)
After years of doing kits from Athearn I have switched to rtr, it is so much nicer to run them right out of the box
i see more kits than i do RTR at hobby shops i go to the one closest to me has 2 kit engines and thats it. But its small.