Athearn producing modern diesels in fallen flag colors

[nkp_174]

True...but I didn't see if they were made in China or not (I thought some of their locomotives were still made here, while the completely assembled ones are from China).

[Russ Bellinis]

I think the only thing they still produce in this country are blue box kits. I may be mistaken, but I think shortly after they came out with the mikado, they shifted all of their production of locomotives to China.

[jbaakko]

I think the only thing they still produce in this country are blue box kits. I may be mistaken, but I think shortly after they came out with the mikado, they shifted all of their production of locomotives to China.

Blue Box kits were shifted to China. Nothing is made in the US.

[nkp_174]

Blue Box kits were shifted to China. Nothing is made in the US.

According to their website, all of the kits (including locomotives) are still made in the USA. The guy at my LHS said the same with regards to the cars. I don't pretend to have any special knowledge. It has been a few years since I've bought anything Athearn other than a 2-8-0.

[Trolleyfan]

This news should have made it into the July newsletter (in the 3Q issue). I think they were announced in June (IIRC)... What a waste of Athearn's money...

Yep, a waste of money, just like all the locomotives to date that have been sold that were painted in colors and railroads that never owned the prototype.....a few manufacturers come to mind, Con-Cor, Mantua, Tyco, Life-Like, AHM, IHC, Bachmann.....and others probably too numerous to mention in O, HO and N. Besides, once the hobby shops purchase the locomotives from Athearn's parent company, Horizon Hobby Distributors, they've made their money. It doesn't matter if some modelers turn their noses up at them it just means that your LHS owner might have to discount the heck out of them to get some of his money back if they don't sell. I know a number of model railroaders who have been doing what Athearn has finally gotten around to doing for their version of "What If....." layouts. I've seen Dash-9's in the NP Loewy scheme also SD60's in GN and NYO&W just to name a few. Ever seen a narrow gauge SD40-2 painted the D&RGW Silverton train colors? hock: Looks odd at first, but after a while you kinda get used to it.
It also means that those modelers who can't paint (or build models of any kind for that matter ) will be able to have the same thing on their layout. Might as well try to tell the manufacturers that we would really like to have the kits back at a reasonable price rather than being stuck paying up to 3 or 4 times the kit amount for a RTR model (doesn't work, I've tried! Horizon believes that if they make trains only RTR we'll buy it anyway ), however, that's not gonna happen until the Chinese pull the plug on cheap labor and jack the prices up to double or triple what they charge now.