Who bought who, and who just folded?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

As I sit here thumbing through my 08 Walther catalog, searching ebay and reading the forums here on trains.com. I came to the conclusion, I need to learn some vendor history.

Is Athern still making anything? Or did they get bought up by someone? I believe Roundhouse has been long gone, and by the look of Atherns Box, they aquired Roundhouse, or allways owned them, or the same company owned both…

Anyways, could you guys give me a breif run down on whos who?

It would also help me figure out whats a good price on ebay, versus the walther catalog. I want to compare apples to apple, not oranges.

Thanks as allways,

Ken

2

Athearn has been aquired by Horizon hobbies and must be ordered through them.

David B

3

I assume you are referring to HO, but the same happened to Athearn and Roundhouse N.

Horizon Hobbies bought both Roundhouse and Athearn, and continues to make most of both lines. The reissues under the Roundhouse name have been RTR only, no kits. The new Athearn line still has some kits, including some ex-roundhouse items.

Model Power bought Mantua, and are reissuing some of the line under the “Classics” name.

In both cases, some improvements have been made with the re-issues.

Walters bought Life-Like, who had bought most of the Varney line decades ago. Walters has kept the Proto2K portion (nothing to do with Varney) of Life-Like going, but I believe the low end stuff (ex-Varney cars) is history.

Bowser bought Penn-Line, Stewart, some Varney locomotives, Cal-Scale, Cary, and Selly. The locomotives (except for Stewart which were fine as-is) have been improved and are generally available. Bowser also bought some other lines of die cast locomotives (Arbour Models and one other) but probably cannot re-use the dies.

I’m not sure what happened to Silver Streak and Ulrich. I believe some Silver Streak is still being made, but the Ulrich line is dead.

Labelle is still alive under new ownership and is producing with improvements.

Of the plastic freight car lines, I believe Accu-Craft, Red Caboose, and Bowser are all original (new) tooling with their respective companies.

Rivarossi was orginally imported by AHM. AHM eventually was reorganized as IHC, and switched their source to Mehano instead of Rivarossi (not sure of the time sequence of events). Rivarossi was imported by Walters for a while, and then was sold to Hornby. I believe they are still selling under the Rivarossi name.

Others can correct any errors, and will have additional information.

Fred W

4

I believe Athearn bought all the Roundhouse. Not sure how the Horizon thing goes, but buggers me their now in Walthers anymore. I’d love the kits back, but Blackstone is looking good at least for new engines RTR in brass. Have to hit ebay for the kits if they show up or the web if any store has any lingering stock like I found once.

5

Model Die Casting (Roundhouse), Athearn, and McHenry Couplers are all owned by Horizon Hobbies of Champaign, Illinois, which is a competitor of Walthers in the hobby distribution business, so that’s why you dont see those brands in the Walthers catalog any more. Horizon publishes their own catalog.

fwright has provided a very good summary of the other major brands. To update his information about Rivarossi, that brand is now owned by Hornby of England, who also acquired a couple of other Italian brand names in the process.

As with nearly every brand name today, the new Rivarossi models are made in China.

6

As cacole stated, fwright has an excellent summary. My understanding is that MDC/Roundhouse focuses on early models up to WWII. Athern covers everything from there forward.

Tom

7

Athearn also owns the RPP shells as well.

8

IIRC Walthers bought both Silver Streak and Ulrich some time ago and both lines faded away. Suydam is now part of Alpine Division Scale Models. Ulrich seems to have come back somewhat and now makes trucks http://www.ulrichmodels.com/

Enjoy

Paul

9

Good question Ken…sign of an intelligent consumer.

Read the questions I asked about Bachmann and you will find the same approach…and problems with people mixing old and new lines confusing the heck out the discussion.

The consolidation of the companies is a sign of a dying hobby?..many times it is.

TMT

10

Ken, I went thru the same exact thing about 2 years ago. I had just gotten back into the swing of things after an absence of about 20 years also (with a brief resurgence in 1995, but that’s another story.) I always relied on my Walthers catalog as my source bible, & the Athearn absence really threw me-until I found out what happened. A lot has changed I’ve found out, still finding out, & still will have to continue to either learn or ask. Either way, I’m back in this for good now, & it will be an ongoing learning process. (then again, isn’t it that way for all of us?) [;)] Good Luck!

11

I just went to the Horizon Hobbies website. No deals there. Looks like everything is full list price.

