Model Railroading > Atlas acquires Micro Trains

Micro Trains announced on Facebook that they have been acquired by Atlas 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1SSo7rhxUf/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/25 10:22 by Spoony81.

The folks at MRH have a post as well, they say the 'official announcement' should be later this afternoon.

Apparently Atlas has their announcement out already.

fwiw The Railwire and Atlas Rescue Forum have posts as well.

Notice it says the products will be manufacured in their global network... probably no more made in the USA. Can we expect them to acquire Kadee too? Atlas must be in a lot more than model trains to have the capital to acquire other companies, since this hasn't been the first time. I can't imagine there is big money in model railroading.

Victor Baird



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/25 11:56 by wabash2800.

Initially, I'm not thrilled aobut this, MTL's quality and selection will be hard to match. Their announcements and "on-time" production history are something I look forward to each month, particularly the factory weathered cars.

On the other side of the coin, Atlas has done well with the N scale production line they acquired from River Point Station.

I would add that I hope the employees at the Oregon facility are treated well in the transition.

Fingers crossed!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/25 14:23 by pilotblue.

Didn't Microtrains manufacture their trains in house in Oregon?  Doesn''t Atlas have the Chinese manufacture their trains in China?  Pretty big difference. I wonder if Atlas will end up sending the tooling to China?

It pretty much says they will be using their "global" manufacturing in the announcement.

Victor Baird

SPDRGWfan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Didn't Microtrains manufacture their trains in
> house in Oregon?  Doesn''t Atlas have the Chinese
> manufacture their trains in China?  Pretty big
> difference. I wonder if Atlas will end up sending
> the tooling to China?

wabash2800 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It pretty much says they will be using their
> "global" manufacturing in the announcement.
>
> Victor Baird

No surprise but very sad.  The good news is there are tons of MicroTrains models on the secondary market so no shortage.

I have been building a fleet of N scale models in anticiapation of downsizing.  While MicroTrains makes nice models, my favorite N scale models are Trainworx.  Trainworx even makes correct Rio Grande shop built offset cuploa cabooses.  I just ordered a 4 stripe D&RGW caboose which I didn't even know had been offered. N-scale has really come a long way in the past few decades.  ScaleTrains makes nice engines and freightcars.  Wheels of Time, Trainworx and Rapido are all offering nice N scale models too.

Yes, it has come a long way. I remember when we referred to N scale as "N Gauge" and the motors were like meat grinders. Details were pretty pudgy with locomotive pilots that moved with the front truck like toy trains. Wheel flanges on cars were pretty deep too. I also remember the big NMRA couplers.

I can see that the Micro Trains cars have become collector items. I bet some folks collect them and don't even run them. Perhaps they will refer to the line as Pre-Atlas as the Lionel people refer to Pre-War?

Victor Baird

I was there in September visiting a friend. He told me the family was interested in retiring and they wanted to keep people employed at MT. Whether this happens or not is uncertain, but it's the only model Train manufacturer in the US from what I understand. Amazing operation. Tons of tooling and dies for production. One aspect of MT that would be a big boost in sales for Atlas is the process micro trains has for printed weathering as seen in photo two. They were weathering Accurail HO cars and selling them. Atlas may possibly use this for their freight cars. From what I was told, nobody has this printed weathering process but MT. We shall see...
edit: Looks like MT is closing and tooling is going of shore. Glad I visited when I did.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/19/25 14:52 by dmaffei.

---

---

> I would add that I hope the employees at the
> Oregon facility are treated well in the
> transition.

Apparently they reported for work and were fired on the spot—no hint that this was happening.

Thought Kadee was from that area

I was there at micro-trains a year ago September and saw how the cars were weathered. Each car was done by hand!! One person weathering each car. There were slight differences between the cars. This guy was very good. I hope that Atlas retains the employees!!

cvrrr

Posted from iPhone

Yes, I think so. I understand Microtrains split off when the two brothers owned the original operation.

Victor Baird


WAF Wrote:
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> Thought Kadee was from that area

Posted from Android

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadee

Lighter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > I would add that I hope the employees at the
> > Oregon facility are treated well in the
> > transition.
>
> Apparently they reported for work and were fired
> on the spot—no hint that this was happening.

Nice "family business." I've been through similar.

Official announcement on MicroTrain's web site:

https://micro-trains.com/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=12

Arved Grass
Fleming Island, FL

From the local newspaper:

In a statement to its own social media, Atlas company officials, who referenced Micro-Trains as “a highly respected leader in N- and Z-scale model trains, couplers, and accessories,” refuted claims that production would be shipped overseas and said the 100-plus-year-old company was founded and headquartered in New Jersey with no changes planned to existing U.S.-based operations. The company reported extending job offers to some Micro-Trains employees.  “There’s been a lot of talk about Micro-Trains tooling being ‘shipped off to China,’ so let’s clear that up right away. While Micro-Trains has had some limited production in China in recent years—at some of the same factories Atlas uses—none of the U.S.-based tooling is being moved to China. That assumption just isn’t accurate,” the statement read.

Read more at: https://rv-times.com/2025/11/20/micro-trains-line-co-warehouse-is-closing-in-talent/?brid=wkIPcziaX7NbazHSstXLLQ

Corporations are famous at merger and acquisition time for saying for example, "no changes are planned at this time". Atlas'spiel did mention the use of its global resources.

And realistically, some changes can't be anticipated. Also, future opportunities can't be ignored to optimize return for the organization's owners.

Victor Baird

cvrrr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I was there at micro-trains a year ago September
> and saw how the cars were weathered. Each car was
> done by hand!! One person weathering each car.
> There were slight differences between the cars.
> This guy was very good. I hope that Atlas retains
> the employees!!
>
> cvrrr
>
> Posted from iPhone

Could you please ellaborate on this? What do you mean by "by hand"? Using the picure of the two samples above for reference, I don't see how it's possible to recreate that kind of repeated (and photo-realistic) exactness by hand (by hand, to me, means using an airbrush, weathering chalks, etc.).

 

tehachapifan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> cvrrr Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I was there at micro-trains a year ago
> September
> > and saw how the cars were weathered. Each car
> was
> > done by hand!! One person weathering each car.
> > There were slight differences between the cars.
> > This guy was very good.

When I was there, I saw rows of printing machines doing weathering printing and was asked not to photograph machines. So I didn't. They produced cars that were identical as seen in my photo. I couldn't imagine hand Weathering cars by manufacturers for sale without a large price tag. What they may have done was a production sample hand weathered to be scanned for printing production.