AFFA in Hong Kong has suddenly announced it is shutting down, affecting numerous N scale manufacturers including Intermountain, Fox Valley Models, Atlas, TrainWorx and Wheels of Time to name a few. Rumors in the industry seemed to indicate that the owner of AFFA may have some health issues that are prompting the sudden shut down. Meanwhile, N scale manufacturers affected by this are undoubtably disappointed and looking for new factories to produce their models. One thing is for certain, a number of recently announced (and previously announced) items won’t be making it through production (or at least significantly delayed). It will take a while for the dust to settle and hopefully this won’t have devastating financial affects on some U.S. based companies that won’t have new product for quite a while.
Matt from Fox Valley sent the following note out today:
Over the weekend, news broke that a large supplier of model trains in China has closed its doors. Fox Valley Models has used this factory for a large portion of our products. As of today, there is no clear path that will resume production in short order, or an easy way to move projects. With this news, we must reluctantly list all previously announced products as Postponed/Cancelled. If projects can be moved, it will take a number of months to do so, and then get a new factory up to speed on our projects will take even more time. We will keep all previously recorded pre-orders on file. If a resolution presents itself over the next few months, we will reconfirm specific projects as they get close (well into next year at best). If this process takes and extended time, it may be best to re-announce each project.
This is an unexpected and sudden development. We recently received paint samples for new projects and had the indication that many of our orders were moving forward. We were looking forward to getting back to work after our extended summer trip with our son. Sadly this is not the case. But we will keep moving forward.
For now, we still have a good selection of recent N Scale locos and cars available. We have a few projects at another factory that will now be our focus while things get resolved. We started as a small model company before, and will continue on. We sincerely apologize to everyone who was looking forward to announced releases and greatly appreciate your patience and understanding as we move forward through this unexpected interruption. We will share news and new products as they become available. Thank you.
Best regards,
Matt Gaudynski
And Intermountain posted the following on their Facebook page this afternoon:
Atlas posted the following notice on their website as well:
Atlas has received notification from one of our locomotive and rolling stock suppliers that they have closed their factory. (Please note Atlas track and accessories are NOT affected by this delay.) Atlas is currently working with our network of suppliers to transfer the projects to others for completion. This will cause a delay in some previously ordered products. We apologize for this delay, thank you for your continued support, and will update you with more information as it becomes available.
We will post any updates we receive as soon as we hear some positive news.