12

That is another sign of an industry in consolidation…with less competition there is no reason to cut prices.

The more I look, the less I like what I am seeing in this hobby.

TTM

13

Tyco stopped manufacturing HO trains in the early 1990’s since they were of a lower quality than Athearn and Walthers HO trains. Mantua which is now owned by Model Power operated the Tyco line of HO trains until the 1970’s before a food products company took over Tyco’s HO train line. Tyco from the 1970’s until the end of HO train production made a lot of “fantasy” scheme HO locomotives and freight cars that did not match or resemble the prototypes on the rails at the time.

14

Horizon is a hobby distributor, they sell to retail outlets. They won’t sell to the public for less that their list prices. Do they even sell to the public?

15

Yes they sell direct from their website , I recently purchased an Athearn SD40T-2 from them , had it at my door 3 days latter. Great service , whether you agree with them owning everything or not.

16

IR:

Ye Olde Huff N Puff makes the Silver Streak kits. They have a nice web site.

http://www.yeoldehuffnpuff.com/

Alpine Division also has a nice web site.

http://www.trolleyville.com/alpinedivision/index.shtml

Also:

-Not all Tyco stuff went to Mantua. IHC got the toy-train line. Their SD24 and 2-8-0 are vastly upgraded versions. They also have sold the PRR N-what streamlined caboose. Mantua’s “Classics” freight cars, now sold by Model Power, are the old Lindberg line.

-Much of Life-Like’s trainset line is from Varney.

-Many of Model Power’s HO trainset line was formerly Marx HO. Other stuff appears to be Cox.

-Other Cox HO went to Walthers.

I see people are trotting out the dying hobby stuff again. Oh please, I just had breakfast. Consolidation happens in every industry, especially one like this, where most of the companies don’t outlast their founder’s retirement. Guy wants to get out, somebody else snaps it up and keeps going. This is an old thing. It doesn’t really affect me much, except when some model-airplane company decides they don’t want to sell MDC kits, to which I say ____ ___ and also ___ ____ ___ ___ , but mostly __ ___.

17

If one looks into the situation in detail, the degree of consolidation and the shrinking number of those recognized as major participants in the market place has become quite dramatic recently, although this is certainly not a trend limited to just the past few years. Rather, it has been going on for quite some time. Going back decades, Walthers absorbed many of the earlier companies who produced HO rolling stock, and so did Like Like, Bowser, et al. (as noted previously by others).

One might guess that perhaps a decade from now only Walthers, Horizon (will they really continue in model railroading?), Bachmann, probably Atlas and perhaps Bowser, will be the only major players left, having bought up all the remaining worthwhile companies or seen them withdrawn. Outside of these, the only independents will probably be some of the smaller, more-or-less, cottage industries producing craftsman kits. Of particular concern is that, outside of Branchline (and the electronics outfits), it’s difficult to point to any new major players from the hobby’s past ten years, who were not already a part of the industry previously in some fashion.

CNJ831

18

Sort of…MDC-Roundhouse made 36’ boxcars and reefers, and several woodside passenger cars (from 30’ to 50’ to 80’ “Pullman Palace” cars) plus woodside cabooses and several other cars that are/were popular with those modelling the 1890-1940 era. But they also made steel 40’ boxcars (including Milwaukee-style horizontal ribbed cars) and two styles of Upper Michigan type steel ore cars, and a few other cars from the early diesel era. They also made several smaller steam engines (most based on SP prototypes IIRC) but did a “flat kit” RS-3 too.

It looks like Athearn has been using the Roundhouse name for the early 20th stuff, and I think some of the more recent vintage MDC models were done under just the Athearn name??

19

Good to see they are still around.

Enjoy

Paul

20

And I think Con-Cor is still selling some of the old Revell stuff, such as the gondola. Bowser for a time offered some of the Varney metal cars (which were good quality for their time) but not alas with the beautiful lithographed paint jobs that Varney featured.

There is a line of ultra cheap cars I see at some hobby shops that clearly looks like it is the old Varney plastic line. A careful craftsman can make a decent looking car out of Varney origins.

Stated another way, injection molds for plastic are durable, expensive and have value when a firm fails, and if someone makes the stuff and prices it right so somebody buys it, these old lines can live on and on. No harm in it except if beginners load up on cheap stuff that gives them trouble so they give up on the hobby. It is ironic that if you stick with the hobby long enough someday you will be talented enough to make the cheap trains of your early years actually run …

Dave Nelson