Athearn/Horizon Hobby is Squeezing the Life out of Brick & Mortar
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If you are talking about Chapter 13 (reorganization) I can understand your comments. Under Chapter 7, your comments are not valid. For business, reorganization is Chapter 11 I believe which requires a payback schedule and a business plan to come out of bankruptcy proving the business model can survive on its own merit. Under Chapter 7 for business, the assets are liquidated as you state with the court deciding to whom the funds are to be paid and in what order until the assets are exhausted.
You hit it out of the ball park, Joe.
I started with a 69.99 pacific flyer, came with locomotive, 2 cars, and caboose; powerpack, minimal track. I bought some more track and added more stuff each month. After three years, and adding my childhood stuff we found in a box (the 10.99 no name brand Sante Fe loco (seen on my avatar)(from like 1968) still works like a top.
I found out that in my budget, I could get the most fun making stuff for the train, taking pictures, and looking at them and dreaming. Mentally unstable, maybe. But it is a lot of fun.
logandsawman
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irocinblue89
Member
BRH paid their bills and was able to sell HH's product. BRH LLC. is, to me, a different entity and HH feels they need to treat them as such. I for one would feel the same as BRH for HH's response. The question is: Can BRH LLC be a profitable company without HH? HH doesn't think so. If HH continues their business practice then they will fail as long as other brick and mortar stores do the same as BRH LLC. The LHS I frequent doesn't even stock most of HH's offerings. Frankly, they acknowledge they can do without. More power to them. Take down the bully if you feel they are being a bully. Economics will always win.
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Seems strange to read of the different business models in the US as compared to Australasia (Aus/NZ) where most, if not all, companies both private or public, large or small, operate as Propriotry Ltd or Company Ltd (LLC's), and would consider it foolish not to do so. Wonder if A/HH uses that protection. Here, though, the directors of such companies can be held to account if they continue to trade, run up debts, while in the knowledge that they are insolvent.
Boris
Beach Bum
Not for nothing, how is Athearn/HH Incorporated? I'm sure they are not a sole proprietorship, and that their principals are protected from personal liability in the event of default. Most small businesses are incorporated as LLC., or similarly organized, to protect the principal's personal liability. That includes physicians, attorneys and other professionals, as well as retailers. It seems odd to me that some forum members would object to BRH doing the same thing. I would go on to say that anyone who operates their business as a Sole Proprietorship today, is foolish for exposing themselves and their family to unnecessary risk.
On the other hand, HH is within their rights to request a "personal" pledge of payment, even though such a "promise" would be most likely thrown out if BRH ever filed for Bankruptcy protection.
BRH is also within their rights in refusing HH's request, and discontinuing sales of the HH/Athearn product line. FWIW, Walthers doesn't deal with HH or sell HH's products either, for obvious reasons, although they were a big Athearn distributor and retailer prior to the HH aquisition of Athearn.
Joe
On the other hand, HH is within their rights to request a "personal" pledge of payment, even though such a "promise" would be most likely thrown out if BRH ever filed for Bankruptcy protection.
BRH is also within their rights in refusing HH's request, and discontinuing sales of the HH/Athearn product line. FWIW, Walthers doesn't deal with HH or sell HH's products either, for obvious reasons, although they were a big Athearn distributor and retailer prior to the HH aquisition of Athearn.
Joe
RCShadow
Member
If you are talking about Chapter 13 (reorganization) I can understand your comments. Under Chapter 7, your comments are not valid. For business, reorganization is Chapter 11 I believe which requires a payback schedule and a business plan to come out of bankruptcy proving the business model can survive on its own merit. Under Chapter 7 for business, the assets are liquidated as you state with the court deciding to whom the funds are to be paid and in what order until the assets are exhausted.
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I have been watching this whole thing develop for 25 years when suddenly model trains went HIGH TECH. It seemed small and insignificant but was the final nail for the hobby. Its because anything that is technical IS EXPENSIVE and the cost of model railroading went through the roof in about 10 years and especially in this global economy WHO CAN AFFORD IT?
