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Post by wagnersteve on Nov 9, 2023 6:11:44 GMT -8
Nov. 9, shortly before 9 a.m., EST
This session included "live" interaction between the firms' spokesman Jim Wiggin and hobbyists who attended it. He said there will be more this year. In 2024 the "Train Tuesday" sessions will be prerecorded, but there will be more "Athearn Extra" sessions with "live" discussions.
He said the firm hopes to have a new survey available next week, probably on Wednesday.
He admitted that the firm's website still has many problems. He thinks that it probably will not have ETAs for products already announced until 2024.
The main discussion was on Athearn series HO EMD GP50s and 85' TOFC flatcars. The "eras" indicated for the flatcars are plausible except for the orange Santa Fe ones with black lettering, shown as "Era: 1970s+". The rendering for those shows BLT and NEW dates of 11-61.
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Post by ChessieFan1978 on Nov 9, 2023 14:48:23 GMT -8
How in 2023 can it take this long to fix a website? Athearn must've really got the cheapest website designers on the planet.
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Post by lvrr325 on Nov 10, 2023 21:58:38 GMT -8
Nobody show him Toy Train Heaven's new site.
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Post by unittrain on Nov 11, 2023 4:37:25 GMT -8
MBKs website is kinda bad too now, starting about 2 weeks ago.
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Post by stevef45 on Nov 11, 2023 8:42:08 GMT -8
There parent company I guess never heard the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it".
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Post by prr 4467 on Nov 11, 2023 8:42:14 GMT -8
Nobody show him Toy Train Heaven's new site. Do you mean to say that TTH actually has a NEW website? Because I've been on it just recently, and it seems...lacking. |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Nov 11, 2023 8:55:08 GMT -8
There parent company I guess never heard the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it". I don't have the old one handy to compare, but I think one thing they were after was to enable on-line sales through the site--notice the assorted "add to carts". That doesn't justify the uselessness of the current site (aside from the on-line sales thing), but it might explain why there was any change at all. Ed |
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Post by ambluco on Nov 11, 2023 10:45:45 GMT -8
No, he means TTH had their NEW site come live in the last year and it sucks now. Nobody show him Toy Train Heaven's new site. Do you mean to say that TTH actually has a NEW website? Because I've been on it just recently, and it seems...lacking. |
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Post by rockfan on Nov 11, 2023 11:34:18 GMT -8
MBKs website is kinda bad too now, starting about 2 weeks ago. Kinda bad, try horrible. Most are now for some reason. |
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Post by ChessieFan1978 on Nov 11, 2023 17:38:52 GMT -8
I sure hope my go to Online Dealer, Lombard Hobbies takes note and doesn't ruin their website.
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Post by cemr5396 on Nov 11, 2023 19:06:28 GMT -8
it's not all bad, Accurail just gave their website an overhaul and I quite like it.
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Post by cera2254 on Nov 11, 2023 21:08:46 GMT -8
MBKs website is kinda bad too now, starting about 2 weeks ago. Kinda bad, try horrible. Most are now for some reason. Tried using the search function and no matter what I put in it gives me the same results. |
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Post by rockfan on Nov 12, 2023 7:05:55 GMT -8
Working midnights it's not easy or convenient to go to a hobby shop that's 30 to 60 minutes away hoping they have what I'm looking for so I do alot of online ordering.
Took a while but I finally was able to get all three of the latest atlas 5437 boxcars I wanted.
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Post by tony on Nov 14, 2023 16:55:12 GMT -8
RE: TTH Web Site
If you look at the code for the tth web site, you will see that is running the wordpress woocommerce stack. Which if you use as they designed it, it has very powerful page filtering capabilities. However, they choose to design the site to look and act like the former HTML site and the results have been somewhat a disaster. Is also appears to be running on a very small compute instance as you frequently see server 500 errors when usage exceeds ? 20 - 30 - 40 users?
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Post by richardthomasatal on Nov 15, 2023 7:38:54 GMT -8
There parent company I guess never heard the phrase "if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it". I agree whole heartedly. WHY must companies continuously meddle with things? Fedex just changed their shipping interface for my business shipments. MBK, Toy Train Heaven, Athearn, the list goes on and on. I think at Horizon it has become so corporate that people are changing things just to look better and get promoted. That creates a lot of problems out of thin air. Horizon as a whole is a 3.1 billion dollar company now and they can't get the basics right. Oh well, at least he addressed it. |
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Post by edwardsutorik on Nov 15, 2023 8:00:00 GMT -8
WHY must companies continuously meddle with things? 1. Because they want to add a new "feature". For example, a direct buy option. 2. Because various of their "partners" have created new programs that won't work with what they have. I've got Safari on my computer, but it's starting not to work on various websites. That's because I've got "old" Safari, and Apple won't do an upgrade on that version. So I'm supposed to buy a new computer. So, too, will these folks with their old website: "Sorry pal, we don't support THAT anymore." 3. Somethin' else I don't know about 'cause I'm not an IT guy. Ed |
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Post by prr 4467 on Nov 15, 2023 9:59:19 GMT -8
This is a bit off topic, but Microsoft routinely makes revisions to Windows, sometimes even perhaps specifically so that older programs that are no longer supported (perhaps were NEVER supported by Microsoft but were supported by 3rd party software developers) will no longer work. They can and do choose to make these revisions literally at any time. It could be that some of the website changes were made with an eye toward preventing future "problems". This is what we get for one company essentially having a monopoly over operating systems.
