# Miscellaneous Musing......



## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

I was at my train store today, and something caught my eye.....I noticed on an old Athearn blue box kit that the recommended age for the kit was 7 years.......and on the newer RTR Athearn box, it’s 14 years....

Why would that be? You’d think a ready-to-run piece of rolling stock would have fewer “dangerous” parts in it than an unassembled kit would, and yet the recommmended age for it is twice as old as the kit version is!

I also saw a Hornby RTR piece of rolling stock....it’s recommended age is 3 years!

It baffles me why there would be so many differences for basically the same type of product.....


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

Because the PC Politzei have gotten their hands in everything these days.

We can't have 12 and 13 year olds eating the couplers off of model trains now can we?

They're all a bunch of busy body idiots.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

maybe because the pieces on the kit were larger ???
who knows, no reason for pc tendancies, lol


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

MichaelE said:


> Because the PC Politzei have gotten their hands in everything these days.
> 
> We can't have 12 and 13 year olds eating the couplers off of model trains now can we?
> 
> They're all a bunch of busy body idiots.


Except for the ones in Great Britain, it seems.....


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

wvgca said:


> maybe because the pieces on the kit were larger ???
> who knows, no reason for pc tendancies, lol


Welcome back wvgac! Long time, no talk......


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

nah ... been here as aard dvaark, back to the old one again


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## highvoltage (Apr 6, 2014)

wvgca said:


> nah ... been here as aard dvaark, back to the old one again


You were aard dvaark? Hmm, would not have guessed that one.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

flipped back to this one, it was dead for seven months or so ...


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## Gramps (Feb 28, 2016)

Old_Hobo said:


> I was at my train store today, and something caught my eye.....I noticed on an old Athearn blue box kit that the recommended age for the kit was 7 years.......and on the newer RTR Athearn box, it’s 14 years....
> 
> Why would that be? You’d think a ready-to-run piece of rolling stock would have fewer “dangerous” parts in it than an unassembled kit would, and yet the recommmended age for it is twice as old as the kit version is!
> 
> ...


I think it might be a case of back in the day Athearn wanted Dad to buy Junior some trains so they made the age 7. But then someone in Athearn's Legal Dept. figured if some 7 year old did get hurt using the product Athearn would be liable and get sued. I saw an example of this a few years ago on a kid's Superman Halloween Costume. It had a label that read "WARNING: CAPE WILL NOT ENABLE WEARER TO FLY".


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

No one seems to have any common sense any longer. Not as common as it once was.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)




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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

still one of the best looking bikes out there ... never had a 69 with the cast iron cylinders, but had a 70, turned it up to an 836 kit, lol


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

MichaelE said:


> No one seems to have any common sense any longer. Not as common as it once was.


Malcolm Muggeridge once observed that "The problem with modern man is that he has educated himself into imbecility."


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## cid (Jul 3, 2014)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> View attachment 549737


OMG, John, I snorted my coffee...


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

To give Athearn a little slack here, it might be because of glue, only a wag!


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

How would dry, fully cured glue require a higher age limit......?

If anything, all the parts being fully assembled out of the box should lower
the age recommendation, as there are no loose parts to become dangerous to younger folks.....


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Its a kit? Does it use glue?


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Sorry, you mis-understand....you may have to re-read my original post, or maybe read the re-worded explanation below....



I mentioned 2 different Athearn products....

Blue Box (old kits) have a recommended age of 7 years.....
Athearn RTR (new, RTR/already assembled) has a recommended age of 14 years.....

My musing is that why would the Athearn Blue Box kit, which does require glue and has a myriad of loose parts, be only 7 years, whereas the Athearn RTR product, which is all assembled and requires no glue and has no loose parts, have a recommended age of *TWICE* the more dangerous version....


Hopefully that explanation is clearer......


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Your right about glue and a RTR model so there must be some other concern involved.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

And therein lies the unanswered question.....what concerns could those be.....?


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## flyboy2610 (Jan 20, 2010)

Because 7 year olds of days gone by are smarter than 14 year olds of today.


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## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

flyboy2610 said:


> Because 7 year olds of days gone by are smarter than 14 year olds of today.


I expect that, unfortunately, there's a lot of truth to that.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

And we’ve likely got only ourselves to blame for that.....


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## AFGP9 (Apr 8, 2015)

Any time you think you see a stupid warning on anything of what not to do, it is because somebody has done that stupid thing and sued and won. 

Kenny


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

Competent lawyers can get you anything......


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## Massey (Apr 16, 2011)

I have 2 theories on this. Both may be right on the money, or way out of the ballpark.

1. Companies expected parents to do things with their kids, like build model trains and therefore at 7 with some supervision the product was more than adequate for their skills and play ability.

2. Lawyers. Sue happy people who cant take accountability for leaving their kids alone with a model, sue the crap out of a company because their unattended kid got into something he/she shouldn't have and its not the parents fault but the company that made the products fault. And worse of all a lawyer that agreed with derelict parent. It reminds me of the lawsuit brought against UP for a kid getting hurt after being hit by one of their trains. The kid was bruised and had a cut that required medical attention. The kicker here was the train was thrown at the injured kid by his brother. The train was an HO scale model. HTF is UP responsible for that?

A wise man once said (and this was 250 years or so ago) that "Common sense is commonly uncommon." We all know who said this... if you forgot his name look on a $100 bill.


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