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 ( hey Gordon-long time no see ) As an aside to the Athearn 'issue', wouldn't it be something if Horizon were to overhaul the Athearn product line -- like keep all of their Genesis stuff, as well as some of their more recent releases, but retool the long-in-the-tooth stuff that was originally part of the Globe line FIFTY years ago-back in the rubber-band drive days. As much as Athearn has been part of my model railroading 'history since the fifties, I now purchase other brands of more finely detailed and more prototypically correct rolling stock, and typically pass on Athearn. (I model late '40s/early'50s-yes some of their more modern fleet is much better than their steam/diesel transistion era stuff) At one time I stayed away from most everything that wasn't Athearn or MDC, except swap meet preowned, because of the cost. With the price of both, especially Athearn, now close to the newer tooled stuff from Proto 1k / 2k, Spectrum, Accurail, Bowser, Red Caboose, etc., I simply feel that Athearn is no longer a good place for me to spend my hobby dollars. If there is any company that could absolutely (re)grab a huge chunk of the market it would be Athearn if they introduced some accurate USRA freight equipment w/ correct markings, decent trucks, separate grabs, and finer scaled roofwalks and sliding door hardware. And if they really wanted to knock our socks off, how about full length heavyweight passenger cars -perhaps of modular construction w/ common roofs and underbellies, but separate and specific sides that would reasonably replicate different prototypes. No RTR needed for this modeler. And since it seems that most modelers favor Kadees, either sell kits less couplers or incl. Kadees across the board. Why charge for something that you're customer is going to toss and replace? Remember Train Miniature from the '60s/'70s? It was good stuff and competitive w/ Athearn in cost but much better in value because it used newer tooling producing more accurate and finer detailed rolling stock. Remember Bachmann and Life Like before Spectrum and Proto? I think it 's Athearn's turn. . . Let's spread a rumor!
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