I have been collecting John Deere HO scale trains made by Athern, for a while now, but I seem to have trouble finding all the sets that Athern has made. I have seen many on ebay, but those sets are all usually the same, of which I own most of anyways. I've also looked at Athern's website and it shows a partial listing of rolling stock, but I have some cars that aren't even on that site. So does anyone know anything about where I can find lists of John Deere train sets, rolling stock, and scale vehicles that Athern has produced?
No, I started collecting John Deer painted equipment about 5 years ago when my daughter wanted to run it for her Youth in Model Railroading train. I got a few pieces. I had the same question as you and started assembling that information e.g.
1997 - first run set consisted of two boxes one with trains F7 painted dk green with yellow, blah blah
1998 - second run F7 painted, Also had an individual loco available.
1999 - had a set available in Walmart, consisted of ....
2001 - 2-8-2 loco, 4 box cars separate.
2006 - Challenger (Genesis) loco, flat car with tractors.
...
But I decided that four times the normal $ cost of each item just to have something in John Deere paint schemes was not worth it and abandon the research.
I have several of the first F units. I have the FEF, 4-6-6-4, and 2-8-2. I never got the RS-3 nor Big Boy that I know they produced. Of course they really lost me when they ran that passenger loco (F59PHI) in the set (2011?).
