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No, you are not the oddball - the model manufacturers are. I got into model rairoading when my father gave me a Marklin HO set right after WW-2. It was all R-T-R, and while I had loads of fun with it, I didn't nkow what I was missing until one day Pop came home with a Roundhouse caboose KIT for me. It was unbelievable for a young teen-ager used to RTR trains - even the trucks were kits, articulated and with working springs. The kit had operating scale knuckle couplers and a tiny working door on the toolbox, with everything done in die-cast metal. I've been building kits ever since, with the bulk of my fleet coming from Athearn (both wood and plastic), Ulrich and MDC. My little brother became the family scratch builder after being exposed to a Red Ball kit. He still has an On3 layout in his basement that's completely scratch-built, so it doesn't bother him if all the kits go under. But it bothers me. I always enjoyed throwing an Athearn kit together after dinner, and would often pick up a kit or two on the way home from work. Obviously, that won't work with Athearn RTR. Why are Athearn kits so important to me? Because they are rugged, last a long time, and they were CHEAP. Not much else in the hobby comes even close to this combination. Oh, I'll probably get a few of the new RTR cars just out of curiosity, but at around $16 a pop, that will be it. Fortunately, I have a nice stockpile of Athearn kits still waiting to have their "boxes shaken". Gimme 99-cent Globe diesels and car kits any day and I'll keep buying. Maybe Bachman will buy up all those Athearn dies and re-issue those kits.
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