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 Posted - October 17 2009 : 09:46:29 AM
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Well They Finally Made It Official. No More Blue Box Series Kits Or Engines.
That will probably also mean, soon they will no longer be making parts. There goes another source of Inexpensive Engines, Cars & Parts. 
They state the cost of kits is getting to expensive. More like the Profit Margin on their $17 to $20 RTR cars and $80 Engines Is Greater.
Anyway, here the Link of the Athearn News Special Announcement Emailed and Posted Yesterday.
http://publications.horizonhobby.com/read/archive?id=2210&e=cdtwo%40aol%2ecom&x=b878ed01
Athearn News Special Announcement
October 16, 2009
Greetings,
Effective immediately, we here at Athearn have made the difficult decision to discontinue the production of our Blue Box line of kits. There were several factors that contributed to this extremely challenging decision however, the primary issue revolved around affordability and ensuring that our Blue Box kit pricing remain aligned with what the market can bear. Unfortunately, due to increased manufacturing and labor costs it has been determined that we are no longer able to continue offering kits at competitive price points as compared to our already assembled products.
For over 50 years the Athearn Blue Box kits have been sold worldwide, bringing happiness, joy and excitement to thousands of model railroad enthusiasts. Your passion for these products has allowed us to thrive and grow into the industry leader you still support today, and for that we are eternally grateful. Moving forward this will allow us to dedicate more resources to new and exciting projects in our Ready To Roll, Genesis and Roundhouse lines for another 50 years, or more.
We will continue to support all service and warranty needs on Blue Box kits from our headquarters in Long Beach, California. You can find our contact information here.
The Folks at Athearn
Numquam Immoderatio Satis Est
(Too Much Is Never Enough )
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Posted - October 17 2009 : 09:50:29 AM
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Why??
-Jacob
Quote: "I didn't fail, I just found 1200 materials that won't work"
-Thomas Edison
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Posted - October 17 2009 : 10:21:13 AM
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quote:
Because, In the end, the hobby has become one of acquisition rather than craftsmanship---folks don't wants to build 'em, they wants to run 'em.
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 Posted - October 17 2009 : 12:02:38 PM
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The timing of this announcement is quite ironic, given some research I did a week ago.
For the record, I share the same sentiments: while I appreciate the "time-savings" factor, I'm tired of everything new being RTR only (I would still like the option to build it). I'm tired of everything being made in China. I'm tired of Model Railroader being less about the "how" and more about the "second mortgage shopping list".
And I'm tired of the anecdotally-skyrocketing cost of the hobby....
...or is it?
I just obtained a slew of rebox-era cars. I'm talking the NICE boxcars and tankers pre-1968 - the ones with metal floors, metal door tracks, low-profile wheels on thin needlepoint metal axles in metal trucks, and paint schemes that did not skimp on detail and color. In other words: they were the best that was available from anyone at the time. Yet are not as good as what we have new today.
Most of these had box dates of 1965/66, give-or-take a year. The boxcars and tankers both were stamped $2.49 at the factory.
Now, armed with this data, mosey on over to
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl (which is an official US gov't site)
and plug in the numbers... you might be as surprised as I was.
Food for thought....
Edited by - GoingInCirclez on October 17 2009 12:05:26 PM
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Posted - October 17 2009 : 12:36:14 PM
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well that bites sucks too I liked getting the kits WHEN I could afford it 
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Posted - October 17 2009 : 2:06:34 PM
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When I'm really lucky the one local hobby shop gets really cheap stuff in. And from what I can tell was probably sitting in a warehouse for the past few years. I just picked up a D&RGW 40' for 6 bucks. Notice how much Bachmann has the car listed on their site.
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/products.php?act=viewProd&productId=1226
The other newer cars at the bigger local stores usually go for $15-$20, right on with the calculator GIC posted
Shame about the blue box stuff. But it seems in the past few years with how sophisticated some of the trains have been getting this hasn't surprised me. And some of the kits out there now have details so fine (P2000 I'm looking at you) that I end up breaking more stuff than I put together. Thankfully train show season around here is starting again and I already have a few marked down. Little tribute to some blue box engines. After we picked up the Erie Lackwanna GP hanging around in the background. We stuck the Chessie and B&O on there together to have a nice 3 unit lash-up of old school engines. Little loud when they are running, but they tow just fine and look great!
/tyco/forum/uploaded/ChrisC/trains326.jpg
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Posted - October 18 2009 : 10:40:41 PM
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This is really sad. One of my fondest memories is digging through the stack of blue boxes at the local hobby shop (it's gone too) to find just what I wanted. Then I would get the joy of building it myself.
This is just another bad omen for the hobby. I could go on and on about how model railroading has only a few years left, but I won't. We all know what's happening. The one thing I take from this announcement is what I already knew....it's better to buy old than new.
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Posted - October 18 2009 : 11:41:06 PM
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myself, i get as much or even more fun out of putting one together. i've bought five new ready to run engines (all bachmann) over the last few years, & i didn't get no where near the thrill of opening the box & seeing it complete. everything is getting higher & higher in this hobby. who has the money to sink into a fleet of kato engines at $100-$150 each? it's not like their post war lionel that will last forever & hold most of it's value. don't get me wrong r-t-r has it's place, but so do the blue box kits.
just throw me into a pile of bb athearn kits mixed in with some CHEAP tyco, backmann, ect., a box of trusty kadee #5's, & i'm happy.
jerry
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Posted - October 18 2009 : 11:48:18 PM
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quote:
just throw me into a pile of bb athearn kits mixed in with some CHEAP tyco, backmann, ect., a box of trusty kadee #5's, & i'm happy.
Originally posted by smokie-October 18 2009: 11:41:06 PM
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Which is why I have no fears for the future of this hobby...it won't be as polished or silky smooth running, but the tinkerers out there who love building and crafting will have no lack of boxfuls of these little treasures coming out of attics and sheds for years to come...just waiting for us to bring 'em back to life.
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Posted - October 19 2009 : 09:02:09 AM
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Wow!
After running a few numbers of my own, I feel fortunate that I was able to buy the AHM, Tyco and Life/Like trains I had back in the day. (late 60s and 70s)
I very seldom buy anything new nowadays anyway. If I want to build a car kit, I buy a beat up Athearn at a show for a couple bucks and REbuild it.
As far as the future of the manufactures go They are doomed.
The hobby will be just fine. if not better.
Ray
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Posted - October 19 2009 : 2:40:55 PM
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| I hope you guys are right about the future of the hobby. What worries me is that I don't know any "kids" that are coming into it. When I was young, nearly every guy had at least some kind of "train set" at one time or another. Now the kids I work with barely know what a train is.
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Posted - October 19 2009 : 5:02:13 PM
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quote: Now the kids I work with barely know what a train is.
Originally posted by burlington77-October 19 2009: 2:40:55 PM
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That is a big part of why less people are in this hobby.
Railroads were an important part of everyday life. As common as the automobile is today.
Ray
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 10:25:09 AM
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I hate to be negative, but I think ALL such hobbies are doomed! I do model railroading and also: 1/35 armor, 1/72 aircraft, War Hammer 40K, and a few other oddball-type modeling. With the exception of the 40K, all the others are on a steady decline.
I am amazed that it took Athearn this long to "officially" drop the blue box line. I have not seen a new blue box on the shelves of the train store in a few YEARS! I thought the blue box line died back then.
I am afraid that R-T-R is the future of most model related hobbies. Go into the model section of a hobby shop and check out the armor selection. Pre-built, pre-painted, pre-weathered "kits" are big sellers. The same is happening in cars and aircraft. But that assumes you are one of the lucky ones to still have a hobby shop in your area. We have lost 6 in the past 3 years. The last, true general hobby shop should die by 1 Jan, 2010.
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 12:43:20 PM
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R-T-R is the future? Yikes!
The same was said when R-T-R was introduced back in the 50s And they were right.
R-T-R has been around for a long time.
In another 50 years they'll lbe collecting BLI and the others like we collect Tyco
Ray
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 1:13:24 PM
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The difference between then and now is, back then if you wanted max detail, you HAD to get the kit, and all the separate parts. CAD/CAM did not exist, and there simply weren't the means to create an RTR car with cast-on fidelity, nor cost-effectively tool the separate pieces in the same shop.
Nowadays, if you can draw it on a computer (which will do all the measuring for you), you can zap it off to a rapid-prototype machine to get your first-shot, cut that apart to allow for tooling/machine development and laser-scan the sub components back in. Then give slave wages to a 10-year-old chinese kid to assemble it, box it up, ship it overseas and sell it at retail, BAM it's ready to go with details you couldn't dream of years ago.
You still have to do the same with the older kits. But they don't have the same level of detail. So which would you rather buy?
You can buy an Athearn RTR centerflow for $20 with etched metal parts the rival what Intermountain charged $30 for a few years ago. This is not a bad deal. Esepcially when the same metal roofwalk as sold separately by Plano costs $8 by itself.
FWIW Athearn did make their new superdetailed RTR cars available as undec kits initially. All my STC 2-bay centerflows were made from these. You know what? Those kits were a major PITA to assemble! I saw it as an accomplishment nonetheless but it's worth noting they don't offer too many undecs these days.
CAD/CAM allows them to tool and produce incredible detail for not much more additional investment than that to produce a cruder model. But when the assembly is so hair-pulling tedious, it's no wonder people might rather take the pre-assembled version of the product. You can't find a single train forum where someone hasn't taken P2K or Intermountain to task for difficult assembly and fragile parts. So guess what? They don't sell 'em that way anymore. They pay the chinese to build them for us, and we pay extra for the luxury.
We're our own worst enemies. We demand the details (on the BOTTOM of the car? You'd think Rapido runs their trains upside-down! Honestly, who should give a turd what the bottom of the car looks like? Or is the point or model trains to derail them all the time?) - but can't be bothered to install them.
Production goes overseas where it's feasible to create these detailed products, then makes the golden oldies look like a lousy value in comparison.
Nope, it's no surprise at all really.
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 2:07:31 PM
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Not everyone demands that kind of detail. And that is what urks me.
If you don't want all those details that jump off if you look to hard at it, what is left on the market that you can actually handle and run?
Ray
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 3:12:12 PM
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quote:Not everyone demands that kind of detail. And that is what urks me.
If you don't want all those details that jump off if you look to hard at it, what is left on the market that you can actually handle and run?
Originally posted by Ray Marinaccio-October 22 2009: 2:07:31 PM
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I feel the same way. I damn near destoryed a P2k 50' boxcar earlier this year for the same reasons Tony mentioned, they made the details too damn small. I left half the details off the bottom because that was even more useless to me (and I broke half of those too). To top it off, I've been having coupler height issues with it since day 1. I have a few modified Tyco 50' cars that embarrass the P2k car in daily use.
I don't mind super detailed engines as much, but I'm happy with alot of my less detailed stuff since it runs just as good. I like my MTH K4 since it looks dead accurate, but its a little weak on the pulling side. My Model Power metal train F7 is flat out awesome. Has good printed graphics, no small parts to break off, is relatively cheap to buy new, and pulls amazing. We have a batch of older Kato powered Atlas engines that are pretty old. But their detail is good and they are flawless runners, cheap too!
And for those who have rivet counter friends. Try this next time, tell them you sucessfully installed a decoder into a PT powered Tyco engine. I almost had the one guy I work with stop talking to me over this haha.
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 5:51:13 PM
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Well, I'm sure a few of you have noticed my recent Rapido purchases, and while I am extremely happy with them, I'll admit the bottom of a car is a pretty stupid place for all those extra details.
And while I may be straying more towards the "rivet-counter" side of the hobby, I don't intend to cross the imaginary line. If I were to see a Tyco streamliner set in VIA colours like DaCheez has, I'd buy that up in an instant. 
    
- Matt -
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 7:34:25 PM
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"We're our own worst enemies."
Exactly! It really isn't the fault of the hobby producers. They are just providing what sells well. The average hobbyist really isn't a hobbyist in the "old" sense. Instant gratification and minimal effort sells. So R-T-R is the best thing for makers to put out.
Now don't get me wrong! I'm trying not to paint with too wide a brush. I realize many here love to build kits or detail R-T-R stuff. But the average kid, or even young adults, coming into the hobby don't. I was told to blame video games/computers for the "lazyness" of them. Not positive that is the whole cause though.
A final example of the fall of hobbies is from my father. He is a ham radio operator. While checking on the new license requirements, it was found that some changes were done to "help" newbies get started. The requirement for the ability to key 30 words a min using morse code was dropped. Not reduced mind you, but dropped intirely! In fact, you do not need to even know morse code at all! So much for being able to communicate when all goes wrong.
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 9:02:10 PM
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As probably the resident kid in the house, I thought I'd put my two cents in on this subject. Where I am, anyway, I've managed to get at least a few people into the hobby, at least to some degree. This year, we lost the greatest principal ever, Mr. Immerman, to that darn thing called a retirement. While, ableit, he was a Red Sox fan, which is almost to sick to think about, in my eyes, he was the biggest train person I'd ever met. He had old and new Lionel, as well as Gscale, all on the shelves of his office. Five years ago, he started a train club at my school, and it's been growing ever since. This year, the VP, Mr. Tarquinio, is taking over, and I'm basically second-on-command. He is the adult authority, and I take care of the actual train part. Mr. Immerman and I trained him (no pun intended [or was it?]) for the job, and the janitors help with all the hard work. He have many 6th, 7th, and 8th graders showing up to enjoy doing nothing but run trains on a plain white 4x8, and setting up LGB on the floor, as well as running some RC stuff around. I hope that at least some of them have a true interestin the hobby, and I can tell, many do.
As far as today's trains, I'd say that what they make today doesn't hold a candle to most of my trains.
I always loved the Athearn kits, I have several myself. Much more statisfaction than just looking at a model.
The day when I pick a newly released Spectrum model over that neat Tyco set at the train show will be the lowest point in my life. I can't picture myself going all new. The new trains are still being made, after all; there are only so many of the older ones.
I think I've had enough for one day.
Sorry for the rant. Let me know when the resident kid is required again.
(P.S.- I too also thought the Blue box had been discontinued, but then again, my hobby shop doesn't carry many old train anymore...)
D.J. (Yeah, I'm "that kid"... Deal.)
http://railroadrandomness.blogspot.com/
Look; a new blog...
Yippee!
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Posted - October 22 2009 : 10:16:40 PM
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quote:| Five years ago, he started a train club at my school, and it's been growing ever since. |
That's pretty awesome. Where I live I don't know a single person who's in to trains (guess that shows how the hobby is declining) There's definitely no club like that at my school though, let alone a principal who supports it. My principal and VP's are...well..I won't get in to that
To stay on topic though, I've always liked the thought of building and detailing my own stuff. It makes it something unique that only I have. I haven't done very much of it...built a few Athearn kits, painted some engines, added interiors to a few pass. cars. Still though, I figure once I get a little more comfortable with it I'll start doing it a little more.
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 Posted - October 23 2009 : 4:08:54 PM
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Well, no other kids at my school are even slightly as involved as I am in one finger, though they show an interest, nonetheless. Also, I'm less than satisfied with my new principal, after having a guy like Mr. Immerman, but now is neither the time nor the place to put down our authority figures. I think I'll go e-maill Immerman right now...
D.J. (Yeah, I'm "that kid"... Deal.)
http://railroadrandomness.blogspot.com/
Look; a new blog...
Yippee!
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Posted - October 23 2009 : 11:03:47 PM
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One thing I noticed missing from the responses was the pride and accomplishment of putting together a kit. Let's face it, your layout is your world...
RTR are great looking, but I can make do with used, less expensive equipment.
As long as I am satified with my ayout I am happey...
Mike
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Posted - October 23 2009 : 11:25:34 PM
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Hey guys, I'm a teacher, so I'll chime in on the school thing. DJ is lucky to have that kind of support from his principal. I know that if I suggested something like that, I'd get shot down quickly. "Not school appropriate, unneccessary....blah blah..." I can hear them now.
Trust me, as hard as it is to put up with that junk as a student, it's even harder as a teacher. We've got to "put on a happy face" and go along with things even when we don't agree. There's a lot of wrong-thinking and pointless time-wasting in education, but all we can do is keep our chin up and do our best.
Back to trains....I think somebody dropped the ball with the whole Thomas/Brio wooden train thing. That should have been a gateway to bigger, better trains. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing that. Really it's the same concept, only in kid size. I don't know what the answer is, but it seems like there could have been some HO stuff sold as a "step up" from the wooden trains. That would have brought a new generation onboard.
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Posted - October 24 2009 : 10:47:24 PM
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One of the guidance counselors at my HS had an HO layout in his office. It was somewhat new and unfinished and basically just some elaborate trackwork on cork, with a few Tyco buildings dotting the works, but a few (sadly, just a few) of us students would go in there and goof around with stuff between classes and such. Sadly, his health began to fail and he never got to finish or progress much before he had to sell the whole works. I got an Athearn Amtrak train from him; I don't run it much if ever but it's a nice memory.
I'd proposed setting up layouts in waiting rooms and such, but the ongoing ops and maintenance is always a huge issue.
Bachmann does (or did) have some nice Thomas and Hogwarts themed HO sets, that could have bridged the gap between Brio and hobbyist trains. But the problem is those sets are kind of collector-priced... and by the time most kids might be eager to get into HO, they want OUT of Thomas and such. As someone else said, railroads are so impersonal otherwise, there's nothing to really relate to.
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Posted - November 07 2009 : 3:17:49 PM
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As the resident "young man" in his early 20's who has played with model trains in one form or another since he was 3 or 4, I think my childhood spanned the transition from a kit-dominated hobby to a RTR-dominated one. My dad knew someone at work when I was just starting kindergarden who was into trains, and they were getting rid of some of their old Model Railroader magazines. I wound up with a pretty complete set of 1987-1991, and those older mags were more helpful to me in building up my modeling skills than any recent Model Railroader article has been. I got a subscription to MR while I was in high school, and those years document very well the transistion in article and project type. Now I haven't bothered getting a subscription to MR and just buy Railroad Model Craftsman off the shelf when there's an article that interests me.
I knew something was up in the hobby when I got a couple of free issues of MR around 1995 when Rivarossi released their "new" Big Boys, and many of the cheaper RTR 1980's items had been replaced by more expensive bretheren. Even those Big Boy train sets I drooled over look like junk compared to today's RTR stuff.
My blue box and Roundhouse kits will always be my favorite cars. I have an undecorated shorty Roundhouse flat car I picked up over the summer that's unassembled. I think I'll put it together this weekend, since I have a bit of a breather between studio projects. I wonder if it will be one of the last? I also just recently assembled the Athearn wide-vision caboose painted as the Boone & Scenic Valley's Rock Island caboose. It would be poetic if those were two of the last in my collection, since my first two kits were Athearn and Roundhouse, a custom-painted Maine Central 50' plug door boxcar and a Maine Central 50' gondola that my dad brought back from a trip to Maine.
Improving and reviving my cheap old RTR stuff, inluding Tyco, has been my most rewarding project now. Each one has a memory stored in it. My new 40' RTR Athearn Mopac boxcar, in comparison, is "just another car." (Not to mention it's scale-size plastic couplers look flimsy and out of proportion to me, being used to good ol' Kadee #5's.)
