While it seems nice to have exquisitely detailed stuff. It just plain costs too damn much to justify its regular purchase. Add to that the demand by so many vendors, that you must advance order stuff sight unseen (not even a product review available). Ordering stuff like that through my local hobby shop has been a fruitless effort every time I tried it.

Latest example - a Bowser FT set in WP green and yellow. They failed to deliver after more than a year, and then had the gall to suggest I accept a different paint scheme - at higher cost yet. Nothing the hobby shop owner could do, but I had to cancel - I ain't paying several hundred dollars for a second choice.

Another case - I failed to pre-order a "Broadway" California Zephyr car set in time. Just try to get one by walking in to the local hobby store. They tried to order it but could not get delivery. I gave up after a year. Then I found it in an out of town train shop - individual cars though (mixed road even). I took 'em anyway, but have regretted the 500+ dollars I spent on it ever since.

They look good - very good - but they won't make it even once around my layout without jumping the track, even with its 30-42 inch curves. I kept fussing with the track to no avail, until an out of state visitor (fellow model railroader) pointed out the problem: Poor design coupler pockets; stiff trucks; skewed axles, and body parts hanging down too low - hitting track components. He pointed out serious and expensive re-work needed on every single car! The stuff was junk as an operating model! Are they all like that? Or was this out-of-towner just sold mismatched seconds by the "Train Hobby Shop"?

I fear the model railroad industry is pricing itself out of the market. No matter how they justify the extreme cost increases of the last decade; it won't matter much if you can't afford it. The market will bear only so much.

As to the lack of Athearn kits, that alone could be the death knell of the hobby. And it wasn't done because the kits weren't selling - they always were, until they were no longer available that is. It was a simple business decision done only after the family sold off the business - you can charge a lot more money right now - for a ready to run model; the added effort to produce them being easily offset by using Chinese slave labor. The new owners couldn't care less about the resultant loss of future markets

It was once the case that "If you build a better mousetrap, they'll beat a path to your door". But no more - building a better a mouse trap is a disadvantage in the financial market - they will put you out of business before the public ever sees your mouse trap. It is no longer about selling want the customer wants - it's about selling what makes the most money the quickest - in the financial market. And so thus goes the specialty hobby industry - down the same rat-hole as the rest of American industry.

OPB