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Eric--Athearn leased its new facilities from one of my clients. While I have not seen the interior of Athearn's facility, I can say that it is located in an industrial park whose buildings are designed for logistics rather than manufacturing. The building is located in the Alameda corridor which is southern California logistics superhighway. My guess is that the ecomomics of manufacturing compel that part of hte business to be done overseas. southern California is very expensive place to manufacture and the air quality concerns prohibit the use of paints, etc. By the way, I view the acquisition of MDC by Athearn/Horizon as a positive for the hobby. As I posted several months ago in the Atlas forum, MDC is a tired company whose products are dated and are not up to par with the competition. The integration of MDC and Athearn will allow for a greater selection of quality product. Brakie--I agree with you--every industry is consolidating. Why should model railroading be an exception? There are several trends that I think will make this inevitable. first--today is the golden age. A large population of baby boomers with lots ofdisposable income to spend on the hobby is fueling the hobby. In ten to twenty years the generation X and younger population will not participate in the hobby to the extent that the baby boomers do today. That demographic trend alone will result in retrenchment and consolidation. Then if you have two larger companies Walther and Horizon competing for supremacy, they will naturally seek to acquire smaller companies. At some point the price will be right and the owners of those companies will sell. I also expect to see consolidation in the DCC industry as DCC becomes a mature product. I would not be surprised to see Horizon acquire some DCC manufacturers as well. This is a very interesting thread.
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