Model Railroading > What happened to Front Range Products

I received a Front Range Products 40' CN boxcar kit as a gift. It is nicely detailed and similar to the Intermountain kits I have assembled in the past.
So what happened to FRP and the dies that were used? Interesting that both the defunct FRP and Intermountain are from Longmont, CO.

Thanks in advance!

Also, don't forget McKean who got model railroading manufacturing in Colorado started. Another is LBF.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/17 01:39 by fbe.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I think FR got into trouble by spending its share of its employees' social security taxes.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/17 08:53 by railwaybaron.

Here is part of the story https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,2573875

The legendary Fred Becker......... that's what happened............a long long story involving a long trail of now defunct businesses that used questionable business practices............Joe

> Interesting that both the defunct FRP and
> Intermountain are from Longmont, CO.


Coincidence. There are a lot of plastic injection companies and mold making businesses in Longmont. As well as Left Hand Brewing.

That's a colorful history, didn't know about all that.
One of my first HO kits as a kid was their center flow hopper. I didn't think it really went together too well compared to Athearn's. But it was offered in "ROCK," which no one else offered. Later, I bought their 45' trailer in SP. Again, no one else had such a scheme, which made the company valid to me. Still have that trailer today!

I still have 2 Front Range 3-bay covered hoppers (blue RI and gray SP) and bought them back in the early 1990's. They went together reasonably well and still look decent. The end cages were more fine than anything on the market at the time.

Cheers, Jim Fitch

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> That's a colorful history, didn't know about all
> that.

The late Bill Glass (E&B Valley and other) told the story on rec.models.railroad twenty years ago. Today, 2017, there are still repercussions in the industry.

Essentially and simplified:

Thirty some years ago there was a large mail order hobby shop which had lurid advertising and hard to believe prices. They would order large amounts of merchandise but not pay the bills. Sort of a pyramid scheme. That shop suddenly closed in bankruptcy leaving a lot of small model railroad vendors holding the bag. And some not so small like Front Range. In turn, it was discovered that Front Range was doing the same sort of finance scheme with it's suppliers. FR went bankrupt and left those suppliers dry. Within a very short time several companies were into bankruptcy. MR and RMC were left with large unpaid advertising bills. Various investors lost their money. A /lot/ of very bad feelings which persist today. Walthers pumped in a lot of money and rescued some lines. And/or hired the small owners. Bob Lunde and Magnuson Models, for example, became the foundation to Walthers Cornerstone series. Other wholesalers and distributors also jumped in with what assistance they could provide. Glass felt that without this fast action that the whole hobby could have gone down because of the precarious financial bases of most companies.

Note that I've simplified and omitted most names. There is a lot of gossip, finger pointing and ascription of motive. Bill Glass was spitting angry until the day he died and had no problem placing blame and providing motives! His comments are perhaps a bit too direct to post here.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/17 09:33 by Lighter.

The Front Range cars were pretty good for their time although the car-data graphics looked like they were created on a typewriter. I still have some of those cars, too. I even have some of the centerbeam lumber-car kits that I never assembled because the first one I tried simply refused to go together without bowing and such.

I had rather assumed that the AccuRail 4600-cu-ft Center Flow grain car kit was a successor to theirs, but I don't know if that's true.

Interesting story... I bought a lot of stuff from an east coast mail order specialist in the early '70's. If memory serves me correctly, they were a big discounter on Kadee when few others were. Never had an issue... from the vantage point of 45 years, it sounds less like a nefarious plot and more like a business that got overextended and sucked down a lot of small business owners. Keep in mind the late '70's early '80's was a tough time for any business. extremely high interest rates, lots of business lay-offs, lower demand from less disposable income, etc.

I'm not defending the discounter, and I too regret the loss of these very good small businesses. It's easy to see a supplier's volume growing and that guy ramping up to make more. Not the first time it's happened, won't be the last...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/21/17 09:48 by RichM.

ESPEE5318 Wrote:
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> The legendary Fred Becker......... that's what
> happened............a long long story involving a
> long trail of now defunct businesses that used
> questionable business practices.

Fred moved into the West Wing the last time I looked.

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> Interesting story... I bought a lot of stuff from
> Hobbies for Men in the early '70's.

