Model Railroading > Athearn catalog

If you are really hard up for entertainment some cold night this winter, pull out a copy of the Athearn catalog and count the errors, horrors and downright bad judgments made by the catalog's producer.
Some person should lose a job over this very glossy piece of trash. I'm sure that Irv Athearn (a fine Downeaster by birth) is spinning in his grave to see his products presented so poorly.

We're not talking minutae and typos here. The errors are mostly large and graphic. A close up nose shot of a GE demo unit with damage to the hand rail stanchions, headlights installed backwards, trains shown derailed, etc. Most puzzling: two pictures on the same page of the same model with the same paint scheme - one is powered and one is a dummy. Somehow having the two pictures doesn't really cause great edification as to the difference between the powered and dummy units.

I lost count after the first few dozen faux pas... it was so obvious as to be a distraction.

However, after you find the errors on that cold night, it'll burn well, as it is nice and big and hefty! (though the glossy pages will probably emit toxic fumes upon ignition, which is only fair when you consider that the catalog stinks even without the application of fire)

Walthers catalog is better for fetching Athearn info anyway. I could care less about little glory details or cute pi'tures.

--Jim

Why get an Athearn catalog, most of it is already in my head, after 35+ years in the hobby, I know the line off by heart

The new owners paid a mint to Irv and are really strapped for cash. They pay next to nothing for salaries and even less for color glossy brochure production. Until they can recover their initial investment, don't expect their catalog to be produced by anyone except the very lowest bidder (who may not be a railfan) with the associated quality control issues.

Don't get me wrong. I've been an Athearn fan for years, and really like the new products they are producing. However, cash strapped management has to make decisions and set priorities. I'm just hoping they don't crash and burn. Then where would we be?

I am glad I got the Athearn catalog for free. I'd be pissed if I paid for it. Athearn had a booth set up at the last Timonium, Md train show. They were giving away the catalogs for free.

One person came up to the table and said "man, I wish I hadn't just bought this for $10 the other day." The Athearn rep handed him another one and said, "now you can say you got two of them for $5 each."

Personally, even though Athearn models got me into the hobby, they seem much to stagnated in product development...they seem to have spent all their resources on the Genesis line. All I want is some northeast style cabooses that look decent and cost less than the Proto 2000's. I think Athearn could do a good job on these, but they've never tried.

ben