Model Railroading > Athearn News Special Announcement - Blue Box kits - RIP

Greetings,

Effective immediately, we here at Athearn have made the difficult decision to discontinue the production of our Blue Box line of kits. There were several factors that contributed to this extremely challenging decision however, the primary issue revolved around affordability and ensuring that our Blue Box kit pricing remain aligned with what the market can bear. Unfortunately, due to increased manufacturing and labor costs it has been determined that we are no longer able to continue offering kits at competitive price points as compared to our already assembled products.

For over 50 years the Athearn Blue Box kits have been sold worldwide, bringing happiness, joy and excitement to thousands of model railroad enthusiasts. Your passion for these products has allowed us to thrive and grow into the industry leader you still support today, and for that we are eternally grateful. Moving forward this will allow us to dedicate more resources to new and exciting projects in our Ready To Roll, Genesis and Roundhouse lines for another 50 years, or more.

We will continue to support all service and warranty needs on Blue Box kits from our headquarters in Long Beach, California. You can find our contact information here.

The Folks at Athearn

Gee, I sure hope they will still sell those wonderful clip on coupler covers so the guys in the club who run these cars will still be able to keep their rolling stock going. It will be a shame if the covers continue to fall off or allow so much droop that the train breaks in two continuously and we cannot see them replaced so these pieces of art can continue to take their rightful place in the consist.

(TTIC),

Rick

(sniff) I'll really miss them. [... I wonder when they are going to read the will and tell us what is coming next?]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/09 04:12 by rschonfelder.

Simple solution to that is to drill a small hole and put a machine screw in place to hold the metal clip on.

So these will end up like the MDC plastic cars such as the MILW 40' ribside boxcars and GN experimental paint scheme boxcars. They will get upgraded paint and go into a new color of box and sell at a higher price. The ladders and other details will still be cast on, perhaps the underframes will change and feature improved coupler restraints.

I do hope they improve and keep some of the tank car and flat car models since some of these are not available anywhere else. The Blue Box wrecker and snow plow are nice castings and should be reused.

Some of their RTR cars also have those clips, and if I'm not mistaken the assemblers have been gluing them on, which is highly annoying if one wants to replace the cheap-o plastic couplers.

I feel like an old friend has passed.Blue box and me have had some really good times together.Remember when you could buy an American made model for about $30.Can't say we didn't see it coming.Don't get me wrong it is an exciting time for our hobby new models are looking better and better we have more manufactures than ever competing for our business, now if some of them could only get the quality control thing down.Even though I've been upgrading my fleet it will still be awhile before the last Blue Box disappears from my roster.We'miss you buddy.Not going to cry too long though, there is a lot of cool stuff out there and it has been a long time since Ive bought one.thank God for fourrocksmodelworks
D



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/09 01:00 by atsf98.

rschonfelder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Gee, I sure hope they will still sell those
> wonderful clip on coupler covers so the guys in
> the club who run these cars will still be able to
> keep their rolling stock going. It will be a
> shame if the covers continue to fall off or allow
> so much droop that the train breaks in two
> continuously and we cannot see them replaced so
> these pieces of art can continue to take their
> rightful place in the consist.
>
> (TTIC),
>
> Rick

These are available as replacement parts. I make sure the clip is snapped over the small protrusions on the side of the box and then add a dab of ACC to the spot. If the coupler ever needs to be replaced - rarely with Kadees - the clips can be easily pried off with no damage.

Very sad indeed. When my college age son was 7yrs old, one of the first models he built was an Athearn Blue Box kit BN box car. The local NMRA chapter I belong to sponsors a build a box kit at every annual train show. This is for kids 14 and under. It was a great way to introduce them to the hobby.

When I first started my layout and I needed to make up a modest fleet, I bought about a dozen of these kits. I paid around $50 for them. Now you see freight cars RTR by Athearn and others go between 15 and 35 dollars. I used to buy a few and keep them on hand for that cold snowy day when I could look out my kitchen window as I sat at the table putting a few of these kits together. Sure, the detail was not 100 percent accurate, but when you are running lots of trains you could not beat these kits.

aj

Hello

Really a shame to see the end of "Blue Box" kits.

How many of us on this forum, got their start in model railroading by buying and building blue box kits? I'm holding up my hand.

