Longtime reader, first time poster. Wouldn’t it be cool if model manufacturers could make a steam loco of any particular wheel arrangement and have the boiler and tender set up so that you could add and arange appliances, smokebox doors,pilots,etc. specific to your road?
Everyone builds either a popular one-off {SP Daylight, NW class J} or a VERY generic,and sometimes, not very accurate model. You have to live with what they sell. Kitbash: I’ve done some with some fair results and some not so good. Brass: I have had some in the past. But who can REALLY afford it.I want a Central of Georgia “Big Apple” 4-8-4. Oriental made a limited run of 100 or so, saw one last year on E-bay…It went for almost two grand! That much money for a 25 year old locomotive with an open-frame motor and straight dc!
Our hobby has progressed by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years, Especially in the steam department.I feel like this might be the next step.
I think it would be great if there were several generic frames/platforms from which to chose, and then to be able to add ‘details’ like the right boiler with firebox, the domes where you need 'em and the right shape and size. The problem might be with the extras, like a feedwater pump, or the feedwater heater, or the air-pumps and shrouds. You get the idea. A person would have to be adept at drilling and applying appliances of all kinds, piping and other ancillary details.
There would be a sizable market, maybe, but I’m afraid I would have to rely largely on an RTR market. Those who are skilled could probably do very well if they could order a kit from generic and then specific stock.
It IS a great idea…and was tried by a company many years ago. I can’t remember if it was Arbour Models or someone else though. They had a generic frame for a smaller engine (2-6-0/4-6-0) and it came as 3 kits: boiler, mechanism & tender. The boiler could be made into several different wagon top configurations with many types of domes, cabs & appliances. The mechanism could be varied too with different valve gear & cylinders.
The problem was it was expensive at the time and took a lot more time & skill than most folks wanted to put into an engine. Personally I thought it was made of crappy too-soft materials.
Most of us building steam kits at the time chose better quality mechanisms and parts & scratch built or just modified Tyco/Mantua, Bowser & Varney engines.
We are in an age where many modelers have difficulty installing KD couplers or assembling Athearn Blue Box kits so you figure it out. I’ve worked in several hobby shops and seen, heard & experienced people intimitaded and uncapable of the most basic things like changing out wheelsets and using an NMRA gauge to check them out.
Bowser, the last hold-out for quality steam kits just recently gave it up due to lack of response to their kits.
In a sense you can already do this. Buy a cheap IHC locomotive with the appropriate wheel arrangement and then cut off or remove unwanted details. Most steam details are still avaiable and can be easily added to create the loco of your choice.
Also Bowser offers steam loco kits of several of the most popular wheel arrangements that again you can customize.
This was tried many years ago. IIRC there was a 4-4-0 and a 2-6-0 in On3. They were basic and the modeler would add details. I don’t think they were very successful.
The problem with steam is the large number of variations in the boilers, tenders, domes, valve gear, piping, etc. The market is just not there to support the investment in tooling and inventory. There are companies, Greenway is one, that make/carry parts in brass, but you can plan on quite a bit of scratch building to get a specific locomotive even if their parts match your prototype. And the cost is relatively high.
Many years ago there was an editorial in MR. Suggesting the same idea for F units. It got rave reviews and nothing else. In this world of instant gratification it probaby stands no chance…
And herein lies our problem. Since cost is the prime issue anymore we can now sit and buy only what is available. At the lowest price possible.
I don’t see how the cost factor should be the issue here–we have people pre-ordering $600.00 locomotives now----surely to goodness our market should be able to handle the investment in time and $$$ to do this----come now. Yes, the market is fragmented but we should not allow this to get in the way of providing opportunities for those who would want a kit to bash together----
We need people with imagination and the vision to do this----not just the billfold—the cry of “But It Costs Money!” is getting rather boring here—
Bob - that´s history already. IHC is out of business and Bowser does not make those kits any longer - leaving a deep gap for those aficionados of Pennsy steam power.
it seems, as if those, who still have unbuilt Bowser kits stashed away, keep hanging on to them, until they appreciate in value. Very little available in the evilbay nowadays.
Back in the late 70’s, there was a company(The Locomotive Company???) that offered several small engines(like a 4-6-0) and a choice of 3 different boilers/detail kits. Great idea, but the metal was way too soft, and the fit/finish was lacking. Arbor Models may have bought them at some point, but both of them did not last very long.
That was it! The company was owned by one R. Schleider(sp?) who authored a number of modelling books at one time—still does?–The thing with the metal made for some interesting scenarios—I have a couple of those things still–cracking away----IIRC wasn’t there an issue with their molds being ancient?
Actually…certain previously commonly available IHC locomotives are already disappearing from the eBay listings and, except perhaps for the really older, far less desirable models, I suspect that many of better examples will be essentially unavailable in the secondhand market soon.
Quite correct! Certain of the increasingly scarce examples are starting to sell for more than their original MSRP and I suspect we’ll see figures in excess of $100+ very soon for some of the smaller wheel arrangements that formerly sold for around $40 on eBay.
Apparently, IHC’s manufacturer, Mehano, is still in business and quite capable of supplying the goodies. What they don’t have is a distributor in the US although there is one in Mexico. http://www.mehano.si/?PID=34 It would also seem that most locomotives are still listed, including the 2-10-2 (Prestige series).
Note: Barry, the below is not directed at you.
Rather than wear hair shirts and lamenting the loss of IHC, might it not be more profitable to try to convince someone to import Mehano items again? That being said, I am well aware that this particular forum is more often used as a kind of Wailing Wall rather than as a venue for actually suggesting something useful.
In fact, Mehano already reportedly has plans to re-enter the U.S. market with a line of their products, likely early next year or soon thereafter. However, they are apparently contemplating to aim at the high end of the locomotive market and not include the smaller, more affordable, items sold for years by IHC.
Sounds like a nice idea on the surface, but you are absolutely out of your mind. The level of inventory sophistication necessary to produce generic engines (even as kits) with all the extra added details some of you desire would simply be a nightmare for any manufacturer to deal with. I worked for Bowser during the late 1980’s and very early 1990’s. Between their own parts and parts stocked on hand for Rivarossi, Mantua, Athearn, Arbor Models, etc. plus all the various brass detail parts they actually made for the importers, etc., the parts inventory exceeded several hundred thousand different items at that time, nearly all of which had to be inventoried at least once per year. It took us two weeks in the summer to do the inventory.
Bowser didn’t stop making steam loco kits because there was no interest–it was because the interest there was proved to be economically insufficient to continue to be viable. Off the record, I have been told their U.S. labor costs were about 3 times the yearly sales of all the kits.
While there is certainly a segment of craftsman modelers who know the subtle differences between all the different models of Worthington feedwater heaters, and which engines should get what appliance, that segment of the hobby is way too small for any manufacturer to economically satisfy.
Beyond making an engine or kit in 2,3, maybe even 4 versions, nobody that I know of is going to stock all the detail parts needed to customize the steam locomotive kit.
Bowser themselves is in the process of discontinuing many steam locomotive detail parts. Go to their website, check the lists, and order what you need while you still can–because it is over–they will not be making any more of certain product lines or items.
I said a decade ago the brass market was dead–yet the sales of new product are quite sufficient to keep many dealers in business. There are and always will be a certain segment of heavy hitters who spend real money over $5000 per year each–and get catered to.
Manufacturing trains is not a charity–those who don’t make money go bankrupt–and stocking lots of parts is extremely expensive due to low turnover and profit margin versus time involved.
Narrow-vision? Inventory costs money–money nobody has or is willing to borrow anymore.