Does Athearn have something against N scale?

Oh hush now, you East Coast people get all your television broadcast live and never have to suffer through the phenomenon called Tape Delay.

As a proud Westerner, I not only benefit from this alleged "Western bias," but I contribute to the hobby industry because of it! Bahaha!

 

I share that blame, I only have a dozen or so of the milk cars and express cars.

As far a as Walthers , I couldn't do without the buildings, I keep buying them still .

Randy

 

Perhaps it's not so much a Western Bias as it is a modern bias. I mean aside from steam which has a go big or go home bias.

 

So is it the n scaler modelers fault there aint no eastern n scale steam...or the manufactures...I'm confused :-S

You cant buy what they dont make ! Its a catch 22. Its all ATSF's and UP's fault that those western roads are so popular...LOL

"Build it...and they will come !"

 

Kinda throwing the baby out with the bathwater there, no?

The structures are a HUGE contribution.

Difco's, Greenville's, and even some of their older rolling stock are important pieces even if not of the latest quality/detail standards. If they're content with churning out structures, all while dribbling out old Life-Like stuff and the occassional new freight car, then what's wrong with that? Same with Athearn really.

I think Atlas and Kato have spoiled us with their gargantuan product line. (and even Atlas has slowed the roll a little of late) Enjoy the products from the smaller guys, I say. There is PLENTY of opportunity to blow up your credit card in n-scale these days, trust me! Go check out the dozens or hundreds of smaller n-scale manufacturers that have cool products!

 

2 of those you mention I wont deal with for personal reasons. One you mention I tried for the first time...twice on the same product...got a lemon both times...there wont be a third chance. The rest... maybe...time will tell. I'll stick with my Atlas, Kato and MT stuff for now...their stuff has been running fine for me for years!!

 

Oye, ok since I have no idea which ones "offend you" I've just deleted it. Sigh...

Maybe you can share with us the "Transgressions Against George" list sometime, perhaps a blog? Be interesting to see if Kato Unitrack has been scratched out.

 

And from the "bad timing" file...from Athearn's Facebook page:

"For nearly 6 years, Chuck has been the voice of our Parts Department. He's incredibly knowledgeable, an expert at repairs & reviewing samples, and an award winning N scale modeler. If you’ve ever corresponded with him, you know how much he cares. Chuck is retiring Thursday and we’ll miss him greatly. We wish you the best Chuck!"

I can't make this stuff up...

Headline: ATHEARN FIRES N-SCALERS!!!

:teeth:

 

Nah...could only do that if I was allowed to post on TRW...but thanxs for the thoughts anyways.

 

I've met Chruck personally, at a local swap meet. REAL cool guy. Gave me a lot of insider info. Also bought parts from Athearn via him. This is sad news indeed. Hope he has a great retirement.

 

LOL

Allen,

Now I have a better understanding. Good one.

I will miss Chuck, he's been as helpful as anyone can be. Salute.

 

As Daniel stated, so many half truths and congecture here. I guess it would be a sin to actually learn the facts before posting jibberish.

The Facts -

- Athearn makes two distint product lines: "Genesis" and "Ready to Roll". Ready to Roll included the N scale locos and cars.
- About 2 years ago, Athearn's production facility that built their Genesis line closed due to bankruptcy. They struggled for 6 months trying to find a new factory.
- Shortly after finding a new production facility for the Genesis line, their factory that made the "Ready to Roll" lines and other accessories went belly up.
- After searching for a while, they decided to build the "Ready to Roll" in the same factory as the "Genesis". This now squeezed production time for two lines into one plant, slowing the releases of both lines.

Athearn has not had a good steady ability to produce anything for about 2 years. The Genesis HO products started flowing a few months ago. The first "Ready to Roll" product is arriving this coming month. They have a year or so of previous announcements to catch up on before announcing anything else new.

Try working at a hobbyshop that sells a lot of Athearn HO "ready to run" rolling stock. Our shelves are bare and have been for at least 6 months. We haven't seen anything new in over a year and half in any scale, not just N scale. Customers are giving up on Athearn. Customers that would come in once a month to see what was new have not been back in quite a while.

In short, Athearn hasn't produced anything in at least a year and a half. They have announcements from about 6 months before that time to catch up on. Why piss off more customers by announcing product that they won't see for 9 months to a year. If you look at Athearns website, they have a projected production schedule as to when you will see all the previously announced product over the next year. Remember they have a new facility that they have to get everbody up to speed at and then produce 6+ months of announcements in 2 scales to get caught up while still keeping people interested with new releases.

 

Thanks Tony.

Now we can all have a better understanding.

Still, well, darn it, that doesn't change how I feel about one of my favorite model train providers. We shall see what the future holds. Who knows, we might get our old Athearn back with another production line.... Athearn Kits. Wouldn't that be awesome? Genesis, Ready to Roll and the old time Blue Box Kits. Tooling for these should be out there somewhere. Ok, well, you don't agree. There again, maybe not.hboy:

 

Actually, ExactRail is experimenting with this, albeit in undecorated form.