In the real world where all of us were at some point in the past, where we all had some type of model train set; things were much simpler. Now VIRTUALLY NO KID I KNOW HAS ANY TRAIN AT ALL. I have dragged CAR LOADS of young people for over 10 years now to the train shows that come through Atlanta and all love it BOTH MALES & FEMALES; but none of them came come close to affording this rich mans hobby.
Somewhere WE HAVE TO GET PAST MARKETING EVERYTHING TO PRO ATHLETES AND CELEBRITIES. I know Rod Stewart has a magnificent layout for the ages, BUT WITH HIS MULTI MILLIONS HE SHOULD. What about the real kids in America?
The Athearn thing played out as a brand BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD THE BEST VALUE & DRIVE MECHANISMS IN THE WORLD, they were STANDARD DCC and that was all OLD SCHOOL. IHC/AHM, ConCor, and legendary Rivarossi all fell to the same ax. YET, In England and other parts of Europe, DCC is seen as a plague upon the hobby and totally SCORNED.
This is the continent WHERE THEY STILL HAVE PASSENGER TRAINS ENMASSE and more preservation museums with LIVE EQUIPMENT per capita by far than we in the US could imagine. Just the English ambition to DESIGN & BUILD A NEW STEAM LOCOMOTIVE FROM SCRATCH, ground up (TORNADO) was an inspiration and a LESSON IN WHAT OLD SCHOOL IS REALLY ALL ABOUT.
Now we have basically ONE SINGLE BRAND NAME (Walthers) that has MONOPOLIZED THE ENTIRE MARKET and the prices are all FANTASY LAND.
What about all the real life HARD WORKING average wage dads that want to play trains with their kids? What about all THE MILLIONS OF KIDS that want to play trains? Through all of this, ONLY ONE MANUFACTURER HAS HELD TRUE AND I GIVE THEM MY HIGHEST PRAISE: BACHMANN INDUSTRIES.
Their PLUS line has mechanisms that are equal to the MOST EXPENSIVE and are very long running and trouble free. WHY IS IT THAT THIS MAKER IS THE ONLY ONE IN AMERICA TO REMEMBER SIMPLY: that trains are for the KIDS. + DADS AND KIDS.
I walked into my local hobby shop a week ago and was disgusted. TRAIN CARS FOR $30 -$40 dollars....JUST FOR ONE. Get a grip people. YOU HAVE KILLED THE WHOLE DAMN HOBBY and making Horizon the scape goat dont cut it, although they certainly have MULTIPLE ISSUES.......hiding their entire corporate contact info from the ENTIRE WORLD is among them. GEE another secret outfit? You would think they were a cover for a CIA operation instead of a model & toy maker.
BUT FACE IT, they are as NON REALITY in this as everyone else who labored to kill model railroading. THESE ARE MODELS AND TOYS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE AND SUPER COMPUTERS. When you get to that conclusion of mind, the hobby can then be affected by THINKING PEOPLE who actually love trains and kids.
In the real world where all of us were at some point in the past, where we all had some type of model train set; things were much simpler. Now VIRTUALLY NO KID I KNOW HAS ANY TRAIN AT ALL. I have dragged CAR LOADS of young people for over 10 years now to the train shows that come through Atlanta and all love it BOTH MALES & FEMALES; but none of them came come close to affording this rich mans hobby.
Somewhere WE HAVE TO GET PAST MARKETING EVERYTHING TO PRO ATHLETES AND CELEBRITIES. I know Rod Stewart has a magnificent layout for the ages, BUT WITH HIS MULTI MILLIONS HE SHOULD. What about the real kids in America?
The Athearn thing played out as a brand BECAUSE EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD THE BEST VALUE & DRIVE MECHANISMS IN THE WORLD, they were STANDARD DCC and that was all OLD SCHOOL. IHC/AHM, ConCor, and legendary Rivarossi all fell to the same ax. YET, In England and other parts of Europe, DCC is seen as a plague upon the hobby and totally SCORNED.