I have edited out the name of the shop from my earlier post. My magazine collection is spotty in that time frame. Musing this morning a different mail order dealer came to mind. Since I can't really confirm or deny without actual ads in front of me it is better to leave off names.

They say that memory is the first to go. I can't remember the rest.

I have a former Front Range 40' boxcar kit that was reissued by another maker (can't remember the name) in a clear styrene plastic box.

Lighter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Interesting story... I bought a lot of stuff
> from
> > Hobbies for Men in the early '70's.
>

That makes me glad that I did almost all my business with Hobbies for Men in person.  Their location in Beacon was a hike from the Metro North commuter station, but easily doable.  Bought a whole bunch of dirt-cheap undecorated early Atlas GP38s and 40s from them, painted them up, and gave them away or sold them at shows.  Back then, I spent a lot of time in small town motels, and working on models was the alternative to hitting the local bars.  I think I must have been dealing with them before the shenanigans started--they seemed to be an upright organization at that time.

Years later, my wife noted that I had a bunch of boxes in storage labelled "Hobbies for Men."  Assuming the worst, she kinda avoided the topic, and only brought it up when she read that the NY Attorney General had gone after them for fraud.  Oh, THAT kind of hobby!  I think she was expecting some kind of inflatable toy in those boxes.

march_hare Wrote:
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> Years later, my wife noted that I had a bunch of
> boxes in storage labelled "Hobbies for Men." 
> Assuming the worst, she kinda avoided the topic,
> and only brought it up when she read that the NY
> Attorney General had gone after them for fraud. 
> Oh, THAT kind of hobby!  I think she was
> expecting some kind of inflatable toy in those
> boxes.

Back in the early 80's I lived in a cabin outside a small town in the sierras. UPS wouldn't deliver to the cabin so I had to have my packages dropped off at the local general store. Needless to say I got a lot of kidding from the folks working there when I got a package from "Hobbies for Men". They only lightened up on me when I opened the package and showed them that it was an AHM SP cab forward, not a blow up doll. On the positive side living in the mountains got me back into model railroading. Up there you have the option at night of
going to the bars drinking or get a hobby. I went with getting a hobby.

All joking aside, I can understand why the name "Hobbies for Men" because over the years, I could probably count the number of women who were truly into model railroading on both hands. I'm sure there are more than 10 out there but statistically, they are pretty rare. Must be 1 for every 1000 men, or maybe fewer. I'm not talking about wives that tolerate the hobby with a smile or even maybe help a bit, I'm talking about women who are into trains independently of a co-enabler! =P

Cheers, Jim

Challenge: Can the members here come up with the names of more than ten model railroader women? I can think of at least five off the top of my head and I think one of them is a very talented Canadian modeler.

toledopatch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Front Range cars were pretty good for their
> time although the car-data graphics looked like
> they were created on a typewriter. I still have
> some of those cars, too. I even have some of the
> centerbeam lumber-car kits that I never assembled
> because the first one I tried simply refused to go
> together without bowing and such.
>
> I had rather assumed that the AccuRail 4600-cu-ft
> Center Flow grain car kit was a successor to
> theirs, but I don't know if that's true.

I may have one of those undecorated opera window center beam cars, uncompleted. I broke one of the tie downs cutting it off the sprue and was never able to get a replacement. I can't remember if I finally sold it at a show cheap or not. Some of the younger modelers even asking when did all these model companies exist?

We had a large hobby shop in Dayton that kinda had a similar business model to what has been described in some of the other posts. The guy had a huge store and was able to put several other Dayton hobby stores out of business before the creditors forced him to liquidate everything in a public auction.

With some of the behind the scenes stuff that went on it's a wonder the hobby survived sometimes.

Jim

railwaybaron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ESPEE5318 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The legendary Fred Becker......... that's what
> > happened............a long long story involving
> a
> > long trail of now defunct businesses that used
> > questionable business practices.
>
> Fred moved into the West Wing the last time I
> looked.

LOL. Lock him up.

Remember advertising in MR for Crazy Charlie's Discount Trains?  Georgia, I believe.  It appeared after HFM disappeared.  I read (or was told) that Crazy had a thick New Yawk accent.  Crazy soon disappeared from the pages of MR.  Something about unpaid bills.

All of this before the internet.  I'm glad there are no scammers left in the world.

Larry