 

Maybe you'd have to be somebody who started in N in 1967 (like me) to appreciate how much better N is today, I dunno. And the range and variation of car/engine types, much less the vast array of road names. It's not HO, no -- but compare where HO was in 1970 (after being around about 40 years) to where N scale is after 40 years. I still contend it was the increasingly improving quality of N scale stuff that made HO guys sit up and say "Hey, why can't we have that in OUR scale?" (Notice HO also picked up modular layouts after N scale showed the way) You also have to consider that an achievement in N is about 4 times more than one in HO mainly because of size. Oh, wow, a motor and decoder in an HO 44-tonner...hell, you got enough space inside the shell to do that with your eyes closed. Now try to pull off a motor AND decoder AND decent pulling power (without traction tires!) in an N SCALE 44-tonner, AND make it run WELL-- it's like climbing a mountain instead of a dirt pile.
As for "region specific" rolling stock -- forget it for unique passenger equipment; they don't even get that in HO except in brass. But N scale has many types of boxcars, hoppers, flats, covered hoppers, etc that were the same or very close to what Eastern roads had. The only concern here is finding the decals or dry-transfers to letter them (Seems to me this lack of Eastern road factory-made stuff would mean decal-makers of Eastern roads would have quite a market to fill). As for steamers, they were almost as varied as the passenger equipment, though I do agree somebody should be marketing a Pennsy line of steamers (or shells).
Some 20 years ago I set about modelling PRR passenger trains out of Chicago. The only cars then that were prototypical for early 50's operations were the Atlas/RR observation, the Lima/AHM and some RR heavyweights.
When Kato brought out the SuperChief I bought a set of sleepers so I could have the SF pool car 4-4-2 for what I called my "Broadway Limited". For the UP 10-6s I reworked their generic corrugated side 10-6. I couldn't even find any REA decals to put on my kitbashed 57' REA reefers.
Then came the REA decals. And the MTL REA reefers themselves. And the real Broadway Limited. And the COLA, with a correct UP 10-6 pool sleeper. And P85 coaches from CCS. And brass car sides for Pennsy cars. Doing Pennsy passenger trains was now pretty easy. In fact, I realized the challenge in making PRR trains where there weren't any ready-made cars available was why I'd chosen that layout theme. Now it's easy to make PRR passenger trains - just buy 'em (anybody want a 1953 heavyweight kit-bashed Fort Pitt?).
So now I've switched to the New Haven, circa 1951-54. Passenger cars? A couple of car sides available from ESM. Decals? Very limited. Though I can get stock almost every type of loco the NH had, from S-2s to U25Bs, the NH had some unique freight car designs that I'll have to kitbash. There are only correct (or nearly correct) factory-made boxcars, covered hoppers, and open hoppers. And passenger? Rapido says they might make the Osgood-Bradley cars in N someday, but I'm not holding my breath. And so I expect the next decade or so I'll be coming up with ways to make or modify stock passenger cars to NH prototypes, because the NH was passenger trains. (I'm not doing any electrics -- I'm not that insane)
I'm saying I look at model railroading as a challenge hobby, which probably is a minority view. I think in that regard we N scalers are better off than HO, where it seems that any kind of loco, car, building, vehicle, signal, detail part or decal set is available ready-made, and only needs be bought and plopped down on the layout. Where's the creativity in that?

 

Thanks, Tony, for once again bringing sanity to these kinds of threads.

The simple truth is that manufacturers produce items for which they believe there is a decent market. If a manufacturer produces something and no one buys it, they won't produce it again (or they will soon declare bankruptcy). I don't know what Athearn's profit margin is on N scale, but I do know that the Challengers and BigBoys sold out rapidly, and hence are scheduled for another production run. The production problems are what have held things up, not Athearn's disinterest in N scale. And these are very widely regarded as perhaps the best steam locomotives ever produced in N. I have one of each on order, even though it's going to be a stretch to justify seeing a UP Big Boy on NKP rails in northern Ohio circa 1957 (my fictional story is that the NKP asked the UP to loan one of each to do some test runs against the Berks, just for fun).

Athearn isn't the only company with production problems. Seen any Atlas Code 55 track lately?

It does seem to me that the mess with production in China would cause some folks to reconsider bringing production back to the U.S. If Toyota, Nissan, Honda, BMW, Mercedes, etc. can all build cars here at a hefty profit, surely we can make model trains . . . ?

John C.

 

Any chance we could get this thread posted as a sticky thread? At least for a while until the production problem goes away...
Then the next time this subject comes up, we could all just reply to the OP with the link?

 

Athearn lost their N-Scale factory in January 2012. It took 11 months to locate another that would produce at the same quality level. All has been re-scheduled and the next deliveries start next month. Beyond that deliveries run past August.

Recently Athearn changed their announcement system and will only announce new product 6 times a year. The recent announcement was of deliveries not new product.

"Athearn" has no control over how new tooling dollars are spent. Those investment decisions are made by their owners, Horizon Hobby Distributors who apparently are controlled by their banker/financiers.