Athearn CF 7

Try Totally Trains in Ross on Wye, they have boxes and boxes of Athearn stuff.

Phone:01989567577 (no website)

Pete

Wouldn't it be easier to buy direct from the USA, e.g. Walthers? But then they'd probably charge you 2 arms & 3 legs for shipping.

Model Motors in Bourne End near High Wycombe have Athearn stuff, and other American models, but like above if they don't have it they will order from Walthers. OK saves me the trouble but if they have to send to Australia then I suppose you might aswell order direct.

Kevin

In message , 44211 writes

Try Mac's Model Railroading, 64A Sinclair St., Helensburgh, G84 8TP. Tel: 01436 679444.

snipped-for-privacy@macsmodels.co.uk

"MartinS" wrote

Walthers no longer stock Athearn following the latter's acqusition by Horizon Hobbies.

Buying from the USA is expensive, but Canada might be worth trying; the CA$ is not too strong at the moment.

Wolf Kirchmeir, a regular contributor in these columns hails from there and runs a small model business, he may possibly be able to help. I can thoroughly recommend him.

Contact me off-group if you want a contact email address for Wolf.

John.

Walthers no longer stock Athearn following Athearns acquisition by Horizon. I thought that this was the land of the free. Is this because Horizon wont supply Walthers or are Walthers boycotting Horizon. Either way wouln't that be illegal in the UK.

Kevin

wrote

Horizon Hobbies are wholesalers of model railway gear and I believe they are not willing to supply Walthers. I heard it alleged that this is because Walthers wouldn't supply other wholesalers with their own branded products.

John.

A manufacturer or wholesaler can refuse to suplly anyone they like. What they can't do - with a few legal exceptions - is specify the minimum price their products are sold at or the minimum level of customer service provided. That is why the retail industry in the UK has gone down the toilet.

(kim)

Just goes to show just how unfree America can be. I take it then that UK retailers have to buy from Horizon. Is this why it is a devil of a job to get hold of a Challenger.

Kevin

In the UK it's neither illegal for a manufacturer/wholesaler to refuse to supply a retailer, nor for a retailer to refuse to stock a manufacturers/wholesalers products.

Andrew

In the USA, it's legal for anyone to not to do business with anyone else, subject only to civil rights law. Since neither Horizon Hobbies nor Walthers are discriminating against each other on the basis of gender, marital status, race, religion, etc, their business arrangements or lack thereof are (almost) entirely their own business.

Someone might think that "restraint of trade" laws might apply, but so long as neither Walthers nor Horizon have de facto control of the model train market, relevant US laws will not apply. (They don't even apply to Microsoft, so long as MS makes necessary technical information about Windows available to 3rd-party software developers, and does so on the same terms for everybody.) In this case, only if Horizon demanded more costly terms from Walthers than from other distributors would Walthers have a case.

AFAICT, US anti-competition laws work well only when some identifiable consumer group sues for redress, but even then it's not easy to prove that a more competitive market would have resulted in lower prices. Economic theory does make a legal case: only actual facts are relevant, and the fact is that sometimes monopolies have resulted in lower prices because of efficiencies of scale.

Will model railroaders complain that Horizon Hobbies is gouging them? Not likely. Model railroading is a disposable income market, which means that price-demand theories actually apply: model railroad prices are as high as the market will bear (which is higher than some segments of the market like, but it's what the majority will pay that governs prices.)

It's possible that in the UK (and EU) the kind of integration of production and distribution businesses that's at play here would be illegal, but I see no evidence of that in the business news that I read.

I would disagree with that. The Canadian $ has been very strong against the US$, currently around $0.80, compared to around $0.65 a couple or so years ago. This has had an adverse effect on US tourism in Canada and Canadian exports to the US. It has also gained against the euro and the pound AFAIK. Regardless, you may get lower shipping costs. (A small package under 500g can cost more to ship within Canada than overseas.)

There was of course the case in the 70's when the Government blacklisted Ford for breaking the pay restrainst laws. Ford threatened to take the Government to court, I can't remember the outcome. I also seem to remember there being a recent case of a supplying refusing to supply a customer. I will have to dig around. Surely restraint of trade come in somewhere?

Kevin

1979. The government was voted out of office, pay restraint was abandoned and the new government started buying Fords again.

(kim)

Thanks Jane