Athearn Division of Horizon Hobby has recovered its product tooling that was impounded when one of its Chinese manufacturing partners went bankrupt last January (for background see February 2012 MRH, page 103). 

According to Vic Audo, Horizon’s Director of Railroad Products, Athearn has successfully retrieved all of the tooling for ready-to-run models that was impounded by Chinese authorities when  Creative Masters Limited (CML) shut down its large manufacturing facility in Guangdong Province. Athearn has taken  physical possession of the tooling which is currently being inspected by Mike  Hopkin, Athearn’s product development director, who flew to China last week. 

Impounding the tooling interrupted the scheduled arrival of several ready-to-run models, however, Audo  told MRH that Athearn’s upscale-Genesis products and production schedules were never in jeopardy since they only used  CML to manufacturer items in their ready-to-run line. 

Although final decisions are pending, Audo said that future ready-to-run items will probably be manufactured by the same Chinese partner that has been successfully manufacturing Athearn’s  Genesis line. A revised fall delivery  schedule is expected to be released within  a few weeks.