What's NOT Made in China?

[Anonymous]

I'd rather send my money to anywhere but China.

Benchwork is built, track is down, and the NCE DCC system and one Atlas engine are on thier way.

I've saved up for this, and I'm going to buy 2 more quality engines and maybe 15 pieces of rolling stock to get things going for my two sons and I.

Are any quality engines made in America anymore? Europe? Even Japan or Taiwan?

How about rolling stock? Are kits made here and RTR elsewhere?

I know the NCE DCC system was assembled here. I wonder where they got the componets from?

Thanks
Jim

[willy6]

i don't think you have a choice when it comes to "China". i think the only thing on my layout not made in China is the wood for benchwork and i wonder about that.

[jsoderq]

Don't hit the panic button yet. Most kits are still made here. Bowseer all american. Stewart frieght cars and some locos, Red Caboose and Intermountain KITs are made here when you can get them. Up until now, Athearn and MDC kits were made here.Kato made in Japan. Roco made in Austria (some Atlas locos not all) Concor HO is made here, the N is mixed.Accurail is made here and are very comparable to Athearn but more accurate and detailed. Might be the best value fir frieght cars right now.If you are really into accuracy, all the resin kits are made here, while complex build into really accurate cars.

[MAbruce]

Kato is made in Japan. I’m also pretty sure that MT (N-scale) is still made in the USA. Otherwise, most MRR items (and non-MRR items) seem to be coming from China these days. I think Atlas had a recent N-scale release that was made in Korea (the VO1000’s).

If you are limiting yourself from any item made in China, you may have to send back that Atlas engine you have coming. [:0]

[jwmurrayjr]

IHC (Meheno) is still made in eastern europe, I think.

And as mentioned Accurail. [:)]

I just bought a shirt made in Canada.

[orsonroy]

If you're looking for non-Chinese track, your choices are Peco (England), Micro Engineering (USA), Roco (Austria), Shinohara (Japan) and Kato (Japan).

[BRAKIE]

Boswer locomotives and car kits is still made in the USA...The Athearn Blue Box Locomotives and car kits is still made in the USA..

[simon1966]

I thought Atlas flex track was still made in the USA? Branchline freight car kits are made in the USA. They proudly state that the tools and moulds are USA made as well. Personally, I find these to be some of the most satisfiying kits I assemble. Then of course there are many craftsman kit makers for structures. Businesses like American Model Builders, JL Innovative design, to name 2 of my favorites. The IHC steamers are made in Slovenia still I believe. The great British brands like Hornby are all made in China now I beleive.

[NHRRJET]

If we ever go to war with China, we will probably lose. They make practically everything we use! Made in USA?. . . .What's that?

[ndbprr]

This statement will probably surprise some people but my MBA is from the University of Chicago which is the premier school for economics right now. In class after class for two and half long years I was presented with research and facts from very knowledgable profs including three Nobel prize winners in economics who all came to the same conclusion based on different factors. Trading with third world countries raises the living conditions exponentially over political or trade restrictions. Why? Because the people being "exploited" compare their standard of living compared to what they are making for export and demand more from their own country in the way of living standards and wages. That sure beats embargos and sending soldiers all over the world. Any time somebody wants to take on their own repression it sounds like a winner to me. There is not one case of trade restrictions working but there are many where trading raised entire countries. When that happens the playing field becomes more level because their wages and benefits increase. Our productivity levels are second to none. Our workers produce more work and product per man hour than anywhere else. Equal wages and we win hands down. Most of teh jobs in nmaking trains aren't rocket science. Unless you are custome scratchbuilding models I doubt you could get much more than minimum wage. Anybody want to stop what they are doing for a living to take one of those jobs?

[garr]

Do not forget Kadee couplers and cars are made in the USA.

Jay

[BNSFNUT]

I have got a few car kits from Walthers that were marked made om Demark.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by willy6

i don't think you have a choice when it comes to "China". i think the only thing on my layout not made in China is the wood for benchwork and i wonder about that.

Canada has a lot of good softwood plywood, CHEAP! Come up and get some.

[Anonymous]

Fleischmann and Marklin trains are still made in Germany - along with LGB in G-scale and others. Roco are made in Austria. I also feel uneasy about the fact that everything seems to be made in China, mainly due to their appalling human rights record (they still routinely imprison and murder pro-democracy campaigners). I guess the only consolation is that China will be forced to reform by trade pressure - they may make everything for us, but if we stopped buying their economy would collapse!

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by NHRRJET

If we ever go to war with China, we will probably lose. They make practically everything we use! Made in USA?. . . .What's that?

That is exactly what "scares" me; 1. Someday everything in the USA will be foreign made, even Kellog's cereal is now made in Canada! (???)

And 2. If we ever need to do what we did in WWII, and have all mfg. companies produce supplies for the war effort, the US Government would ultimately be very sorry it even allowed globalization to work in the USA.

I CAN"T STAND globalization, it is literally killing America, along with allowing illegal immigrants into the country and other stupid allowances...[:0][:(!][:(!][B)][V]

Enough ranting-you get my point!

Anyways,

Accurail, Bowser, Kadee, Micro Engineering, Red Caboose, Central Valley, American Model Builders, Branchline Trains, Details West, Bar Mills, Westerfield, Funaro & Camerlengo, Digitrax, CVP, NCE, and many other small model companies make their products here in the USA. I think Atlas Custom-Line track is still Made in USA.

However, Intermountain, Atlas, Life-Like, Bachmann, Athearn, MRC, BLI, and some others I can't think of at the moment are all made in China, with the exception that Intermountian kits, couplers, and wheelsets are still in the US.

Notice that the largest companies outsource their manufacturing, while smaller firms tend to stay here in the USA. It is still quite possible to make a complete layout with only the locomotives and some wiring foreign-made.

BTW, where is LBF made?

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cjm89
[br
BTW, where is LBF made?

In Little Bitty Bedrooms. It requires one LBF and one LBM, but whether you're going to get a LBF or LBM is a 50/50 chance. [;)]

[grayfox1119]

Ndbprr, I could not agree with you more. Having both a career as a hi-tech engineer (retired now) and an MBA received at age 55, you are quite correct. I know that man Americans do not want to hear about items imported. But we once were in their shoes. The younger generations of today know nothing of what our forefathers went through working in sweat shops when OUR country switched from Agriculture to Industrialization, just as Japan did, and SKorea, and now China. We have it easy now in this country, and we don't want war, well neither will those countries when they get a taste of the good life!! And as ndbprr stated so well, how many of you are willing to work for $1.50 an hour to assemble engines all day? We must learn new skills and move ahead, steam is gone forever (sob), we are now deisel, ....tomorrow?? That is where America has it's future....innovation. We are ONE PLANET folks!!

***

[ciortato]

On my two layouts (Italian and USA), Rivarossi and Lima are made in Italy ...... I don't know for the future after their problems .....

[ericsp]

Athearn and MDC kits are still made in America. The RTR and Genesis are made in China.

Some LBF stuff is made here (last I hear), some is made in China.

If you have some experience builting stuff, Eel River Models are made here. However, there only offering is 60' Pacific Car & Foundry RBLs (insulated boxcars) with 10' door or 12' doors.

I think that I saw on my Walthers autocarriers that i bought in the mid 1990s that they were made in Denmark (a foreign country). However, I know Walthers also has stuff made in China.

If you are looking for buildings, Pikestuff and Rix products are made in America.

[Supermicha]

Roco, Fleischmann and Marklin are still made in Austria resp. Germany...

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

ERICSP; Are you sure that Athearn are still made in the US. Athearn did sale out.

[simon1966]

I often fall asleep thinking about my layout and the next projects that I am going to tackle. It is one of the things I really like about the hobby, I can fill my mind with it, instead of worrying about other pressures of life. Last night, I found myself considering this issue, and what it would mean to the hobby if so much was not manufactured overseas by US companies. My considered opinion is that there would probably be less choice, much less R to R and that our hobby would be more expensive.

Without the ability to outsource manufacturing, companies like BLI would not exist. The multi, million dollar production facilities needed to manufacture their product line in the USA would be a huge barrier to starting this business. I even wonder if there are subcontractors in the USA capable of producing these models? I suspect, that the only cost effective way for BLI to function is to utilize manufacturing facilities that already exist capable of producing this type of work. What we have here is the Brass business model on a grand scale. So remove China from the equation and the products on offer in the market and therefore the choice goes down.

I personally do not purchase R to R as I enjoy spending time assembling kits. R to R stops the modeller spending time, but someone spends the time! I suspect that most R to R and highly detailed locomotive shells, do not lend themselves to much in the way of automated manufacturing. This assembly is performed by hand. It may well be done in a production line setting, but still there is a high labor component in the cost of these items. what does a typical US worker expect to earn per hour? How much other direct cost does a US manufacturer incur to employ the worker? R to R is probably nor viable with typical Western labor costs. It is not hard to come up with $20 in labor cost alone to produce an R to R caboose. Start throwing in other maufacturing costs and we start to see silly numbers. If everything we can buy today was made in the USA how many of us could afford to stay in the hobby? I suspect that this would be a very small hobby if it were not for low cost overseas manufacturing.