This is the continent WHERE THEY STILL HAVE PASSENGER TRAINS ENMASSE and more preservation museums with LIVE EQUIPMENT per capita by far than we in the US could imagine. Just the English ambition to DESIGN & BUILD A NEW STEAM LOCOMOTIVE FROM SCRATCH, ground up (TORNADO) was an inspiration and a LESSON IN WHAT OLD SCHOOL IS REALLY ALL ABOUT.
Now we have basically ONE SINGLE BRAND NAME (Walthers) that has MONOPOLIZED THE ENTIRE MARKET and the prices are all FANTASY LAND.
What about all the real life HARD WORKING average wage dads that want to play trains with their kids? What about all THE MILLIONS OF KIDS that want to play trains? Through all of this, ONLY ONE MANUFACTURER HAS HELD TRUE AND I GIVE THEM MY HIGHEST PRAISE: BACHMANN INDUSTRIES.
Their PLUS line has mechanisms that are equal to the MOST EXPENSIVE and are very long running and trouble free. WHY IS IT THAT THIS MAKER IS THE ONLY ONE IN AMERICA TO REMEMBER SIMPLY: that trains are for the KIDS. + DADS AND KIDS.
I walked into my local hobby shop a week ago and was disgusted. TRAIN CARS FOR $30 -$40 dollars....JUST FOR ONE. Get a grip people. YOU HAVE KILLED THE WHOLE DAMN HOBBY and making Horizon the scape goat dont cut it, although they certainly have MULTIPLE ISSUES.......hiding their entire corporate contact info from the ENTIRE WORLD is among them. GEE another secret outfit? You would think they were a cover for a CIA operation instead of a model & toy maker.
BUT FACE IT, they are as NON REALITY in this as everyone else who labored to kill model railroading. THESE ARE MODELS AND TOYS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE AND SUPER COMPUTERS. When you get to that conclusion of mind, the hobby can then be affected by THINKING PEOPLE who actually love trains and kids.
I'm not quite sure that you are making a valid argument against higher prices for some manufacturer's lines. Most, such as Athearn, Atlas etc still do have their cheaper ranges, some have several levels, so they are still catering to different markets. You praise Bachman, but they also have their Spectrum line which is dearer.
I'm glad that there is such a diversity, I'm old enough to remember when there wasn't and believe me, it was a very, very rich man's hobby back then too. The market has evolved and with it the hobby.
I'm glad that there is such a diversity, I'm old enough to remember when there wasn't and believe me, it was a very, very rich man's hobby back then too. The market has evolved and with it the hobby.
Boris
Beach Bum
Take this in a different direction. My last Lionel set cost my parents around a hundred bucks for an NW2, 9 misc freight cars, and caboose, track and transformer all for about $100. Add on box cars (6464-xxx series), cost about $6, each. This was about 1956-1957 or just before the exploding box cars and missile cares were introduced. I don't know what my dad earned working at the ship yard, but ten years later, when I hired on the railroad (1967) my starting clerks salary was $450/month for the first 6 months. So, the Lionel set cost my father a considerable percentage of his monthly income. I became interested in HO because my weekly allowance (1964) permitted me to buy a Athearn "Yellow Box" kit for $1.99, every couple of weeks. That was about three HO cars for every Lionel car, and they were easier to acquire.
Fast Forward to the 21st century. I'm now retired, and on the proverbial "fixed income". I confess to using DCC, although I'm not quite in to sound. I don't need a whole lot of new product, although I still have my wish lists. I elected not to buy several products I really wanted, because the price point was beyond what I wanted to spend. After all, the model railroad is not a necessity. I continue to feed my hobby habit, by shopping around. Last weekend, for example, I went to a train show, and picked up four new cars for under a hundred bucks. From my perspective that's still a lot less than my dad paid for that Lionel set in the '50s.
The key to staying in the Model Railroad game, is to limit yourself to what you can afford. There are many items that are affordable, if you shop around.
