Athearn is bought out!!!!!

What is a "data only" car?

A freight car already painted and lettered with the smaller dimensional data, the modeler needs only to decal the car name, number and logo to complete the car.

Undecorated car:

Peter,

Interesting you should mention Bowser. They ran a full page, full color ad in the RMC January issue with pictures of many of their hopper cars.

That must cost a pretty penny. Could they be possibly selling that much since they are direct to consumer now?

I don't see how they can survive long term.

Phil

Dan,

I think it all has to do with price points. If a modeler comes into a store and has a given amount to spend, he will try to satisfy as much of his needs as that given amount will buy.

If he wants a certain roadname, he will look to that first and the actual car second, I think. That's how Bev-Bel, etc. made it in the first place; they offered paint schemes NOT offered by Athearn, and now Accurail, etc. in many cases, although all the companies offer more roadnames than they used to. They also offered multiple numbers, either initially or over a period of multiple runs. This is a very recent phenomenon with Athearn.

Also, another part of the problem was the availability of shells. Athearn owned its own molds and its own plastic injection molding machines (PIMs) , I think. So it wasn't a problem to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. Most other manufacturers do not have that luxury. They have to schedule time on other's PIMS and that is quite a hassle; PIM owners tell you WHEN your stuff will be run.

About 20+ years ago, I managed a couple of custom car projects for a model railroad club. We bought the shells pre-painted, but unlettered, by Athearn in lots of 300 cars minimum. We chose a custom printer who had done a lot of flat work on other custom printing jobs such as key rings, etc. Problem was, this was a tank car and it's ROUND, so he didn't have the jigs to accommodate the printing process. He ruined about one-third of the shells. When we went back to Athearn for replacement shells, they were out of that particular tank shell, but could substitute a similar, but different shell which we took (chemical tank rather than single dome tank, I think). The printer bought out the misprinted shells and we still made out all right, but it took a lot of extra time and money to do so.

Personally, I hate to see any of these custom printers go out of business, since that is one less choice that we have as modelers. The real fear is that with the decline in decals available, if the custom printers go away, we will be back where we once were, with no way to get that special custom car we want.

Phil Bostian

----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel A. Mitchell" Newsgroups: rec.models.railroad Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2004 4:16 PM Subject: Re: Athearn is bought out!!!!!

These "data only" cars really are a good idea, I think. Are any available for O-ga ?

Kent in SD

"I want to be the candidate of the guys with Confederate flags on their pickups too!"

--Howard Dean, running for president of the Confederate States of America

One of the good guys. Good read Peter. I don't think it is a good thing for anyone other than the sellers.

I agree with others comments that this will help MDC, P2K and other brands gain more shelf space. What about Accurail? They seem to have been trying for years to be just a little bit better than MDC or Athearn at about the same price. Will Accurail be helped?

Paul McGraw

Yeah, and the NH covered hopper is all wrong! In the ad, the hopper is oxide red with white lettering, when it should be gray with black lettering. Heck, they even got the number series wrong (should be in the 117000 series).

Makes me wonder what else is wrong from Bowser...

Paul A. Cutler III

Easy. Athearn and the like are inexpensive. This keeps the price down to reasonable levels. Besides, you have Pacific Western Rail Service (or whatever it's called) doing custom runs on Intermountain cars for the high end market. Do you know how many I have? None, because I don't want to spend that much on a custom paint job that I can do myself. I don't mind paying $10 to $15 for a custom Athearn car because it is, IMHO, worth it.

Like I said, these high end custom painters already exist...

Paul A. Cutler III

Dummy engines have, IIRC, been discontinued by Athearn and have been for some time now.

Paul A. Cutler III

I certainly hope so. I have been searching the internet this past week and I find that, at least in the photos on the web, Acculine seems to be better quality than Atheran and MDC.

I also like the looks of the 1880s Passenger Cars from Con-Cor better than the ones from MDC.

I've been running Rivarossi 4-4-0 locomotives since I was in the 4th grade. My V&T "Reno" was always one of my favorites because it was so reliable.

I haven't run any IHC 4-4-0's specifically, but all other IHC locomotives I have run (2-6-0, 2-8-2, 4-6-0) have been great for the price.

I have many MDC's and they all seem to have electrical pickup problems that I've corrected by adding rail slider pickups, or re-tendering with

No, they can only charge what people are willing to pay. I stopped buying Athearn when the blue box kits went above $4. I have never purchased a "ready to roll" because I think they are too pricey for what one gets.

Doug, I hope you are correct. Horizons though could just increase prices to the various wholesalers which would result in an increase to hobbiest. I hope they do not do this.

Jerry

Thanks Sleuth, you have narrowed my field down to two choices, I might get one of each...

That would be incorrect these days. When was the last time you looked at what they offer? I get plastics (many different lines), puzzles, crafts, paints, tools, rockets, etc. They are a full line distributor. They sell Aristo-Craft, Athearn, Atlas, Bachmann, Accurail, Broadway Limited, Boley, Woodland Scenics, Bar Mills, Chooch, and the list goes on and on. In other words although they do sell considerable R/C Aircraft they sell a greater percentage of none aircraft related lines.

Dave Henk

They also wholesale to dealers as well as direct through their retail operation.

Dave

In article , snipped-for-privacy@aol.com (MrRathburne) writes:

Horizon has excellent discounts on a par with most distributors. Availability is excellent. Information on products is at my fingertips via use of their software and my cable connections. I deal with several distributors for their proprietary items and that goes extremely well. For example Great Planes has locked up a lot of R/C products that are continually in demand. They offer good discounts so that allow us to keep pace with the mail order side of there business (Tower Hobbies the 400lb mail order gorilla). Horizon itself has many exclusive lines as well. I sell plenty of these products as well. Walthers also has there own brand especially the recent runs of passenger cars and structures. As I said this has been going on for some time. Some items I get at lower discounts when the main distributor is temporarily out of stock. My chief concern with the sole source distributor has been supply. For many items I have three to four sources and can shop best price vs delivery time. I'm hooked into 6 different distributors via broadband and proprietary vendor software that allows me to find items in very short times for customers. I let the customer see the search results as well. I also have quite a few more that I fax orders into. Some suppliers I deal with: Great Planes, Horizon, Stevens International, Sentai Distributors, MacPherson, Sig Mfg., Cousins, Intermountain, Kadee, Walthers, Morgan Fuel, and Venom Racing are all distributors that I have regular purchases (every 1-2 weeks). Then there are the smaller firms that are every 4-6 weeks. I'm just not apparently as pessimistic as some that Athearn will be gone in a few years.

Dave

I don't see a significant difference in detailing between Bowser, Accurail and Athearn kits. As far as couplers. What couplers that Bowser has or Accurail (plastic Accumates) that are any better. Most folks still eventually go to Kadees. What do you see as a significant difference between the lines?

Dave