Long live the tinkerers, kitbashers, and customizers.
--Rio Grande--Thru the Rockies
Edited by - architrains on November 07 2009 3:26:30 PM
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Posted - November 07 2009 : 9:28:59 PM
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I'll miss the BB kits too, but even worse, IMO, is the news that Horizon is dicontinuing Athearn parts. There's a big discussion about it on the VintageHO Yahoo group.
I would stock up if you need a supply of replacement axles for Proto 2K's, for e.g. Someone here was looking for sideframes for a BB GP40-2 a while back, so this probably explains why they are becoming scarce. My LHS has had problems getting parts in stock for at least a year now. Hopefully there's enough new old stock and junkers to keep parts available on eBay for some time.
Sad days indeed.
The Tyco Depot
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Posted - November 10 2009 : 09:44:00 AM
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My shop has had the same problem. Athearn's web site says to check with my hobby shop for parts, and tells the hobby shop to tell me to order parts direct via web site. Sure makes getting parts hard. Fortunately, parts and complete locos/cars are plentiful on ebay. Soon, just like with Tyco, you will need to find an old beater loco just for parts.
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Posted - November 10 2009 : 10:00:59 AM
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The parts situation is very annoying, and no better for new stuff either.
The reason one of my STC GP40X's is a high hood, is because that was the only other undec I could get my hands on. But they weren't that "old" at the time. So I figured I could just order the low-nose part and be done right? WRONG! They don't stock extra parts of the new stuff, apparently. They said to wait until the next run. Which I did. I submitted my request within a week of the announcement, and then the shipping date.... no dice either time. 
On a related tangent, I *love* the new boxes they put the RTR stuff in. Anyone who has superdetailed an Athearn loco knows the original box becomes useless afterward... especially if you have cab sunshades. So I wanted to buy a few of the newer boxes, since there's ample space to keep from breaking the details off, and you can even display within. I explained this explanation to them... suggested they's have a nice side market if they offered empty / replacement boxes for the older stuff, for the "serious" modelers they are now catering to... and no dice either. Really? They can't sell a handful of extra boxes? What kind of lousy customer service and goodwill is that? You'd think this would be free easy money for them. But what do I know?
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Posted - November 10 2009 : 7:24:09 PM
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quote:Soon, just like with Tyco, you will need to find an old beater loco just for parts.
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I wonder if there is any chance of Athearn bringing back some of the parts in a few years. Tyco got out of the train business completely, but athearn is still in it. Maybe in ten or so years the demand for parts will go up and they'll introduce repro parts? Just a thought
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Posted - November 10 2009 : 10:49:37 PM
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Hopefully there are suppliers and shops out there with a big stock of old Athearn parts, but what concerns me most are the motor mounts that harden with age. Maybe they won't on the shelf if they aren't exposed to heat or oil, but I wouldn't bet on it.
I had a 60's SD45 that still had the most pliable mounting pads I'd ever seen. They must have been made of silicone.
GIC, making only enough parts for production and none for service seems to be a current trend. I ran into that problem in the watch industry, and these weren't inexpensive watches. I don't know how manufacturers expect their products to be kept running without a supply of parts, but maybe that's the point -- throw it out and buy a new one. Customer service doesn't fit into the modern business model.
The Tyco Depot
Edited by - NickelPlate759 on November 11 2009 06:54:38 AM
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Posted - November 10 2009 : 11:32:47 PM
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| Heck GIC, I'd be happy just to be able to get the old blue boxes for the stuff I've picked up from ebay and shows. I don't usually get the box to go with what I bought. I have bought empty, new boxes from Athearn via the train store in the past. Actually, they proved quite pricey! But I did buy them. Now Athearn won't sell ANY boxes. I placed an order a week after Athearn anounced they would sell boxes. The train store ordered mine and several more for stock. 8 weeks(!) later, Athearn stated they would not sell just boxes. I had to wait that long to find out the announcement had been "cancelled".
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