Model Railroading > Athearn June announcements

http://www.athearn.com/Articles/Hobbywire.aspx Nothing too revolutionary here. They have done a 10 dollar price bump on locos though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/17 08:56 by suvart.

New run of the exterior post trailers!!! Since I have backdated I've wanted to add a Reading and PC and those are next to impossible to find anymore. Want an Erie too but none in this run. The NP trailer would be excellent too!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/17 17:28 by SPDRGWfan.

Once again Athearn has showed that they
DON'T care for the railroads of the
southeast nor the modelers who model
the southeast.......

JLSeale

the bn geeps with the correct steps is awesome

LandN1971 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Once again Athearn has showed that they
> DON'T care for the railroads of the
> southeast nor the modelers who model
> the southeast.......
>

What in the world are you ranting about? Goodness gracious!

Elizabeth

That Pullman Standard 5277 boxcar lettered for FCRD (ex Golden Triangle) might be a good candidate for a weathered and graffitied addition to my fleet! Hmmm...........

LandN1971 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Once again Athearn has showed that they
> DON'T care for the railroads of the
> southeast nor the modelers who model
> the southeast.......
>
> JLSeale

Buy some of the existing in-stock Southeastern RR models from Athearn first.

Here's just one example:
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=southern+sd40-2 - ALL still in stock..

and some upcoming and in-stock L&N stuff:
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=l%26n&PageSize=72

SCL Autoracks on the way too.
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=scl

and that's not all.

Heck.. Athearn even went forward to produce all that great Apalachicola Northern equipment - GP15Ts, SW1500s, and AN boxcars too.. Obscure, yet Athearn did it! And I am happy!

Buying some of the above will increase the odds that you will see more of the roads you want in the future.

I personally would love to see Southern Railway Tuxedo Black FP7s someday from Athearn Genesis.

Cheers,
Harry



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/17 18:53 by tracktime.

Athearn is def favoring everywhere but the Southeast....noticeably the GP9's. I have kept a list of those units. To date, Athearn has done around 37 different RR's in the GP9's. But out of all those that have been done, only 4 have been done that represent RR's in the south......SCL 2/12, SAL 5/11, SOU 3/16 and FEC 6/16....and the FEC units show in stock but Athearn has still not released pics of them, and they were also announced once before and cancelled for some reason. And all of those RR's have only had 1 release.

Next, let's look at RR's in the Northeast to the mid west. Out of the 17 or 18 diff roads they have done, only 4 have had 2 Athearn runs, C&O, PRR, PC and BM. Some of these roads only rostered 6-10 units.

Now let's look at the west. And btw there's nothing wrong with our modelers out there of course, just showing Athearn's favoritism. About 15 roads have been announced. Yet DRGW had 2 runs, WP and BN each had 3, and SP and ATSF each had 4 runs done. So again....how can one not say they dont cater more to Western road modelers? I mean hell what about the U50's and DD40AX's? How many eastern road one off units has Athearn done?

As mentioned earlier, yes, things like Apalachicola Northern have been done (though the SW1500's are the wrong blue and the GP15's were also once announced and cancelled.) But GP15's were split pretty even between the number of Eastern roads purchasing VS the Western ones. But with only a TOTAL of 8 RR's owning GP15 versions ( a few others more of course as successors like G&W or lease), it only made sense for Athearn to offer the AN units.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/17 03:21 by KV1guy.

Look at what's posted on Trainorders. There are always more posts on the Western Board than the Eastern Board (which itself seems to have more posts of the northern portion of the East than the southern portion of the East. The Nostalgia & History Board has far more posts of Western subjects than southeastern subjects.

If the geographical distribution of topics on Trainorders is indicative of railfans' regional interests, then Athearn and other suppliers of model railroad locomotives and cars may be providing products according to their perception of the market.

Modelers of New England railroads may also feel left out. Athearn has not produced models of Bangor & Aroostook or Rutland locomotives.

I will be adding one (1) Mexican boxcar (in the layout weeds) this month...first time in years Athearn had nothing else to interest me.

tracktime Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
<SNIP>
> Heck.. Athearn even went forward to produce all
> that great Apalachicola Northern equipment -
> GP15Ts, SW1500s, and AN boxcars too.. Obscure, yet
> Athearn did it! And I am happy!
>
> Cheers,
> Harry

And they have done the even more obscure Oneida & Western Coal train. They did several SD40-2's, 31 road numbers of Bathtub gons the first run and have announced another 16 or 17 for the second run.

I hope they do another run of Chessie & Seaboard System SD50's in the next two years.

Russ

I was looking forward to more Gevos, with PTC Antenna's .......
Athearn gevos do have good details.....

KV1guy Wrote:

> Now let's look at the west. And btw there's
> nothing wrong with our modelers out there of
> course, just showing Athearn's favoritism. About
> 15 roads have been announced. Yet DRGW had 2
> runs, WP and BN each had 3, and SP and ATSF each
> had 4 runs done. So again....how can one not say
> they dont cater more to Western road modelers? I
> mean hell what about the U50's and DD40AX's? How
> many eastern road one off units has Athearn done?

If you don't like it, don't bitch, buy. I had a talk with a guy at Athearn awhile back. I was inquiring about WP GP7s,( just so happens they are delivering next week) and at that time they had just done the WP GP9s,( so this was several years ago when the NMRA was in Sac) the guy said they would like to do the WP GP7s but they have do some east stuff to quell the complaining that Athearn doesn't do anything in the East. He went on to say they would like to do more western stuff cause it sells, The eastern stuff just sits on the shelf, but its a necessary evil to provide coverage. When they produce Western content it sells out in no time and Eastern stuff just sits and lingers on the shelf. So try looking at it from a different point of view, All the Western roads pay the bills to keep the doors open so they can provide other content to sit on the shelves till you get around to buying it.

TomG Wrote:

> All the Western roads pay the bills
> to keep the doors open so they can provide other
> content to sit on the shelves till you get around
> to buying it.


We have a winner!

Now it's all got me wondering why the east roads don't sell as well as the west roads... And yet from what I gather, model railroading is more common in the bad weather, mid and eastern states, correct? If that really was the case, then it would make more sense eastern roads would sell better for model companies... yet they don't. Confused!

I always figured it was because Athearn was a California-based company, so they're quick to do anything SP or Santa Fe had, no matter how obscure... The SP GP40P-2 is the example I always use for this one... They do a brilliantly accurate model of that, and can't be bothered to put the headlights in the correct spot on an NS Dash-9...

Don't get me wrong, I'm very pro-Athearn (about half of my collection is Athearn items), and I'm very looking forward to the YN2 AC4400CWs and YN3 ES44DCs they have coming...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/17 15:40 by MC6853.

Athearn has a brain trust that
knows what sells and what not.....
BUT,they should fair to ALL model railroaders.....
OK, don't make as many L&N as SP.....
BUT,we ( southern model railroads) do buy western
railroad because we did have those units move thur
the south in the 70's and 80's

JLSeale

But are the New SD70 series of locomotives going to have LED's in them. I didn't see them listed in the features list?


Dave
Mount Joy, PA

The EL specific SD45-2's and SDP45's are pretty eastern and have sold very well!

Posted from Android

Fizzboy7 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now it's all got me wondering why the east roads
> don't sell as well as the west roads... And yet
> from what I gather, model railroading is more
> common in the bad weather, mid and eastern states,
> correct? If that really was the case, then it
> would make more sense eastern roads would sell
> better for model companies... yet they don't.
> Confused!

Cuz even the eastern folks model WESTERN railroads!