Athearn Sold

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jsanchez

I think Horizon is going to wind up with their head between their tails.

Trust me, Horizon won't have any problems, even if they don't sell a single Athearn product. They are a major player in the model airplane and radio-control car industries.

[orsonroy]

QUOTE: I suspect that in the future, manufacturing will close in CA and that operations will be shifted overseas.

WAAAAYYYY too late with this prediction! All of Athearn's Genesis and RTR models are ALREADY being at least assembled in China, and have been for 2-3 years now. The boxes say "Made in China" instead of "assembled in China", so I'm thinking that the tooling has been shipped overseas as well.

[EMDSD40]

Just like so many other take-overs promises are made to be broken. I personally have bought, built, and run 500+ of the "Blue Boxes" and have no complaints what so ever. I have 8 of the original SD40 locomotives that were acquired when they first hit the market, they are nearly 20 years old and they run flawlessly. I would hate to see the kits go away as I have a problem with the prices of this RTR equipment. After all isn't that a big part of this hobby-TO BUILD??? I suspect that in the future, manufacturing will close in CA and that operations will be shifted overseas. I suppose the answer may be corporate greed. Why can't everyone have a piece of the market, keep people working and the cycle continues. For myself, Iwill continue to stock up on the "Blue Boxes". I have enough kits to build, ideas to incorporate in my layout to last me more than a lifetime. Enjoy!!

[jsanchez]

I was wondering how Athearn is going to remain a major player if their products can't be shown in the Walther's catalog, that is like running a business and not having your phone number in the yellow pages, I think Horizon is going to wind up with their head between their tails. If I look at my local area the only two shops that carry a lot of Athearn, the idiots at Horizon will not sell to, because they do not meet their over zealous requirements, the only shops locally that are Horizon dealers mostly stock only O and G scale, so unless Athearn starts producing O and G trains, their will not be many sold locally and whats funny is this is a major model train market with a higher than avarge percentage of the general public being train enthusiats. Horizon also has to be nuts to throw away a solid distribution network of 30 wholesalers, I can see cutting it down to 15 or 20, but it going to be mighty hard to keep the factories humming with out having Walther's, Portman, Steven's etc as distributors. I give the clowns at Horizon 1 1/2 to 2 years, before they go being for other distributors to carry their so called exclusive trains.

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by brothaslide

I've been through an acquisition before. Promises are always made up front with the best of intentions but market demands make the final decisions. Personally, I doubt if Athearn will stay in Compton or California for that matter (Heck even Ice Cube and NWA moved from Compton!). Health Insurance, Workers Comp issues, and "aggressive" environmental requirements are making it quite difficult to conduct business in the Golden State - especially manufacturing.

I imagine that a year from now an announcement will be made that Athearn is moving out of state and/or manufacturing will be conducted over seas.

My understanding is that Athearn's RTR line is already overseas in China. The CA plant is still doing the regular blue box stuff, but in lesser quantites and they were scaling down or even getting out of the parts business already. A-line has been selling alot of Athearn parts..frames, trucks and RPP shells out of Carlsbad. I wouldn't be surprised though if they move out of CA altogether though for exactly the reasons you mentioned. CA overhead seems to be rather high.

[brothaslide]

I've been through an acquisition before. Promises are always made up front with the best of intentions but market demands make the final decisions. Personally, I doubt if Athearn will stay in Compton or California for that matter (Heck even Ice Cube and NWA moved from Compton!). Health Insurance, Workers Comp issues, and "aggressive" environmental requirements are making it quite difficult to conduct business in the Golden State - especially manufacturing.

I imagine that a year from now an announcement will be made that Athearn is moving out of state and/or manufacturing will be conducted over seas.

[scotttmason]

Looks like Walthers just got cut out of the distribution loop.

[Anonymous]

See the article in the center of the page - "Horizon Hobbies Inc. Acquires Athearn Trains"

http://www.horizonhobby.com/

[tomwatkins]

I just saw that. Very interesting. Who is Horizon Hobby? I'm not familiar with them. We'll just have to wait and see what happens next.
Tom Watkins

[Anonymous]

Atheran had said more than once, in writing, that the blue boxes were NOT going away. The whole rumor appears to have been started by dealers who wanted to get you to buy as many of them as possible.

Or, as usual, on the internet, by someone who actually didn't know what they were talking about.

[Anonymous]

Athearn has been sold to Horizon. Anyone know why? Any predictions on how things might change? I had understood the blue boxes were going to be phased out - how might this affect that?