I think the most important consideration for the future of a family owned hobby company is family interest and succession. The reason Athearn & MDC went to Horizon is that Irv died, his kids weren't interested in the company. The company continued in business for a few years with no new products coming down the pipeline until Irv's widow sold it. Unfortunately, the buyers had to go so deep in hock to buy the company that they really had to sell out to Horizon, or risk going under. In the case of MDC, the founder of the company wanted to retire, and again his children were not interested in the company. Someone other than Horizon might have been able to buy the company, but they didn't. My biggest concern is that Horizon moved Athearn into a bigger facility, but after buying MDC, they moved them in with Athearn. I think the Athearn people are perfectly capable of running the company as one, but they don't have enough space for both product lines. Expect to see less popular lines, or perhaps products that individual managers aren't as interested in get dropped. Being from So Cal where Athearn is located, I can say that Athearn is a very customer oriented company. I mean by that, if people have a complaint with an Athearn product, if the company can change it to meet the demand they will. A case in point, when they first came out with ready to run passenger cars they were glued todether. Buyers complained that they couldn't get them apart to install detailed interiors and lighting without risking destruction of the car. The next and all succeeding production runs have not been glued together.