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Bob, Thanks for posting the pics. It's been 40 years since I saw the metal Athearn's. The detail work on the bodies and end castings is quite good. Real impressive that Athearn chose to model all four styles. Looks like actual sprung trucks, too. Your models are in great shape for their age, the metal still retaining the original lustre. I remember being really impressed with the metal models when I first saw them and I still feel that way, they are well engineered for their time. It's easy to see the amount of work necessary to build this version over the plastic one piece body RDC. So Athearn went from this to a rubber-band plastic RDC. I was looking on eBay late last night and found quite a few Athearn and other makers of RDC units up for auction. There was one set of New Haven Athearn rubber band units in the original boxes at the current bid of $101. Guess there are some Athearn collectors out there that prize these cars in mint condition. On a couple of the auctions it was noted that Athearn has discontinued production of the RDC's. Were the latest offerings of the RDC by Athearn still rubber band powered?? If so, was this the last holdout of rubber band drive by Athearn?? I'm going to start watching the eBay listings for the possibility of a metal bodied Athearn to show up and probably get one if the pricing is within reason. Thanks again for taking the time to post the pictures. One more question answered in Athearn history. Walt
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