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The problems will come not from the purchase of the Athearn company, but from the closing of the doors to the vast majority of the distribution channels. If your hobby shop needs 25 new locos to fill its orders, including YOURS, but it only gets 15, to whom does it go to get the remainder? Shops could, and regularly did, order mostly from a single distributor, but if an order was shorted, they could go to others, who might have extras. That day is over. Also, a great many sellers, on the Internet or at train shows, will no longer qualify to buy Athearn products from this distributor, so those sellers will be restricted to other brands. The sales of Athearn products overall, will decline, of that there is no doubt. And when you sell less of something, the price will go up. If Horizon had made the purchase and left the distribution channels intact, it would be a good thing. Restraint of trade is never a good thing. They'll have to run fast and hard to keep from losing a major chunk of market share. 2004 is going to be a VERY interesting year.
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