When compared to the assembled models you can buy these days, the blue box kits lacked many of the details present on today's assembled models, (molded grab irons as compared to wire grab irons are a good example) however, the blue box kits provided a great matrix for building a model with as many details and weathering as your heart desired.
In my youth, I mostly assembled the blue box kits as they were straight out of the box, but as I got older and more skilled at modeling, I began to add details, repaint and renumber my kits. I still enjoy buying and building the old blue box kits even today.

For kit building modelers like myself, I am finding it alarming to see all in the last 7-10 years, model railroading manufacturers moving away kits, and just selling assembled models.

I find it a shame that it is becoming increasingly more difficult these days to buy kits.

On a similar subject, Last year I purchased an assembled Proto 2000 4427 PS2 covered hopper for my father's birthday. The car he wanted was a BNSF car, but I could no longer find the car in kit form, so I purchased the car already assembled. I noticed the car was weighted (probably with the same weights that came in the kits), but not to the recommended NMRA standard.
Later, when I attempted to add additional weight to the car I found I could not disassemble the kit enough to add the weight inside. The hatch covers were glued down, and I didn't want to damage the covers trying to pry them off. Disappointing to say the least.
How many of you out there have come across the same issue with the assembled models you purchased.

Just my two cents worth.

RosevilleBill
Longmont, CO.

They have served their purpose but I suspect that they are not selling well anymore and are more of a nusance then anything else for Athearn. They would be nice to have around but that is allot of parts for Athearn to maintain. Every hobby shop owner I have spoken to has told me that the blue box kits are not selling and RTR is what everyone wants including young people.


Bruce

swsf Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> These are available as replacement parts. I make
> sure the clip is snapped over the small
> protrusions on the side of the box and then add a
> dab of ACC to the spot. If the coupler ever needs
> to be replaced - rarely with Kadees - the clips
> can be easily pried off with no damage.

The problem I have with the clip system is not the clips themselves, but that the act of removing them to replace the couplers often shaves plastic off those "small protrusions," so that the cover won't snap securely onto them afterward. Gluing is the only solution....

Way back when, I use to droll over all the different road names that BevBel had available with the Blue Box boxcar kits. Do you guys remember when the Blue Box loco's went for $22.00 powered and $18.00 for the dummy? The day Athearn announced their release of the SD40-2, I thought I'd died and went choo choo heaven!!

Peter

"How many of us on this forum, got their start in model railroading by buying and building blue box kits? I'm holding up my hand."

The real relevant question is: How many of us are still BUYING the Blue Box kits? It may give us a nice warm and fuzzy feeling to know that the Blue Box kits are still around but if we don't buy them that doesn't give Athearn's owner's a very warm and fuzzy feeling. Why should we expect them to continue to make something that we are no longer supporting, a fact that is made evident by the declining sales of these products. Athearn is a business that obviously would like to avoid becoming the horse buggy manufacturer of the 21st century model railroad industry. As much as we don't like it things change...

I remember when they were YELLOW boxes.
TAH

90mac Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember when they were YELLOW boxes.
> TAH


I remember when they were METAL, in fact I bought a metal 200 ton crane just a couple of years ago at a swap meet, really neat because of the 6 wheel sprung trucks.

I wonder what Irv would have done in these times, think he would have kept the blue box and hibernated some of the high priced Genesis? I guess it could be debated either way.

Ed

The main reason I haven't bought any Blue Box kits in years is that the Railboxes are the wrong dimensions, the 55' Center Flows are mostly decorated in railroad road names (wrong) instead of leasing companies or petrochemical manufacturers (right), and I've already got dozens of the 54' grain cars -- more than enough. Just about everything else in that product line is older prototypes that were long gone by my 'era'. I have no use for a 40' flat car with a boat on it. I could live with the molded-on grab irons but for me the cars were simply out of date.

We are not buying blue box because they have not exactly updated the line. Blue box always seemed stuck in a time warp.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

I still have my "Gold" box Globe F-7 (a and b) that sold at $0.98 and $0.89 each.
So old that I remember Athearn before the Blue boxes.
wag216

Just like yesterday's end of Blue-Box thread...

Mr. MRL - "Well, bye..."

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