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Before there was IHC there was AHM. It is my recollection that AHM fell on hard times quite a few years ago and went belly-up. Furthermore, I think they were reorganized as IHC and even kept the same address in Phila. AHM packaging should be familiar to anyone who attends swap meets or is old as dirt. It was blue & white, extremely flimsy and made even more so by a really thin sheet of clear plastic on the front of the box that seldom stayed in place very long. On,or about 1966-1968, I purchased a number of HO " AHM" heavyweight passenger cars and several engines, such as the Indiana Harbor Belt 0-8-0 (before they added the booster truck), Pere Marquette and Nickle Plate 2-8-4, a N&W 2-8-8-2 Y6b.and several very forgettable diesels ( EMD BL2 and FM units). If memory serves me right , some, if not all of the hw passenger cars and steamers were marked 'made in Italy' and branded "Rivarossi', while the diesels, and at least some of the truly awful freight equipment, was marked 'made in Austria' and some 'made in Yugoslavia' I do not recall the branding, but it may have been "Mehano"-same brandname as today for some of IHC's products. The diesels were pure junk, w/ heavy, but limited detailing and awful paintwork; they ran even worse! On the other hand, the heavyweight passenger cars and steam engines were considered 'state of the art' in plastic HO at the time; yes the flanges were so deep that they hung up on some brands of code 100 or on ballast if too liberaly applied. On the passenger equipment the couplers were talgo- type and contributed to even more derailments, and they lacked any heft-they were way too light for any operation. The paint work was excellent (although only basic paint schemes like PRR tuscan were offered), the details, including the trucks were quite good and not too heavy handed. The engines had crisp detailing with some separately applied parts, separate handrails, decent pilots, side rods (but shiny metal), very good paint/markings, super -deep European flanges, and nice tenders with fairly realistic coal loads. They were also very light for what they were intended to do-pull cars, and they usually ran like pigs. But for the mid/late 60's they were beautiful to look at. All of the AHM line was available at Woolworth's at Christmas, and in July for their 'Christmas in July' deal. Passenger cars described sold for approx $1.99 and less after Christmas. I bought the Berkshires for about $15.00 and the Y6b retailed for $29.95 and often sold for aroud $20.00. If the AHM engine and passenger equipment sounds (looks?) familiar, it is essentially the same stuff that Rivarossi and IHC are selling today except the wheel flanges are better and the steam engine motors and drives are far better. But in 1966-1968 we had only a few alternatives: Athearn shorty passenger cars, GP7s and F7s, HO Herkimer- even shorter "shorties" made out of metal-looked like HO tinplate, some old Varney stuff which became LifeLike long before they redeemed themselves w/ Proto1000/2000, and Mantua (kits)/Tyco rtr- already long in the tooth, but at least they were heavy. Come to think of it, all of that stuff is still being made today, most , if not all w/ the same tooling- AHM later introduced more products still familiar or being produced today- EMD E8s, Heislers, UP 4-8-4, etc. They also sold some HOn30-European prototype steam, diesel and tiny freight equioment that barely ran at all but almost started a 'movement' like Spectrum On30. They also made a really nice for the times O "Casey Jones" 4-6-0 in kit, rumored that they would expand O line, but never did. Anyway you slice it, AHM, IHC, and Rivarossi body shells appear to be one in the same, while there has been a steady progression of evolutionary changes to the running gear over the years, w/ Rivarossi being the best. Rumor is that Walthers' new lines of passenger equipment, including just introduced 'shorties' are Rivarossi tooling (and possibly manufacturing).
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