Joe
Fast Forward to the 21st century. I'm now retired, and on the proverbial "fixed income". I confess to using DCC, although I'm not quite in to sound. I don't need a whole lot of new product, although I still have my wish lists. I elected not to buy several products I really wanted, because the price point was beyond what I wanted to spend. After all, the model railroad is not a necessity. I continue to feed my hobby habit, by shopping around. Last weekend, for example, I went to a train show, and picked up four new cars for under a hundred bucks. From my perspective that's still a lot less than my dad paid for that Lionel set in the '50s.
The key to staying in the Model Railroad game, is to limit yourself to what you can afford. There are many items that are affordable, if you shop around.
Joe
The cheapest engines in those lines is around $100. I know so many people who take home not much more than that after HEALTHCARE AND TAXES weekly. The 1980s was the glory days and the best balance of choices. It was the best balance of prices as well.
I was doing TEENAGE YARD WORK IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD and still filled several large boxes with trains, many which still run fine today. All you guys went WAY TO ANAL when it came to microscopic details when the real importance was USABILITY and DURABILTY.
I know guys with room sized layouts with 100o or so cars that are DISPLAY ONLY. TRY THAT ON A REAL RR. ANd yet those same guys are the most totally anal about being PROTOTYPE. This hobby is sadly on life support. ALL THE SPIN IN THE WORLD WONT CHANGE THAT.
I was doing TEENAGE YARD WORK IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD and still filled several large boxes with trains, many which still run fine today. All you guys went WAY TO ANAL when it came to microscopic details when the real importance was USABILITY and DURABILTY.
I know guys with room sized layouts with 100o or so cars that are DISPLAY ONLY. TRY THAT ON A REAL RR. ANd yet those same guys are the most totally anal about being PROTOTYPE. This hobby is sadly on life support. ALL THE SPIN IN THE WORLD WONT CHANGE THAT.
I AM HIGHLY INVOLVED IN MUSIC and help produce and advise several known bands all as my HOBBY. The expenses I have in these SPONSORSHIPS Are nothing compared to what it would take to build a layout from scratch on my own. The fact that MODEL RR CLUBS where all the stock is pooled together, are the only real way to do this should tell us all something. I AM NOT A FATALIST, just a realist. Reality check is what all Americans need now. AND I WILL NOT GO INTO POLITICS AS TO WHY, we all agree on that reason.
RCShadow
Member
This topic has been around for a long time (belive it or not). My other passion is R/C planes. If you think this hobby is expensive, think twice. To build an R/C plane that is worth anything will run you $400-$600 and that is if you already have a radio. To get started in it, you better have $1K to burn. Sure, you can shortcut anything but I am being realistic and talking about someone that wants to be in the hobby and not just dabble. The price of being in the R/C hobby, and my father passing away a few years ago caused me to look at model trains in the first place. My dad had a passion for model railroading but never had the funds to do anything but dream about it. So I am doing some of this stuff in his memory.
You could also look at it this way (as my wife seems to tell me sometimes), "you could be into fishing, and look at the price of fishing boats....or you could still be into motorcycles, look at what those cost now...or you could still be flying full scale airplanes, and I don't even want to think about the bills for that! So stop complaining." And she is right.
All things get more expensive with time....companies either get better or get greedy...it's something that happens. We as consumers either support it, or we don't. If Horizon is doing something YOU don't like, don't buy their products. Speak with your pocketbook. We can vent all day but in the end...the world will just keep on spinning.
I read a editorial in Model Railroader a month or two ago about some paint from Testors being dropped. The Ed made the comment that, in model railroading in particular, the users do not like change. I think this may be the demographic but things do, and will, change.
You could also look at it this way (as my wife seems to tell me sometimes), "you could be into fishing, and look at the price of fishing boats....or you could still be into motorcycles, look at what those cost now...or you could still be flying full scale airplanes, and I don't even want to think about the bills for that! So stop complaining." And she is right.
All things get more expensive with time....companies either get better or get greedy...it's something that happens. We as consumers either support it, or we don't. If Horizon is doing something YOU don't like, don't buy their products. Speak with your pocketbook. We can vent all day but in the end...the world will just keep on spinning.
