As we all know, Athearn had decided to discontinue the reknown, timeless Blue Box kits.

Taking a cue off of Tom's tribute picture in this weeks Photo Fun Thread, I thought it would be cool for everyone to post pictures of their Athearn Blue Box rolling stock and locos.
So, I'll start.
   
I also have a set of BN Impacts, but they are not on the layout.

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
                   

Greetings,

Effective immediately, we here at Athearn have made the difficult decision to discontinue the production of our Blue Box line of kits. There were several factors that contributed to this extremely challenging decision however, the primary issue revolved around affordability and ensuring that our Blue Box kit pricing remain aligned with what the market can bear. Unfortunately, due to increased manufacturing and labor costs it has been determined that we are no longer able to continue offering kits at competitive price points as compared to our already assembled products.

For over 50 years the Athearn Blue Box kits have been sold worldwide, bringing happiness, joy and excitement to thousands of model railroad enthusiasts. Your passion for these products has allowed us to thrive and grow into the industry leader you still support today, and for that we are eternally grateful. Moving forward this will allow us to dedicate more resources to new and exciting projects in our Ready To Roll, Genesis and Roundhouse lines for another 50 years, or more.

We will continue to support all service and warranty needs on Blue Box kits from our headquarters in Long Beach, California. You can find our contact information here.

The Folks at Athearn
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another era comes to a end..However,this one doesn't surprise me since Athearn has release very little in the way of kits...I know of a hobby shops that has the same BB kits on its shelf that been there for years and another still has lots of BB locomotive kits..

Many of us cut their modeling teeth on these simple car kits and learn the secret behind building these kits,while many struggled building these kits-mostly in achieving the correct coupler height.I suppose the majority of us will moan the passing of this era while many will applaud it.

I dunno but,I haven't assembled a BB kit since 2005 since I preferred the better looking RTR cars-including the former BB kits...

So,in a salute to another fallen flag and with taps softly playing I present:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PIgARem7VI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PIgARem7VI</a><!-- m -->

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

ouch!! Been cutting and stabbing my fingers tearing apart this monstrosity

First - what it looked like before.
   

and what it looks like today:    

The wall hanging was removed months ago, it's the trackage and Missile site that was removed along with adding the walk through

Baby OK after train hits stroller in Australia

Story
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091016/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_train_hits_baby">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091016/ap_ ... _hits_baby</a><!-- m -->

Story & Video
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8310051.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8310051.stm</a><!-- m -->

Just past the entrance to the industrial park, next to the Southwick and Winsted main. Covered in overgrowth, sit two examples of old military vehicles. A M35A2 deuce and a half truck and an old M818 fifth wheeler. I think there might be an old farm tractor in there also.

Attached Files

Thumbnail(s)
               

I am just curious, has anyone purchased or read the book that was recently published entitled "COAL TRAINS" by Brian Solomon?
I was only able to look at several pages of it on Amazon and it appears interesting , however i am wondering what those of you who in fact have had any experiences with it think.


Todd

I bought an Athearn RTR GP35 (HO) a while back from the museum gift shop. I think it was because I was so happy SOMEBODY was doing a Western Pacific road engine in something other than Silver and Orange at the time, so home it went with me. This past week, Alicia and I had been cleaning out closets, desk drawers, and my filing cabinet. In one of these drawers, I found a TCS decoder. I have no idea where it came from, and no idea when I got it, but it was all there. Probably a gift from one of my friends who are always trying to talk me into DCC, I'll have to check. I couldn't sleep tonight, so I decided to see if I can install it in one of my locos. I wanted to put it in my Sacramento Northern Atlas GP7, but it is one of the old school Kato units, I know NOTHING about DCC (I have one Digitrax decodered Proto GP7 a late friend built for me, and some sound decodered On30 stuff), but I took apart the Atlas GP7 and went "whoa!" Deano I am not, so I chickened out. I'd probably let all the smoke out of the decoder and engine motor both if I tried wiring it up, and no joy when it came to TCS website for decoder installs for he old Kato motored Atlas GP7's. It had a 9 pin wiring harness, so I decided to put it in my almost forgotten GP35. It's DCC ready, plug and play right?

WRONG!!!

This cheap, no good Chinese pile of excrement is the reason I HATE LOATHE AND DESPISE Chinese manufacturing; they GLUED THE PLUG IN TO THE RECEPTACLE!!! I couldn't believe it. I ended up breaking the damned thing trying to carefully unplug it with two pairs of tiny needle nosed pliers. Ok, whatever, I'll just remove the board, break the wires free with the soldering iron and install the TCS harness.


WRONG!!!!

The board is RIVETED TO THE MOTOR!!!! What kind of rocket scientist came up with that idea?! If it wasn't after midnight and Alicia being sound asleep, I'd have thrown the entire engine across the living room against a wall. Or better yet, go outside and place it on one of the very same rails the real WP 3005 used to roam and wait for the next stacker to come through. I was that P.O.'d

I ended up installing the new TCS harness with some real Appalachian Engineering, and with the help of small wire cutters, soldering iron (which was acting up) and some electrical tape (oh, didn't I already mention I am an electrical moron??) I *think* I have it installed. I have a Bachmann EZ-DCC on my test shelf, so not sure if it works, don't know how to program it, but I do know purple wire solders to purople wire, white to white, black to black, green to green, etc. That much *I think* i can handle, and the decoder fits, trucks swivel and all, so hopefully I did it right, but screw it, ti's going back into the cabinet to look pretty. Have any of you ever had an Athearn RTR where the idiots at the factory GLUED the board into the harness?

Sorry guys, i just had to rant. I could go on for hours about how and why I HATE Chinese manufacturing, and their blatant disregard for quality or safety, but this one really chapped my cheese, so thought I would share. It's aggravation like this though that kept me from DCC until recently and does NOT go a long way towards wencouraging others to take the DCC plunge in my opinion.

This weekend...!

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://home.ca.inter.net/~brmna/poster.pdf">http://home.ca.inter.net/~brmna/poster.pdf</a><!-- m -->


Andrew