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Athearn's loss others gain

Gize, I agree with the breath of both Jerry and Robert's arguments and I do think that loosing Athearn Blue Box kit will hurt the market a bit in selection of products in kit form Others will

By Greg Martin · #85498 ·

Re: USRA composite gondolas (long, but illuminating)

Hi Richard, To be fair, I should have worded it a little better and said that I was "starting to work on a more definitive list". I've already pulled the Wabash cars from the list, and added the

By Ray Breyer · #85491 ·

Re: Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued

I'm sure there are fortunes to be made by anybody building freight car models ;) Is it Westerfield that has the fleet of gold-plated Rolls-Royces? Certainly for the small market STMFC represents, the

By James Eckman · #85490 ·

Re: Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued

Although I agree with the negatives about Athearn's Blue Box kits, they do provide a basis for lesser experienced modelers than this audience to learn and hone their modeling skills. I can't see the

By jerryglow2 · #85489 ·

Re: USRA composite gondolas

Richard Hendrickson wrote: Nice recovery, Richard, but I was responding to your comments, which I guess I should have quoted at more length. You said: which lasted into the early '50s, but

By Anthony Thompson <thompson@...> · #85488 ·

Re: Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued

Everyone who's trashing Blue Box cars will get broad agreement from me, BUT I have to point out that for SP modelers the tank car is a godsend. Now of course it requires work (and both Richard

By Anthony Thompson <thompson@...> · #85487 ·

Re: USRA composite gondolas

I am of course, perfectly aware of the SP's small fleet of ex-EP&SW USRA gondolas. However, the original inquiry was about cars that lasted long enough to be plausibly modeled in the 1650s, and

By Richard Hendrickson · #85486 ·

Re: Tide Water tank car, TWOX 3050

Tony is correct about this. In fact, the internal diaphragms were shaped exactly like tank ends - because, in fact, that's what they were. IIRC, someone a couple of days ago assumed that the

By Richard Hendrickson · #85485 ·

Re: M-53 (was Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued)

Patience, Tim - - though Lord knows we've all been waiting patiently for this for a very long time. One is coming, with the tooling far enough along that a model is almost certain to materialize,

By Richard Hendrickson · #85484 ·

Re: Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued

Just so, Tim, as I think was sufficiently obvious. Athearn's recent steam era freight car models are excellent, and I can claim some small credit for some of them, having provided photos and

By Richard Hendrickson · #85483 ·

Re: Tide Water tank car, TWOX 3050

I'd bet that the insertion of new bulkheads was done by removing the rivets on one end head and then re-riveting it after bulkheads were installed. One reason railroads liked riveted construction

By Anthony Thompson <thompson@...> · #85482 ·

Re: USRA composite gondolas

Richard Hendrickson wrote: As so often happens <g>, Richard has a hard time remembering the SP freight car fleet. I would call your attention to the data in the table on page 68 of my gondola

By Anthony Thompson <thompson@...> · #85481 ·

Re: M-53 (was Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued)

I wish to second that motion! Mark Morgan

By Mark · #85480 ·

Re: M-53 (was Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued)

Bob I don't know, and I didn't know they planned to do the M-53, but good grief, why can't we get a good high quality plastic kit? If Wright Trak does it, that makes what - 4 - different vendors

By Tim O'Connor · #85479 ·

Re: Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued

--- In STMFC@..., Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote: Post-1960 modelers have been > deluged with excellent models from Athearn, while pre-1950 modelers > have been largely ignored...

By gn3397 <heninger@...> · #85478 ·

Re: Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued

Richard Hendrickson tosses out the baby w/ the bathwater... :-) I suspect you really intended that comment to refer specifically to the old Blue Box kits and not to more recent Athearn models?? Or

By Tim O'Connor · #85477 ·

Re: Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued

Gentlemen, try to see the bright side, we now own real collector's items. Wait about 10 years and divest them on e-bay for some ridiculous price! Fred Freitas

By Frederick Freitas <prrinvt@...> · #85476 ·

Re: USRA composite gondolas (long, but illuminating)

Well, Ray, with all due respect, I wouldn't call this a definitive study; not even close. I'll grant that I overlooked a couple of groups of USRA cars that survived into the 1950s, but what

By Richard Hendrickson · #85475 ·

Re: Athearn Blue Box kits discontinued

Sic transit gloria mundi. The blue box bow-wows should have been discontinued twenty years ago or more, as vastly better products came on the market to replace them. Their only virtue was that

By Richard Hendrickson · #85474 ·

Athearn Blue boxes?

As Brian Carlson notes: Yep. Brion's...no last name...message violated about 5 STMFC rules. Oh, heck...guess I'll have to go down to Moderate Jail again. I hate to have to go down there. Never seem

By Mike Brock <brockm@...> · #85473 ·

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