I read a editorial in Model Railroader a month or two ago about some paint from Testors being dropped. The Ed made the comment that, in model railroading in particular, the users do not like change. I think this may be the demographic but things do, and will, change.
clayguthrie
Member
I don't know that i agree on the too expensive portion. You can buy Bachman cheap engines for $30-$40 new at LHS stores or they can order them for you or you can go online. The same goes for freight cars when you consider Model Power and some of the other cheaper cars. Also, some of the cheaper Athearn cars go for 12-15 each at LHS after you figure the LHS almost standard 20% discount off of MSRP. A basic power pack will set you back $30 bucks and track is relatively cheap plus you can buy it a few pieces at a time to spread the cost out. All in all you can build a decent setup with no scenery for $100 or you can just buy a kit. $100 is not a bad amount to invest into any hobby.
That being said there are some expensive brands out there. But even the cheap stuff these days has better detail than the good stuff of yesterday. I typically spend $20 or so on a freight car and that's not going to break me, though i can understand it would for some, but i do try to avoid the more expensive Genesis engines because i won't pay the $225-250 for them. It's a compromise based on cost and detail and that's why most of what i buy is Athearn RTR. And the way i look at it is the hi-tech stuff is cool and great but its for guys who are nose deep in the hobby, and i simply can't afford the time or money to be that involved in a hobby. I'm just as happy looking at their expensive toys as i would be owning them.
It's a great hobby and it's unfortunate that cost keeps some people from enjoying it fully or even at all. But that's not the manufacturers fault.
That being said there are some expensive brands out there. But even the cheap stuff these days has better detail than the good stuff of yesterday. I typically spend $20 or so on a freight car and that's not going to break me, though i can understand it would for some, but i do try to avoid the more expensive Genesis engines because i won't pay the $225-250 for them. It's a compromise based on cost and detail and that's why most of what i buy is Athearn RTR. And the way i look at it is the hi-tech stuff is cool and great but its for guys who are nose deep in the hobby, and i simply can't afford the time or money to be that involved in a hobby. I'm just as happy looking at their expensive toys as i would be owning them.
It's a great hobby and it's unfortunate that cost keeps some people from enjoying it fully or even at all. But that's not the manufacturers fault.
scroggin
Member
There are plenty of business's that have lost money on unpaid accounts from limited liability companies declaring bankrupt while the owner of the company continues on living the high-life without a care for the creditors. Athearn is quite within their rights to require guarantee before giving credit. Even if Blueridge hobbies is creditworthy. The banks would never lend money without some form of guarantee.
logandsawman
Northern Pacific history enthusiast
You hit it out of the ball park, Joe.
I started with a 69.99 pacific flyer, came with locomotive, 2 cars, and caboose; powerpack, minimal track. I bought some more track and added more stuff each month. After three years, and adding my childhood stuff we found in a box (the 10.99 no name brand Sante Fe loco (seen on my avatar)(from like 1968) still works like a top.
I found out that in my budget, I could get the most fun making stuff for the train, taking pictures, and looking at them and dreaming. Mentally unstable, maybe. But it is a lot of fun.
logandsawman
RCShadow
Member
Bruette
Well-Known Member
I was making $2.75 an hour when I bought my first ready to run HO train set for $29.99. A loaf of bread was 25 cents then. MB Klein has a ready to run HO set on sale right now for $34.99 and bread is over $2 now.
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Life-Like-HO-8886-Rail-Charger-Diesel-Freight-Set-p/433-8886.htm
I think trains have never been cheaper then they are today.
Of course the high end stuff is enormously expensive. Lionel sells Vision Line Locomotives for $2000.
Last Christmas I bought Lionel's "Santa's Flyer" complete ready to run set for $199.
I agree complete with the gentleman who have said "you have to live within your means".
Louis
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Life-Like-HO-8886-Rail-Charger-Diesel-Freight-Set-p/433-8886.htm
I think trains have never been cheaper then they are today.
Of course the high end stuff is enormously expensive. Lionel sells Vision Line Locomotives for $2000.
Last Christmas I bought Lionel's "Santa's Flyer" complete ready to run set for $199.
I agree complete with the gentleman who have said "you have to live within your means".
Louis
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