November 2003

"Mainline Commentary"/Letter to the Editor

Using rolling stock models as an example, Peter Weiglin commented in the May 2003 Mainline Modeler that now that we have an abundance of reliable, accurate equipment, “smaller problems,” notably perceived shortcomings in a model, take on a significance far greater than their actual importance.

It’s interesting that Peter used as an example the pioneering work of the 1930s, when research and resources were few and far between, and that craftsmanship was necessarily held in higher regard than model’s prototypical shortcomings. However, a lot has happened between now and then, and if we look closer at the history of the hobby, we’ll discover that the decade of the 1950s was a crossroads determining which direction the hobby would take for the next thirty years, especially if we consider one manufacturer: Athearn.

By 1950, Athearn was marketing a line of metal kits in both HO and O scale. They were making an effort to match the correct paint schemes with the particular kit’s prototype. Some boxcar kits even included the correct type of ends, and in the case of the Southern Pacific “Overnight” boxcars, the sides included extra rows of Alternating Center Rivets (ACR), just where the prototype had them. One can easily visualize Irv Athearn doing his own prototype research in the freight yards near his building in Compton, and models built from the Athearn metal kits (subsequently marketed by George Menzies, D.J. Baker, and finally Bowser/English’s Model Railroad Supply) still compare favorably today.

However, the model railroad business was under pressure from competition such as slot cars and other hobbies, and the decision was made to move away from the metal kits and retool the line as easier to build plastic kits to appeal more to the toy train buyer, including features such as oversized “claws” and hinges to allow doors and hatches to move, and molded on grab irons and heavy sill steps and brake wheels to take the abuse that toys receive. Non-prototype paint schemes started to appear to broaden the appeal of the line.

From a business point of view, this marketing decision was a stunning success – thousands upon thousands of models were sold, becoming a hobby staple and doing much to make HO scale popular. Almost all of today’s modelers started out with Athearn kits, and their low price continues to provide beginning modelers a good bargain.

Unfortunately, this same success served to cause the hobby to stagnate for almost thirty years. Because these models were so successful, many other manufacturers copied them, including the faults. Over time, these very models became “the truth” – when Train-Miniature first issued their Pennsylvania Railroad X29 kits, many thought they were undersized because they were smaller than the “standard” Athearn boxcar. No significant improvement would be made to injection-molded models until the early 1980s, when a greater awareness of the prototype started to take hold within the hobby.

This brings us to the point of this history lesson – does anyone realistically believe we would have the variety of quality models today without somebody asking, “Why don’t the models we have match what the prototype had?” Before you condemn someone as “an elitist rivet counter,” take a look at some of the models on your layout and ask yourself, “Would I have this Proto 2000 locomotive or Kadee PS-1 boxcar if nobody cared enough to do the research or even ask why?” Be honest.

Benjamin Hom