The final point, is that there are rather a lot of American workers who make their living, designing, managing, importing and selling these Chinese products.

[twhite]

Oops, deja vu!
When I first got interested in model railroading, back sometime between the Medieval and Renaissance Eras, everybody was complaining about Japanese brass steamers, which were new on the market. That was until everybody started collecting then because they looked GREAT and with a little tinkering, ran well. This was the era of open-frame motors, guys, DC instead of DCC (computers were still taking up city blocks), grain of wheat bulbs that looked like you'd stolen them from your dad's old standard-guage Lionel Blue Comet, and wheelsets that made more noise than the prototype. I remember buying my first plastic steamer, a 2-8-8-2 that had just arrived from Rivarossi, and being shocked--SHOCKED, I tell you--to find out that it was actually made in Italy. ITALY? What was it made out of, pasta? Didn't we fight them as well as Japan in WWII? My God, I was being Un-American! Thank God for Roundhouse, Athearn, Varney and Walthers. But, being as I am, a crotchety old steam fan, I gradually realized that in order to have a decent locomotive selection, I was going to have to buy from Japan and Italy, because the only people here making steamers was Varney--soon to go out of business--and for a very, VERY brief time, Athearn. And Mantua's steamers just didn't appeal to me. Years, and many Japanese imports later, as I began to upgrade my loco fleet, I found that Proto and Spectrum were coming out with some real jewels that didn't cost the National Debt. I didn't even realize they were made in China (a couple from Austria, too, I think) until I'd fallen in love with their performance. Now BLI has those wonderful, noisy steamers that I've gotten several of, and lo and behold, it's China or Korea. Appalling Human Rights issues aside (and yes, I agree with all of your comments on that issue), what this makes me think, is that our hobby isn't declining at all, but becoming larger and more global. Don't get me wrong though, I attempt to buy American products as much as I can (Athearn, Accurail, etc.) But I model a particular era in railroading (1940-52) with big steam, and if I need or want a new steamer, I have no choice but to go with a foreign importer (no, I do NOT want a Lionel Challenger, never liked the looks of that locomotive). So, until an American manufacturer wants to build a steamer in the good old USofA, I've got no choice except Japan, Korea, China, Italy or Austria. Yah, I suppose I could convert to first-generation diesels, but I like watching those rods revolve too much.

[Anonymous]

Hello ***

I do understand the economics of it all. In theory, anyway.

However, China does not play by the rules. From what I read, reform is coming awfully slow over there. Wages and conditions may go up slightly in the city, but there are a gazzillion more of them coming from the rural areas.

Japan may have "re-engineered" our products when they started thier rebirth after the war, but China just copies anything , and everything, they want. From software to golf clubs to nuclear warheads. And they do **nothing** about it.

My brother-in-law and his wife just got back from China with the little girl they adopted (read *bought*) from them, so I watch my mouth. But China is evil, not our friends, and don't care about being a good member of the world community. Japan and South Korea are the opposite of China.

Those sweat shops you mentioned that were here at one time sure changed, didn't they? They became somewhat decent paying jobs across our country... footwear factories in New England, clothing mills, all sorts of factory work. If those slave workers in China complain and threaten to stop working, well ....

I don't know, I just don't understand what the future holds for my kids, and thier kids. As all these factories close up all across our country, what do these people do? Get jobs at WalMart? Suddenly become EE's?

I understand "innovation." We see it in model railroading, I think. NCE and Digitrax are two exapmples. But how many people work at NCE? How many people lost their jobs when the XYZ factory closed down (and XYZ's suppliers and contractors).

And all these completely unskilled immigrants we have coming in, what are they going to do to make enough money to become middle class? One hundred years ago, it was my unskilled great grandfather that came here from Italy. But someone had secured a job for him in the Pennsylvania coal mines (Robertsdale, Pa, where the East Broad Top RR hauled coal from), and he got jobs for his sons, and they bought houses and sent their children to college. All these Spanish laborers here in NJ are crowded into apartments and little houses, trying to send money back to thier families. many are just giving up and going back to thier countries. I feel sorry for them.

