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  2. New MTH HO scale freight cars

Re: New MTH HO scale freight cars

Tim O'Connor
 

Norm

Interesting, but it could be (1) misinformation or (2) disinformation.
In business salesmanship, it's generally considered a huge mistake to
tell your customer that product A will be replaced with product B in
the future, since customers will stop buying the very profitable "A"
immediately while they wait for "B".

Athearn's last release of the quad hoppers was in 2008, and they sold
out of them. I don't know how that amounts to "little demand". Little
production generally leads to little sales.

It would be nice if Athearn would upgrade the 2-bay offset hoppers too
http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=34%27+Offset+Hopper&PageSize=72

Tim O'Connor

Hi, Tim. A little over a year ago, I emailed Athearn regarding upgrading the
A.R.A. 4-bay similar to the MDC upgrades. There was no response. Finally, I
caught up with the product engineer (can't remember his name or "official"
title) of Athearn at the Springfield, Mass. January show, and I asked the
same question. He said the molds were nearly worn out for that car, there
was little demand for it, and redoing the tooling would be too expensive. He
then said that they 'absolutely' would not be upgrading the car. I think
that means they have no plans for upgrading the car. I'd like to see one of
the MTH cars up close to see whether or not its worth the price.
Norm Larkin
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