Athearn BB Kits to be Discontinued :(

rkcarguy Oct 16, 2009

  1. rkcarguy

    rkcarguy TrainBoard Member

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    I've recieved sad news via my mail order supplier that effective Oct 16th 2009, Athearn will discontinue production of the BB kits. I know many prefer the ready to run versions but personally, I hate Chinese made stuff and enjoyed building the kits myself. I will miss them.
     
  2. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    I learned much of my kit-bashing from cutting up those cars. I still have a few waiting for the slice and dice miter box. ;)
     
  3. Mr. SP

    Mr. SP Passed away August 5, 2016 In Memoriam

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    Athearn Kits

    This morning I got a Athearn News E-mail from them. In it Athearn says as of today(16 October) they will no longer be making the "Blue Box" line of kits. This includes locomotives as well as freight cars.:thumbs_down:
    Looks like Athearn has lost most of my business as of today.
     
  4. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member

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    And another era comes to a close...................bought a lot of "blue-box" kits, not to mention similar kits from Model Die Casting.

    Methinks without the kits on the market, the ability to actually do a little building in model railroading will be lost.:tb-sad:
     
  5. rkcarguy

    rkcarguy TrainBoard Member

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    I like building them, it's part of the hobby to me, I'm not one of these modelers seeking "instant gratification". It's too bad they are discontinued. I'm sure happy I went on a SP Tunnel motor buying spree last year and got a good collection of them together. I can't wait to see what the remaining kits will start pulling in for prices now...
    Who else still makes a decent kit?
     
  6. GP30

    GP30 TrainBoard Member

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    I had heard rumors of this happening 3 or 4 years ago, but continued to see new Athearn kits on hobby store shelves. This doesn't really surprise me. Im afraid the loss of the Athearn Blue-Box brand will make the hobby a little more expensive. Instead of buying that $9 dollar BB kit, I now have to pay twice that for the RTR version.

    No, the blue box series didn't exhibit extreme detail or accuracy, but they were excellent "yard filler" cars. Assemble in 5 minutes, slap some kadees and metal wheels on them and away we go. I've assembled a dozen of them in an evening before, very enjoyable.

    At least Branchline isn't doing away with the Yardmaster series cars..... I hope.
     
  7. BarstowRick

    BarstowRick TrainBoard Supporter

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    Well, the expletives or rather idioms I would like to use are pretty much a waist. Besides, I don't like using words that are offensive. I can cuss like a sailor but I'd rather not. It's meaningless and just shows my anger in the worst way.

    This news does hurt.

    Like some of you I cut my teeth on those plastic kits. The price was right and the cars were as close to prototype as any out there. In many cases the quality was vastly superior to Tyco, Revel and other not so popular box kits. I was hoping we would see something similar in N scale before to long.

    As a youngster I could cut someone's lawn for a buck and two lawns later I could add a freight or shorty passenger car to my growing fleet of rail equipment. My hat is off to the Athearn family for all the fun they provided. There comes a time, when change happens and good times of old, come to an end.

    I fully expected this would happen. Just not this soon!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 16, 2009
  8. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    If there was anything I enjoyed it was taking a short break from the humdrum of everyday life to put together one of those kits. There is a satisfaction to be felt when one is finished, holding up the assembled item, done with one's own hands.

    Now that satisfaction will be taken away, and we will have to pay for that loss too.

    I just wonder what savings or gains Athearn expects to make from this. As evidenced by more than one here, dissatisfaction with this decision will probably negate any extra profits they might make.

    Whoever made this decision probably doesn't know what model railroading is all about.
     
  9. pastoolio

    pastoolio TrainBoard Member

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    Oh man, this sucks! :(

    BB kits is what I remember most about my childhood HO train layouts! I had so much fun putting them together, that feeling of accomplishment, that I was a "real" model railroader. I guess Athearn sees RTR as RT$. A shame to loose such a great thing. :(

    Mike
     
  10. Shannon

    Shannon TrainBoard Member

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    Like the other posters I also have many of the BB kits. Some as early as 1966. I do not understand how with the state of the present economy how a long time company can discontinue its bread and butter line. Or in this case Blue Box.

    I truly is a sad day for the model railroading community. But I am sure we will all find a better 5 minute kit to put together, and Athearn will suffer from our money going elsewhere.