Woah, way too much coffee this morning. Anyway, go to hell Walmart and China. And India is gearing up to do the same damage to us.

I guess we all could work for the government. Those tox dollars just seem to grow on tress behind city hall.

Jim

[Anonymous]

Ironmine-That is the truest thing about the whole globalization problem I've ever read.
China, India, N. Korea, Pakistan and a few other Asian countries are evil, very true.

[jsanchez]

What is scarry is that all the high tech jobs which were to be our future are rapidly disapearing, I worked in the Semiconductor business for 15 years, it is all going to China, engineering, research and production. The MBA's who mentioned "we have to get new skills " will be in the same boat as everyone else, when corporations figure out they can be had for 10, 000 to 15,000 a year in China and India and actualy know how to run businesses not just theorize on how businesses should be run from useless business professors and US business schools, also corporate China will not have any use for American MBA's once they control everything, they will be laughed at for being so short sighted and actually believing in free trade.

QUOTE: Originally posted by ironmine

Hello ***

I do understand the economics of it all. In theory, anyway.

However, China does not play by the rules. From what I read, reform is coming awfully slow over there. Wages and conditions may go up slightly in the city, but there are a gazzillion more of them coming from the rural areas.

Japan may have "re-engineered" our products when they started thier rebirth after the war, but China just copies anything , and everything, they want. From software to golf clubs to nuclear warheads. And they do **nothing** about it.

My brother-in-law and his wife just got back from China with the little girl they adopted (read *bought*) from them, so I watch my mouth. But China is evil, not our friends, and don't care about being a good member of the world community. Japan and South Korea are the opposite of China.

Those sweat shops you mentioned that were here at one time sure changed, didn't they? They became somewhat decent paying jobs across our country... footwear factories in New England, clothing mills, all sorts of factory work. If those slave workers in China complain and threaten to stop working, well ....

I don't know, I just don't understand what the future holds for my kids, and thier kids. As all these factories close up all across our country, what do these people do? Get jobs at WalMart? Suddenly become EE's?

I understand "innovation." We see it in model railroading, I think. NCE and Digitrax are two exapmples. But how many people work at NCE? How many people lost their jobs when the XYZ factory closed down (and XYZ's suppliers and contractors).

And all these completely unskilled immigrants we have coming in, what are they going to do to make enough money to become middle class? One hundred years ago, it was my unskilled great grandfather that came here from Italy. But someone had secured a job for him in the Pennsylvania coal mines (Robertsdale, Pa, where the East Broad Top RR hauled coal from), and he got jobs for his sons, and they bought houses and sent their children to college. All these Spanish laborers here in NJ are crowded into apartments and little houses, trying to send money back to thier families. many are just giving up and going back to thier countries. I feel sorry for them.

Woah, way too much coffee this morning. Anyway, go to hell Waymart and China. And India is gearing up to do the same damage to us.

I guess we all could work for the government. Those tox dollars just seem to grow on tress behind city hall.

Jim

[Anonymous]

Märklin and Trix have started producing stuff in China - so read boxes carefully. Some Herpa cars are made in China.

IHC and Model Power kits are made in Denmark, Germany, and sometimes Brazil. Heljan's kits are also Danish. Walther's kits seem to be made for them in Denmark by Heljan, or Germany, by Kibri.

Hornby just bought Spanish manufacturer Electrotren, and plans to switch all manufacturing to China.

Some Rivarossi is now made in China - the skeleton log cars, for example. And while some of IHC's freight and passenger cars are made in Slovenia by Mehano, some passenger cars are made in China.

Stewart Models locomotives, are for th emost part, made in South Korea by Ajin.

The EU does not require manufacturers to state the country of manufacture on products. They only have to display the CE logo that ensures they comply with certain standards.

I prefer to buy products from countries that defend human rights, hold elections, allow for freedom of the press, etc. as well.

[Don Gibson]

(OVERSIMPLIFICATION):

Q: "What's not made in China (or Mexico or India or Malasia, or?" ......(fill in the blank) ...

Small 'limited demand' items. The original type businesses that were our hobby. Mantua Metal Products, for example, Model Die Cast for another.
Just like hobby shops have gone out of business with 'discount' oriented customers,
it does start with US. We are in a 'get it for less' society.

BRASS is a good example. HOW many (%) of us are content to pay for a hand-crafted
products (no matter where they are made)?

As POGO once said: "We has met the enemy, and they is us!" - Sorry.

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by garr

Do not forget Kadee couplers and cars are made in the USA.

Jay

And Homasote! [:p]