Things that make you go hhhmmmm.

[Anonymous]

Brit,

I like that idea of the magazine article...

Guy

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by bill mathewson

...What I hadn't realized was how much those 'blue boxes' had gone up in price in the past decade. When I started building a new freight roster I decided that the 'blue boxes' were no longer a good value, in my opinion.
<snip>
All of this ruckus over the Horizon buyout, perceived "shortages" of Athearn product, and the fear that a national institution - the 'blue box kit' - is going away, has focused a lot of attention on whether or not Athearn is still a competitive product at the prices they have soared to. . .For this modeler, I'll shop elsewhere, thank you.

Speaking of value...

The following is an exchange from another forum with my response that addresses the price difference, and MY personal perception of value:

"> ...I found I had two meat reefer kits, both
> painted for National Packing Company. So I thought it might be fun to
> build them side by side and compare. One was an up to date
> Intermountain kit, the other was early Branchline, a custom paint job on
> an Athearn kit.
>snip<
> All in all, the older and less sophisticated kit looks pretty good,
> especially on the layout and a couple of feet away from the eye.
>


```````` [my resonse-pcbq]:
I made a similar discovery. I bought a few of the Intermountain RTR
reefers in Morrell paint as they were a customer of the Q' near the
area I'm planning to model. While digging through some of my, as yet,
unbuilt kits I discovered good old Athearn makes the same in a kit (at
least it looks like the same car, which is "good enough" for me).

As you mention, the main difference between the two is in the paint,
and also the size of the herald in this case. I wish I had recalled
the Athearn model's existence before I spent $22.35 a crack on the
Intermountains. The price on the Athearn is only $5.00!

I consider myself more of a model railroader than a railroad modeler,
so the Athearn kit has much more value to my needs...it's "good
enough". But also to me the minor difference in appearance between
the two does not come close to justifying the major difference in
their respective prices. This is another reason I make no apologies
for calling myself a "good enougher" and consider the skyrocketing,
out of proportion prices in recent years of these so called "highly
detailed" models to be exhorbitant. Therefore, I tend to pass them
over when purchasing rolling stock for my layout.

Many others, obviously see it differently. I guess to each their own."