The above quote from another thread made me think about when I got back into model railroading in 1982. The locomotives I wanted were not available as plastic models, yet they were used by many prototype railroads. Here are some examples, with the builder production totals in brackets:
Alco S-2 (1502)
Alco RS-3 (1418)
EMD GP9 (4115)
EMD SW9 (815)
EMD SW1200 (1056)
Yet the model manufacturers, in their infinite wisdom, made plastic models of the following locos – again, with builder production totals in brackets:
While a plastic RS-3 wasn’t in production in 1982, it was in 1962. I’ve got one. Hobbytown of Boston. In '82, if you couldn’t find the discontinued plastic version, the metal one was available. And it was heavier.
And, I think, the SW9 and SW1200 could be made from the Athearn “SW1500” by scraping off some louvers.
The magazines of the early 80’s were filled with kitbashing articles on changing common Athearn, Bachmann, and Life-Like locos into models otherwise not available except as brass. And there were things liek the Cary switcher bodies for the Athearn chassis.
Any steam engine is rather limited in production numbers, as they are so railroad specific. Diesels are another matter:
S2 - There was a ‘sort of’ plastic model from AHM by 1982 - but it was basic train set stuff.
RS-3 - This model has been in plastic or metal production since the 50’s.
GP9 - Front Range had a plastic engine in the 80’s? Even the GP7 can be converted by removing louvers most of the time.
SW9 - Another quick update of an Athearn SW7.
SW1200 - Again, you have the basic shell.
C-415 - Just another train set engine.
C-430 - Tyco wanted to produce a modern’ high HP engine. I am sure RMC or Alco gave them the drawings.
FP45 - Agreed, this was small production. But it was a popular road and model back in the ‘muscle car’ era of diesels.
SDP45 - This was a simple ‘body swap’ for Athearn when they released their SD45. At the time, the SDP40 looked like a good replacement passenger engine that could be moved to freight service when passenger service ended for the prototype. I would have thought an SD40 would be a good body swap, but the gear boxes were too close to the ends of the car body to make it work.
BQ23-7 - Another train set quality engine. But a lot of folks bough up these to get the ‘Dash-7’ car body before RPP had anything available.
Back in the 60’s/70’s, die cutting for injection molding was very expensive and the list of good drawings & die cutters was quite small. In the late 70’s a lot of ‘flat’ plastic kits became available. E&B Valley and RAMAX were good examples of what could be done.The multi-cam dies that are used for one piece locomotive can be quite expensive. With everything ‘on the computer’ - the drawings and die cutting cost can be recovered much faster.
The ‘down side’ of all this new stuff is no need to kit-bask or modify mo
The P1K DL-109 sales were primarily driven by NH fans, desperate for one of the major missing pieces of any NH fan’s 1940’s-1950’s layout. Sure, it had been done in brass, but Overland models were expensive and the Hallmark ones were a joke. The P1K, while not right for the NH (nor any road) ran well and was priced right.
The NH had 60 of the 74 DL-109’s made. First delivered just days after Pearl Harbor, it was the first diesel loco designed for both freight & passenger trains, and it was the mainstay of the NH’s mainlines until the arrival of the PA-1’s in 1948. After that, they lasted until the end of the Old Colony commuter lines in 1959.
It’s sort of like the Rapido Osgood-Bradley coaches. If you want to model the NH in the Transition Era, you need DL-109’s and O-B Coaches. And since NH fans seem to spend money, DL-109’s in NH have been run at least 3 times that I know of, with a 4th on the way. It may be an odd loco, but for a NH fan, it’s our odd loco. [:)]