On my last layout which I was building during the 1980s, my diesels were all Athearn BB and my steamers were Rivarossi. I might have bought my first one, a UP Mikado, in an AHM box but after that they were bought from IHC and were packaged in the red Rivarossi boxes. Those were the pre-internet days when you made catalog orders either through snail mail or the toll free number. I think Trainworld was where I did most of my catalog shopping. My LHS stocked the Rivarossi passenger cars but didn't carry many of their steamers although they would order them for you.
Some of mehano's locomotives are still available at train world/train land. Like the GG1, 2-6-0 and 4-8-2
-Peter. Mantua collector, 3D printing enthusiast, Korail modeler.
jecorbett I've always find it fascinating how the same structure kit will be sold by multiple manufacturers over the years. For example, the Superior Bakery kit was first sold under the Revell name back in the 1950s and was a modified version of their two stall engine house with different end walls. Later it was sold under the AHM name. More recently it has been a Concor and Heljan kit. I'm not sure that somebody else might have sold it as well. If you look at the foundation of many plastic kits you might see the name Pola or Heljan stamped on them regardless which company is currently selling it. I've often wondered if the dyes actually change hands or is the same factory producing it and just putting it in a different box depending on the company that own the rights to it.
I've always find it fascinating how the same structure kit will be sold by multiple manufacturers over the years. For example, the Superior Bakery kit was first sold under the Revell name back in the 1950s and was a modified version of their two stall engine house with different end walls. Later it was sold under the AHM name. More recently it has been a Concor and Heljan kit. I'm not sure that somebody else might have sold it as well. If you look at the foundation of many plastic kits you might see the name Pola or Heljan stamped on them regardless which company is currently selling it. I've often wondered if the dyes actually change hands or is the same factory producing it and just putting it in a different box depending on the company that own the rights to it.
I was working in a hobby shop back in those days.....
Revell - originally USA produced, had one of the first high detail plastic structure lines in HO. Bakery, Newspaper office and engine house - shared same core building.
Station and schoolhouse - same core building. Summer theater and barn - same core building. Other kits included farmhouse with garage and chicken coop, Interlocking tower, freight house, sand house, fuel depot, and few others.
I have both built and unbuilt examples of most of the Revell structures.
Revell lasted into the late 70's, was bought by Monogram, who was not interested in the HO market - tooling sold and went over seas - sold under various names for years.
Aurora - had a small line of HO buildings at the same time they tried to promote slot cars as a highway system for HO trains - 50's/60's looking school being the most noteable piece.
AHM/IHC - bankruptcy closed AHM and they regrouped as IHC, but they lost their "exclusive" import deal with Rivarossi and other manufactures in Europe. ConCor, Model Power, Tyco and others then got into the act with the same tooling - include the once "Revell" tooling. By then the manufacturers were all moving production to China - and labeling for anyone.
I could go on, but time is short......
Sheldon
Aurora seems to have been into everything at one time - slot cars, model airplanes, cars, ships and superhero kits. I remember having Spiderman, Batman and Captain America models when I was young. Of course, painting them with those little bottles of Testors enamels didn't exactly make it easy.
But anyway...Aurora was pretty heavily into N scale with their Postage Stamp Trains. I don't know if they made anything or imported it from Europe. For some reason, they only made buildings in HO scale. However, apparently they were planning on entering the train market according to this:http://tycotrain.tripod.com/pemcorailwaysystem/
Never knew that.
Jim
The IHC name, and some of their inventory, lives on (sort of) with this outfit:
http://www.ihc-hobby.com/
Dave Nelson
ctyclsscs Pola was purchased by Faller a few years ago, as I understand it. More recently Walthers has been re-releasing a lot of the old Pola/AHM/IHC/Tyco/Model Power building kits. It gets really confusing when you start talking about structure kits since some were, as mentioned, made by Heljan, Con-Cor and Revell, while others were originally made by Aurora. I think most of the molds eventually wound up in China. Oops...forgot to mention that some of those older structures were also sold under the Life-Like and Atlas names too. And probably five more other names we haven't mentioned yet. :) Jim
Pola was purchased by Faller a few years ago, as I understand it. More recently Walthers has been re-releasing a lot of the old Pola/AHM/IHC/Tyco/Model Power building kits. It gets really confusing when you start talking about structure kits since some were, as mentioned, made by Heljan, Con-Cor and Revell, while others were originally made by Aurora. I think most of the molds eventually wound up in China.
Oops...forgot to mention that some of those older structures were also sold under the Life-Like and Atlas names too. And probably five more other names we haven't mentioned yet. :)
I was unaware that Aurora was a player in model railroading. When I think of Aurora, I think of slot car racing. I remember looking at an Aurora slot car set in the showcase of a local toy store in Omaha (Kiddie-Cut-Rate) the way Ralphie looked at the Red Ryder BB gun. As I recall, it sold for a whopping $29 and change. This was around 1960. It might has well have been $29,000 for my chances of getting it. It was about five years later and my dad started making more money that I finally got a slot car set, this one by Lionel.
The old IHC ads listed many of the Tyco structures as Pola. What became of the Tyco engine molds after IHC ceased is anybodys guess.
Looks like Mehano has the orignial AHM diesel molds.
I think some of the brick detail on those old kits is exceptional, however they are probably wearing out a bit by now.
i strongly suspect that the dyes and equipement stay put, with the either Heljan or Pola still owning the factory, or perhaps the factory itself being sold at some point to another company.
- Douglas
Thanks for the info and you are right the web site is horribl, too bad.
AHM/IHC was an importer, so Rivarossi (Hornby) and Mehano still have most of the tooling. I don't know who made all of their accessories such as buildings and high quality passenger car trucks, but their entire line of trains and track was produced by Mehano after the 80's. I think a lot of it is still in production, but I don't think there's an official importer to bring it to America anymore. AHM became IHC in the early-mid 80's, and the company shut down when their founder Bernie Paul died a few years back.
EDIT: The website's terrible, but here you go! http://www.mehano.si/EN/models.php?Id=&idm=4&group3=4&see=1&sub2=2&title=7
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Also when did both cease production.