Athearn Bluebox

Athearn stopped making its domestically produced bluebox kits around ten years ago, but they were largely supplanted after Athearn was purchased by a venture capital firm about 2000, upgraded its product line, and began outsourcing its manufacturing to China. As a result, Athearn bluebox items have achieved "vintage" or "classic" status. I never built my roster with a focus on bluebox, and I always wanted to add detail and repaint most of my equipment. Still, I'm fond of the bluebox stuff I have, and I recently discovered some projects that had been on the back burner for 25 or more years, having never been unpacked following our move to our present home.

Here's a U28C shell that I'm completing, almost ready for paint. It will be a PRR unit. I removed the equipment box on the fireman's side running board behind the cab, the nose light, and the cab roof vents, which were SP features.

Here's a bluebox twin hopper ready for decals, waiting for Mount Vernon Shops to get PRR H31 lettering back in stock:

On bluebox freight cars, I always replace the coupler pockets, with their clip-on metal covers, with Kadee boxes screwed in place. Here this is shown on the H31 above. I also added some extra weight between the discharges with low temp metal:

Here is a Kadee box screwed into the metal weight on a bluebox 50-foot boxcar, modified to a Santa Fe Fe-24:

Here's a bluebox Train Master, remotored and converted to DCC: