11-27-2010, 11:07 AM
What happened was that a lot of the older blue box Athearns were designed with the wide hoods to fit the old style Athearn motor. Rail Power Products came out with scale width hood bodies for the older Athearn wide hood models as well as some other models that Athearn didn't produce like the Gp40x, the Gp60 wide cab and b-units, and the Cf7. After Horizon bought Athearn, they also bought Rail Power Products and reworked and cleaned up the tooling for better detail. The result is that some of Athearn's new stuff is new tooling, some of it is older tooling that has been cleaned up for better quality pieces, and some of their new models are altogether new tooling of models that they never made before. Horizon kept on the Athearn management, and they also hired new modelers in management positions. I've known most of these guys when they were local model railroaders here in So Cal before they went to work for Athearn and they are the "cream of the crop" of modelers in So Cal.