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Post by tony on Nov 15, 2023 18:49:38 GMT -8
I wonder is the FBI has a full time staff at Microsoft Operating Systems Division to ensure all the newest spy tools are installed and tested successfully.
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Post by cp6027 on Nov 15, 2023 20:59:07 GMT -8
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Post by Colin 't Hart on Nov 16, 2023 0:27:02 GMT -8
.... Microsoft routinely makes revisions to Windows ... This is what we get for one company essentially having a monopoly over operating systems. You seem to be talking about servers here, as we're talking about Athearn's website. Microsoft's share of the server market is only 20%. The rest runs on Unix or Unix-like systems (eg Linux). And if we want to talk about the client end, most people use a mobile device to access the Internet instead of a computer (desktop or laptop). There Android and iOS combine for almost 100% market penetration, Microsoft has virtually nothing of it. Yes, Microsoft had and continues to have a monopoly on the desktop/laptop OS market, but it is becoming more and more irrelevant. |
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ictom
Junior Member
Posts: 83
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Post by ictom on Nov 18, 2023 10:14:51 GMT -8
MBKs website is kinda bad too now, starting about 2 weeks ago. Kinda bad, try horrible. Most are now for some reason. Agreed, but Hatton's purchased MBK a couple weeks ago, so maybe they're in limbo until things get figured out. What I noticed is that the Search engine is absolutely broken. Still, Hatton's has an impressive rep in the UK, so things may be much, much better in the long run. |
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Post by rockfan on Nov 18, 2023 11:48:34 GMT -8
Kinda bad, try horrible. Most are now for some reason. Agreed, but Hatton's purchased MBK a couple weeks ago, so maybe they're in limbo until things get figured out. What I noticed is that the Search engine is absolutely broken. Still, Hatton's has an impressive rep in the UK, so things may be much, much better in the long run. MBK sent me an email and I sent one back telling them how awful their search engine is. Went back and forth a few times and now when I search the site it actually works like it should. |
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Post by wagnersteve on Nov 18, 2023 13:13:12 GMT -8
Nov. 18, about 4:10 p.m., EST
cp6027, thanks for the link to Athearn's announcements of the EMD SD70ACU locos.
Athearn's Jim Wiggin and White River Productions' Tony Cook were on a special Athearn Extra session online Thursday evening. It's available on YouTube and apparently lasts more than an hour. I didn't watch it because I was struggling mightily on Thursday and Friday to finish my writing for the February 2024 issue of the Bridge Line Historical Society Bulletin. I hope to watch it later, since some of our members are very interested in the CP units, especially the ones in distinctive liveries.
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Post by wagnersteve on Nov 18, 2023 18:54:01 GMT -8
Nov. 18, 9:51 p.m., EST
ictom, what is the source for your statement that Hatton's has acquired M.B. Klein?
I think you're probably right about that, which would explain why MBK's website has recently included invitations for hobbyists to send in lists & descriptions of models they would like to sell to the firm.
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ictom
Junior Member
Posts: 83
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Post by ictom on Nov 18, 2023 19:30:19 GMT -8
Nov. 18, 9:51 p.m., EST ictom, what is the source for your statement that Hatton's has acquired M.B. Klein? I think you're probably right about that, which would explain why MBK's website has recently included invitations for hobbyists to send in lists & descriptions of models they would like to sell to the firm. The October 2023 issue of Model Railroad Hobbyist. It's on page 37 of MRH Briefly Noted. It works out to pg. 137 in my PDF version, if that helps: "MB Klein has been purchased by Hattons. Hattons official Yvonne Wood says, “We saw a lot of similarites between MB Klein and Hatton’s, so we acquired the company. We are looking forward to expanding their services”" |
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Post by wagnersteve on Nov 19, 2023 2:29:05 GMT -8
Nov. 19, 5:28 p.m., EST
ictom, thanks very much!
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ictom
Junior Member
Posts: 83
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Post by ictom on Nov 20, 2023 12:11:07 GMT -8
Agreed, but Hatton's purchased MBK a couple weeks ago, so maybe they're in limbo until things get figured out. What I noticed is that the Search engine is absolutely broken. Still, Hatton's has an impressive rep in the UK, so things may be much, much better in the long run. MBK sent me an email and I sent one back telling them how awful their search engine is. Went back and forth a few times and now when I search the site it actually works like it should. Yep - they've definitely fixed the search engine. The sales are on, too - very good prices on things as of today. They're beating everyone on some things. |
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Post by talltim on Jan 8, 2024 9:27:28 GMT -8
I've just seen that Hattons have announced that they are closing. They are one of the big two or three retailers in the UK so its going to leave a hole. Not sure where that leaves MBK
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