Poor Athearn! I like them, but they keep missing the knocks of opportunity!

[sebamat]

All the Athear story has, IMHO quite a lot of similitude to the european LIMA brand. I only hope it will not end up the same....

Lima in the 70s and early 80s had a very broad line of 'almost prototopical' trains models (several hundreds different molds, very impressive, from japanese bullet trains throu south africa and australia and all the europeans RR. Only US trains were not represented) that were very pricey and sold most trough toy shops. Probably half of the kids who started train modelling in europe did it with a Lima set. And they made money...

But in in 80s their quality became target of a lot of criticism from 'serious modelers' , complaining that they were not prototocal etc etc , comparing Lima's models with other brands that sold for 3-4 times those prices.
But yes, in the meantime technology has improved a lot and their motors were outdated, and the detail level increased a lot, so that modellers got used to higher quality and hiher prices (yes!).

An here started the crux: LIMA came up with a few really better models (but still not so good as the competitors, after all you do not create top-of-the-line quality overnight), but inevitably the prices sky rocketed. So they were no more offered in supermarket and toy shops, but in the hobby shops sellers and buyers still were 'snobbish' about Lima.

The number of new models dropped to very few, there were some 'revamping' of the better 'old' models but they never caught a place in the 'modeler market'. (would you buy for 20$ a model that, beside some small change in the coupling is the same few years before you paid3$?).

To cut it short.... a few years later they had some models with oustanding critics in the modelerpress and at the same time were bankrupt.
Rivarossi bought them, never really changed things, and a few years later went belly up too.

I hope Athearn will find a way to 'reposition' their products from the low cost market (Bluebox) to the high quality, but it is surely not easy, as compettitors are not there thappy o welcome them...... and customer will give them only few chances tho show that they made the switch.

sebastiano

[davekelly]

Antonio,

You've started a few topics the last few months that have taken off like banshees!! Love reading everyone's opinions, though!

Paul,

Corporarate lawyers did not bring about the UP licensing fee. Such decisions are made by the corporate heads.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by davekelly

Antonio,


Corporarate lawyers did not bring about the UP licensing fee. Such decisions are made by the corporate heads.

But based on legal input as to what is required to protect their copyrights.

[Anonymous]

I picked up an Athearn after a 10 year or plus no purchase Athearn policy.After a diet of Atlasand P2k it was hard to look at a coffee grinder Athearn.Well this week i picked up a CP GP35 these are my thoughts on it. Still no comparison to P2K or Atla but then again its cheaper in price too! Paint was fair ,thick on rivits and on close inspection not as crisp as Atlas or P2K.Drive was smooth but still noisey.No lighted number boards..........that was a downer for me though the lights were bright,Decoder fit in like a charm and DCC conversion was easy.Detail on trucks was not crisp but acceptable.Basically a blue box Athearn in a RTR repackaged format! Screw on couplers nice to see instead of the dreaded Athearn clips.Of course this is the lower end of Athearn and maybe they are catering to the toy train crowd with these models with unrefinement at a lower price!

[davekelly]

gbailey,

Yes, you are exactly correct on that one. A lawyer has a duty to tell his/her client what the law is and the possible options that can be pursued. Would you want to hire a lawyer that would not lay out all your options? It is up to the client to decide on the course of action.

If your neighbor accidently broke your fence and I was your attorney and you asked me what your options were I would say you could (1) fix the fence yourself, (2) hope that your neighbor would fix the fence (3) get together with your neighbor and work out a solution (you never know, the two of you might decide to get together and replace the whole thing with a better looking one! win-win!) or (4) you could sue him. I would point out that suing him would take time and money and most likely result in terrible neighborly relations (the only real winner in that case would be my son who would get a nicer birthday present). If you decided to sue him, would it be my fault?

[AntonioFP45]

QUOTE: Originally posted by davekelly

Antonio,

You've started a few topics the last few months that have taken off like banshees!! Love reading everyone's opinions, though!

HI Dave!

To me this has been amazing! I honestly expected the average 15 to 17 replies as there have been several topics in just the past 2 years. Having been an Athearn customer since 1976, I wanted to take a different approach in discussing Athearn. Especially since this industry has changed greatly in just the past 10 years!.

Just my opinion, but I sincerely felt that Athearn should have been out in the front leading and not taking a back seat to Life Like P2K/P1K, Bachmann Spectrum, as well as the other "comparable" competition. Back in the late 80s, the guys in my LHS were talking rumors that LL was going to introduce a series of quality models. No joking, I remember that I laughed! As you all can see, I ate humble pie years later!

IMHO, I would have wanted to see Athearn produce the models that P2K has had since the 90s. Yes, Genesis was introduced, but it was LL that came out with the quiet running E7, E6, and E8. It was LL that came out with correctly scaled GP7, GP9, GP18, SD7, SD9, etc. The P1K RDC is a popular unit. Again I still say: Athearn missed these opportunities! Yes, the Protos were initially much more expensive than Blue Boxes, but even early on a lot of Blue Box customers were won over! Every LHS I visited had a difficult time keeping P2Ks on store shelves, though this changed later due to overproduction from LL...............which benefited us, pricewise!

Genesis seemed to have been MOSTLY concentrating on the newer, modern diesels, though they (and everyone else!) brought out a nice looking F unit.

But inspite of some of the views that Athearn didn't need to retool their old line, I still strongly disagree. LL proved that there was very strong interest in correctly scaled older diesels. How many of you reading this own P2K and P1K 1st generation equipment?.........quite a number of you I'm sure! BTW:P2K freight cars and wheel sets are also selling well. How many of you installed P2K wheels on your rolling stock? I'm sure Life Like is still counting their $$ on wheel sets!

As I stressed, my views on Athearn were not to be taken negatively. My Athearn freight cars are not going anywhere and I'm keeping my cowls and U-Boats. This thread was intended to be more of the old "Hindsight is 20/20".

Though, my opinion still is unchanged that Athearn had the opportunity and did not go for it. I do understand that Athearn is healthy and moving ahead. Of this, I'm very glad!

[davekelly]

Antonio,

I remember in the late 80's I made the switch over from N to HO. My decision was pretty much based on the existance of Athearn! Inexpensive, good running equipment. I remember wishing that Athearn would make N Scale blue boxes and thinking that Athearn would make a killing if they did!

Looking foward to your next thread!

Dave

[simon1966]

The MRR industry has undergone a series of significant periods of market redefinition. Exisiting companies, or even new companies have re-defined the market as a result of a significant step forward in technology or production methods. It is rarely the market leader, sitting comfortably at the head of the market that creates these sudden shifts. P2K did it to Athearn. I have no doubt that Athearn execs and marketing folks probably scoffed at the idea that significant numbers of hobbiests would pay more than double to get a P2K. Now look what is going on, many of us are quite happy to drop $200 odd for a sound equipped BLI, again, more than doubling the cost of a loco. I think that it is fair to say that MRC were sitting comfortably at the head of the DC control market when Digitrax and NCE et al redefined the US control market.

I think that what is suprising about Athearn is that they have been very slow to respond in any way, and are very much in a market follower mode than leader mode right now. It will be very interesting to see if the move by Atlas to re-enter the entry level market will have a profound impact on what happens next.

[AntonioFP45]

Simon1966,

Man! You've so realistically analyzed and summed up what's been happening! Simple and straightforward.

After agonizingly, going back & forth with Paul3 and reading some very good comments from other modelers, I still could not put my finger on it. But your comment has indeed answered several questions I had spinning in my head.

Traditionally in the past, (up until the early 70s) business economic leaders that were in the market place lead, stayed there for a very long time as they were often striving to be innovative and make product improvements, though sometimes deliberately slow. Companies like GE, GM, Westinghouse, and IBM were good examples of this pattern.

You're so right in that nowadays, its rarely that comfortable market leader that makes the strides. It's almost always some underdog challenger that's not taken seriously, or some "small potatoes underling" (remember Bill Gates?) that comes up to the plate and starts clubbing homeruns like Hank Aaron, catching others in this tough market game off guard!

For years I had thought that Athearn was the market leader and it was at one time. But I see now that the scenario has changed greatly from the 1990s, and Athearn's current management group is very likely "a cautious, market follower".

Given that Athearn's competition has gained a very strong foothold on the market in the past decade, this perhaps, is the best approach Athearn can take today.

[davekelly]

It took Harley Davidson a kick in the pants from the Japanese companies to finally revamp its program. Now look at them. I guess many companies get the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mind set and get taken by surprise.

[Anonymous]

But don't forget, H-D had import duties set to protect them while they regrouped. Athearn has not got that, and they now import from China just like Life-Like and Atlas.

Rick

[Paul3]

cnwfan11 wrote:

QUOTE: As for the Walther's catalog,you show me in the past years of their catalogs,where Athearn had certain products outlined in blue,that were made years ago,and are still in production.

This is a follow up to my own post to answer the above question...

I went to my club last night, and pulled some copies of the Walthers catalog...specifically 1992, 1996, and 2000, and wrote down what type of car kit Athearn was offering for each year (FYI, Walthers did not "outline in blue" anything in these three catalogs). I also visited the Athearn website today and wrote down all the car kits listed on the website that were not labled "Temporaily Out Of Production" or "Discontinued". These are the results:

In 1992, Athearn produced 36 different kinds of freight car kits. In 1996, it was 45. In 2000, it was 67. Today, it's 33.

Several kits went in and out of production since 1992. For example, the 200 Ton Crane was in production in 1992 and 2000, but not in 1996 or today.

Other kits were not in production in 1992, but have since been released again. Such as the 40' Ice Bunker Wood Reefer, the 86' Hi Cubes, or the 50' TOFC.

Still others were in production, then dropped again, such as the Auto Loader, the IMPACKs, or the 62' Tank.

In conclusion, I can now prove that Athearn has continually shifted items in and out of production for at least the last 13 years, and that the current un-availability of certain Athearn items is nothing new. Furthermore, that today, Athearn offers almost as many different kinds of kits today (33) than they did in 1992 (36).

Paul A. Cutler III
*****************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
*****************

[simon1966]

Thanks Paul for the research. This sort of puts a period at the end of some of the doom and gloom threads we had during the Hirizon take over era a few months ago. As I have mentioned before, I am not a huge fan of the BB from an accuracy point of view, but they fulfil a great need for my modelling with my boys. It is good to get a perspective on the production comparisons, I had always had the impression that while the BB kits were still in production, that it was far fewer kits.