Athearn RTR supply issues?

Not just Athearn, a slew of US "manufacturers" have been hit by this. The smaller Chinese shops have been squeezed out of the market by the bigger companies, such a Kader (owner of Bachmann). Kader have not renewed contracts with any of the manufacturers for whom they build products.

OTOH, Horizon shouldn't whinge. Their purchase of Athearn and Roundhouse was designed to give them a "stronger position" in the industry, i.e. to put the squeeze on their smaller competitors.

You may be happy to know that Rapido Trains owns a large chunk of its supplier, and hasn't been affected by these changes. They have indicated they will be offering manufacturing services to other importers.

HTH, Wolf K.

I read this in Model Railroader in January... sometimes cheaper isn't always a bargain.

Sounds like a good reason to manufacture the engines and cars in the U.S.

Tom

It *would* be -if you could find some US workers who'd be willing to work for slave wages so that Athearn could keep the same profit margin they enjoy right now.

~Pete

It is actually not even the labor costs, which in many ways are a minor issue -- there are actually many other considerations, including the supply of materials, etc.

Here is an article that appeared in the New York Times back in Jan. that talks about the issues of US manufacturing vs. Chinese manufacturing:

Although the above article talks about iPhones and other tech products, many of the same issues also relate to plastic models, esp. Athearn RTR line, which have most of the detail molded on. The injection molding machines are mostly automated, so there is not a lot of manual labor involved in making these items, so labor costs are not that major a factor (well they are but not in the obvious way).

I read the article. See "slave wages" in my original post.

Workers who are forced to live in company barracks, make very little money, and who can be chivvied out of bed en masse at 1:00 AM to please Steve Jobs (or whoever owns Athearn these days) are essentially slaves; and that's what American workers are being forced to compete with these days.