    Shannon
     
  11. Mr. SP

    Mr. SP Passed away August 5, 2016 In Memoriam

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  12. Denali_Subdivision

    Denali_Subdivision TrainBoard Member

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    One of the major reasons Athearn and Horizon have pulled the plug on the BB line is because they could produce an RTR car for about the same amount of money they could produce a BB kit for, and the RTR car they make WAY more then they do on the BB kits. BB kits have really flooded the market and it was just time for them to be discontinued, Athearn was just not selling enough of them to make it worth there time and money to produce them. No body was buying new BB kits, instead they were buying used and old ones that had already been bought before. Athearn doesnt see an of that money from those sales, so when they stop getting the orders for the BB kits, its time to stop production. Its a sad sight to see that these kits that have been around for so long and basically are the backbone of this hobby are going away, but this is what the hobby is coming too. Most guys want the RTR stuff now, they dont wanna sit and assemble the models. They want the instand gratification of taking it out of the box, having it fully detailed, and running it in a train, my self included. I would rather work on scenery and building kits, rather then assembling a freight car or engine. I loved the BB kits when i first started in the hobby, they were a good learning tool, but unfortunately they are no more.

    BTW, Walthers does not make any Rolling Stock kits that i have seen lately that are available. All there Rolling Stock is RTR now
     
  13. Geep_fan

    Geep_fan TrainBoard Member

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    sad day.
    I was born at just the right time to see the end of blueboxes. about 7 years ago, I walked into reeds hobby shop in san diego and bought 20 bluebox reefers. The stock of blueboxes covered 5 aisles and about half the store. I spent about an hour assembling them all. I recently got some more at a trainshow recently. however I have noticed there is less and less bluebox avaible. custom had about 5 bluebox cars left, discount had none. I did find another company that made kits (its called LSB or somthing like that). I loved those kits, but sadly there out of business now too :( . Me and my mentor where talking about how much modeling has changed in the last decade. I still use the old fashioned DC mostly (slowly moving to DCC). but I really hate these new RTR cars. they cost so dang much, I paid $28 for an RTR tanker which if Bluebox had made would have probably cost me $8. seriously though, who needs all that detail!? I have cars with broken stepladders and not one piece of undercarriage detail installed and i still get high remarks for them. unless you get up ultra close and look you won't ever see 75% of those details. theres a trainshow tomorrow and I hope to stock up on as much bluebox as I can.

    the glory days are over.
     
  14. GP30

    GP30 TrainBoard Member

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    Branchline Trains still makes good kits. I like the Yardmaster Series, they are pretty easy to assemble and have much more detail than the Athearn BB's ever did. Then there is the next step up from the Yardmaster series in the Blueprint line of Branchline kits, which require a little more skill in kit building.
     
  15. Caleb Austin

    Caleb Austin TrainBoard Member

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    I'm sorry to here this. The first freight car I ever got was a bluebox UP box car. Building the kit was the fun of it all too....:(
     
  16. rkcarguy

    rkcarguy TrainBoard Member

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    I'm sure that the labor costs of making the kits here compared to the RTR's which are made in China are no comparison. It's yet another sad example of how our country will continue to go downhill if we don't change some tariff rates and stop the outsourcing. I would hope that they save the tooling so that IF things turn around production can resume.
     
  17. TWhite

    TWhite TrainBoard Member

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    As a somewhat older (!) modeler, I cut my teeth on the old Athearn metal freight car kits that had six kazillion pieces and somehow everything went together right as it should, though it took a while to do it, LOL!

    Frankly, when Athearn changed over to the BB plastic kits, I was pretty disappointed for a while. They looked okay, but the fun of really sitting down and building something was taken away. But I gradually outgrew that particular problem and acquired a fairly sizeable fleet of them. A lot of them were given to my grand-nephew as he discovered the hobby and I discovered Accurail, Branchline and Bowser kits, but I still have quite a few of the BB reefers.

    I'll miss the kits if only for the fact that it seems that Athearn is about the only place I can find HO flat-cars for the era I model.

    I felt pretty much the same way when Roundhouse stopped their kits and went solely to RTR (though I like their RTR product a lot). But at least for those of us who like to get in there and put something together, there's still Accurail, Bowser, Branchline Yardmaster, and if you're feeling really adventurous, Branchline Blueprint, Intermountain/Red Caboose and Proto.

    But I'm sorry to see the BB's go. They're really a part of the history of the hobby for a lot of us.

    Tom
     
  18. friscobob

    friscobob Staff Member

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    Am I the only one here that's gonna be buying up all the BB kits I can find? Most likely not............... ;)

    He-looooooooo, Okie City and Ft. Worth......................
     
  19. Flash Blackman

    Flash Blackman TrainBoard Member

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    I have never heard of these metal Athearn kits. Does anyone have a picture?
     
  20. jeffrey-wimberly

    jeffrey-wimberly TrainBoard Member

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    No pictures but I know they existed as I had a couple of them when I was a kid. The detail was somewhat better than the Model Power metal train cars.
     

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