Con-Cor has died a slow death.

[McKeen]

Update for Con-Cor Customers

Due to the 2018 closing of AffaTech — Con-Cor's sole producer in China — the majority of Con-Cor's tooling and designs were lost. While some production was relocated, outstanding debt and manufacturing constraints in China have made it impossible to move forward with new Con-Cor production. Jim Conway was also unable to transfer the remaining tooling, designs, and records to us before his passing, leaving them unrecovered.

Jim Conway passed the company, remaining warehouse inventory, and the rights to produce new products to his former employee of 40 years.

The Con-Cor website has transitioned to LaBelle-Lubricants.com, where LaBelle Lubricants will continue on, offering their trusted line of products under the new home.

For Con-Cor's remaining limited RTR inventory, ArizonaHobbies.com is your destination. Con-Cor items will be listed as they are processed into the Arizona Hobbies system, so check back as stock becomes available. Beyond Con-Cor, Arizona Hobbies carries a wide variety of model trains and hobby supplies to meet all your modeling needs.

BlueFlagModelTrains.com carries parts for popular Con-Cor locomotives, as well as parts and service for all major brands — making them a great resource for keeping your fleet running.

Labelle Lubricants·3600 S Palo Verde Rd Suite 109 • Tucson, AZ 85713
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[Mark5]

Thanks for this update.

I didn't know he had passed on. Though he became a "colorful" personality in his later years, Con-Cor certainly played a major roll in N Scale in the 70s and well into the 80s. RIP Jim Conway.

[C855B]

Two years ago: https://obituaries.caminodelsol.com/obituary/James-Conway

[OldEastRR]

Again, a reminder of the dangers of offshoring mfg business to China. If they decide to steal everything you gave them to make, nothing can be done to stop them.

[packers#1]

Again, a reminder of the dangers of offshoring mfg business to China. If they decide to steal everything you gave them to make, nothing can be done to stop them.

That’s a vast oversimplification of the system

[Dave V]

Yeah, Con-Cor's decline wasn't inevitable. Anyone who received an email from Jimmy in his last years probably has his/her own opinion on matters, but in the end, losing Con-Cor did the hobby no favors. My RTR HOn3 Galloping Geese will never be made again. Nor will Con-Cors PRR P54s and MP54s ever find their way to N scale.

I'm no businessman so I'm not going to pretend I understand it all, but Con-Cor got kinda weird toward the end.

[Point353]

IMO, Con-Cor was never quite the same after they parted ways with Kato in the 1980s.

Also, their business practice of almost any model in almost any road name fell out of favor as the market demanded ever more prototypically correct products.
Jim Comway acknowledged this shift when I spoke with him at a train show about two decades ago.

[mike_lawyer]

I was always hoping they would redesign the heavy 2-10-2 so that it was dimensionally correct and had bullet proof electric transfer from the tender.  But I guess that wasn't to be.

[thomasjmdavis]

I bought my first Con-cor products in the late 1960s, IIRC.  HO scale ATSF passenger cars.  Still have some of them in a box in the garage.  The last cars I bought new were... N Scale ATSF passenger cars- the 'twin window' coaches that came out 15 years ago or thereabouts.

I gave up on Con-cor several years ago- the emails I was getting had no new product and lots of political diatribe.  But, I have to give Jim Conway his due- he introduced many new products to N scale.  I don't know how we would have made it through the 1970s without the PA and the Hudson.  Not to mention introducing us to Kato's quality standards.  Con-cor's (Kato made) freight cars, in addition to the locos, were a step above everything but MTL.  And my layout in the 1980s was built with Shinohara track- another Con-cor import from Japan.

So... RIP Jim Conway.  And, hopefully, the folks caught up in what sounds like a fairly confused winding down of the company come out of it ok financially.  I'll run my Con-cor locos and cars until the wheels fall off. 

[mike_lawyer]

We owe a bunch to Con-Cor for the Hudson, which showed how an N scale steam loco could be built that ran smoothly.  It was the first really good steam locomotive in N scale.

[Missaberoad]

We owe a bunch to Con-Cor Kato for the Hudson, which showed how an N scale steam loco could be built that ran smoothly.  It was the first really good steam locomotive in N scale.

Fixed it for you! 

[Mark5]

To be fair, we might not have seen that Hudson if Con-Cor didn't reach out to Kato in the first place.

[C855B]

Oh, yes. Jim and Kato/Sekisui set the standard for what N scale could be while Atlas and the others were messing around with the Yugoslav and Austrian sources.

I still have Sekisui-labeled rolling stock running on my railroad, albeit weathered given the printing technologies of the day. I was playing with hand-laid Code 40 in 1970 thanks to the tighter tolerances of Sekisui-sourced product Jim imported. Truly a pioneer.

[chessie system fan]

Truly a pioneer.

Yes, it was. To me, the story of Con-Cor is what happens when you stop innovating.

[nkalanaga]

The oldest intact in-service car I have is a Con-Cor 40' boxcar in GN Glacier Green paint.  The only changes I've made are KD 1025s ( I think they were still MT-5s back then) and Walthers ACI labels.

True, the GN never owned a car quite like it, and the lettering doesn't quite match any series I've found, but both are plausible, and don't look out of place.  Con-Cor even gave it a number in an unused series appropriate for a plain 40' boxcar, so no one will ever find a photo showing it's wrong.

Oddly the herald, complete with the standing "Rocky", is a decal, not printed.  I know they did the same thing with the GN Empire Builder scheme PA-1.  I don't remember ever seeing another mass-produced N scale car with decal heralds.