Athearn Blue Box Kits

[ebtbob]

Good Morning All,

        A bit of sad news to many I am sure......I got a official announcement from Athearn,  today,  that they are going to discontinue their blue box kits.

[BestSnowman]

That is too bad, I really enjoyed those kits. Hopefully some of the other kit makers keep making them.

[jonathan]

Saw the announcement.  They didn't have much left for a long time.

Seems like Stewart or Bowser are the only ones left making inexpensive kits.

Jonathan

[jward]

bowser and stewart are the same company.

i do agree though. i will miss the athearn kits. bought one the other day that was actually an old roundhouse hopper in an athearn box. they were a good expensive way to build a fleet. the bowser cars are more detailed but from my experience aren't as good runners as the athearn/roundhouse cars.

if you want kits now, about all that are left are the resin craftsman type kits. i am noy particulerly interested in that can of worms......

[jonathan]

Just did a quick inventory of all my rolling stock.  While only 25% of my locos are from kits, more than 50% of my freight and passenger cars are kits.  And I've only been modeling for three years!  Add to that, all manufacturers were well on their way to discontinuing kits when I started.  What I have, I had to hunt down at train shows and old LHS's (most have missing parts by the time I find them i.e. brakewheels, lens et al).

It's just not profitable to sell a kit, when an overseas manufacturer can pay next to nothing to have a machine or assembly line worker put the kit together is seconds.  I wonder what response we would get from that laborer, when asked how fun it was to assemble 300 boxcars or locomotives in one day?

The thing that bothers me the most is disassembly when I need to detail, modify, or illuminate the equipment I just bought premade (and I really, really need to do this).  I can't know if the pieces are press fit, glued or clipped together (good guessing and experience are helpful).  The included diagrams certainly won't tell you.  Fortunately, there's lot of experience on this and other forums to help me muddle through the mystery.  When you get right down to it, they're all kits... somebody, or something,  else assembled them for us.

I don't plan on investing in a lot of craftsman kits, unless I suddenly switch to pre WWII era modeling (and/or win the lottery).

There's always Accurail and Bowser for the time being.

There's two more cents for the pile.

Regards,

Jonathan

[ABC]

We all knew this day would come soon enough. And to make matters worse somebody bought out all of my LHS inventory of Athearn kits, oh well he still has some accurail, bowser/stewart, and a few roundhouse kits left. I was going to buy all his 86'ft boxcars, and they were only $5.50, why didn't I buy them sooner? He had 2 Erie Lackawanna, 1 N&W, 3 B&O, 1 PRR, 2 ATSF, 1 MP, & 1 CN. That's 11 cars for $60, plus a 15% discount makes $51 or $4.65 a car. These cars still had their original prices on them and probably had been sitting around for 15-20 years or so.

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

We all knew this day would come soon enough. And to make matters worse somebody bought out all of my LHS inventory of Athearn kits.

Look for them to start turning up on eBay, maybe? 

[Robertj668]

When I first started the hobby 33 years ago my dad would buy me a kit if I got a 100 or an "A" on my test.  Back then I think they were about 2.25. to and maybe up to 3.00.  I continued the tradition with  my son and thy are still very affordable.  I pay any where from 7.25 to 9.00.  I can even find some "old Stock" for around 5.00.

I would pay an additional $1 or $2 for the item.  I I know that get close to the pre-built ones.  But is really is not about the cost. It was building something either one you own or with your Dad, Mom, Son or Daughter. I will never build a scratch built freight car but this was great for me and my son to build one.

I am sadended by this announcement. I wish wish that there was something we could do.  Maybe there is something that we can do.

I guess I need to stock on these as I love the kits and keep the boxes as they are to pretty to throw out and they make great storage containers.

Robert

[Woody Elmore]

If you like to assemble kits, I noticed that the old Silver Streak line is now being rerun by Ye Olde Huff n Puff. While these are not plastic like Athearn kits, they are wood and die cast and with a little effort build up into a nice kit.

I agree that the hobby is changing and the era of kit building may be slowly fading away.

Of course there are still military, ship and airplane model kits.

[jettrainfan]

The funniest thing i have heard about the hobby is the following, "Gee, i never knew teens bought kits these days!" That made me laugh, that was when i got my first kit. And now it seems that the kits are not even touched! But the bachmann and anthern are like crates! Their always moving. I hope this is not the end, its not like they sell those already assembled.   

[Santa Fe buff]

Well, the best way to deal with this it disassemble the Genesis or Ready-To-Roll stuff and reassemble it like a kit until you get used to just taking it out of the box. However, this may in fact be a problem to the hobby world since less true skill will now be required to do this hobby. Yet, you will have to know the same things if you want to maintenance, fix, or tinker with the locomotive or car. Yet, the art of tinkering really hasn't become that popular, but it is just as good as a pass-time as operating. 

Cheers,
Joshua

[Woody Elmore]

There certainly wasn't a lot of skill necessary to put together an Athearn or MDC kit which is why they were called "shake the box" kits.

I have written here in the past that it costs as much or more to sell a kit as compared to an RTR car. The RTR car is assembled and checked that all parts are where they should be. Kits require packaging and inspection. Plus, missing or deformed parts have to be replaced. Then there is the issue with drawing up and printing assembly instructions. I realize that the Athearn plans have been paid for many times over but the company is probably losing money on kits.

[ebtbob]

Good Afternoon All,

       I mentioned this announcement to someone over the weekend and he said he heard that Bowser was about to do away with their kits also.  Can anyone confirm this?

[ABC]

This is the last announcement Bowser made about any rolling stock kits:
Announced 1-18-09  HO & N Freight Cars                                                              Shipped 4-2-09
HO 70 Ton Offset Triple Hopper Alaska,  "Blue Coal",  ACL
HO 100 Ton Triple Hopper Norfolk & Western
HO H-21a 4-Bay Hopper Penn Central, PRR Circle Keystone
HO 70 Ton 2-Bay Covered Hopper Chesapeake & Ohio, D.L.& W.
So the last new kits were announced at the beginning of 2009 and were shipped out 6 and a half months ago.
Also, I spoke with someone at Bowser, and he was giving me the impression that they are about done coming out with "new" kits and would be winding down the production of all current kits and transitioning to more RTR items. He didn't explicitly say this, but he more or less was alluding to something along these lines. He was saying it made more business sense to sell the cars for almost twice if people are willing to pay that much for a RTR car.

[BestSnowman]

That is too bad to hear Bowser is getting out of the kit market, though it makes sense given they recently got out of locomotive kits.

It makes sense from a business perspective to sell RTR's for double the price if people will pay it, and obviously people do but eliminating their cheaper options might hurt overall sales. I recently purchased an SD40-2 kit for a third of the same thing as an RTR. I didn't have a problem paying for the kit but I probably would have passed on the RTR or at least had to save up for a while.