I know it's impossible to offer every engine we modelers ask for. I realize a company must choose one that will be popular and sell quickly. That leaves a lot of folks, like myself who model obscure RRs, without many choices/offerings to buy without having to grind away unwanted detail or detail that needs to be relocated to portray their favorite RR.
With that in mind, I would like to see all future engines made in a modular fashion. What I mean by this is, instead of having major appliances (domes, pumps, air tanks, walkways, piping/hoses) cast on the boiler, make them separate parts. This way folks who don't want to change the appearance of the engine can leave it as bought (no assembly required), while those that want to move things around to suit their needs would have a golden opportunity to do so.
Some of these parts are already separate, things like walkways along the side of the boiler must be cut off, usually leaving an ugly scar down the sides that has to be dealt with in an almost surgical-like manner or gouged off and the scar filled and filed down to a smooth finish.
I would think the cost of having these pieces added to the one-piece molds is costly and time-consuming, would making separate molds for these appliances be cheaper? Could you use an outside source (like Precision Scale Company) to supply parts such as air pumps, air tanks, domes, etc and have the main place of manufacturer assemble the engines (or have them make/apply the separate parts themselves)?
I am in the process of converting a 4-8-2 Mountain into one that Seaboard Air Line owned. Besides having to build a complete Vanderbilt tender, I've had to cut off the sand dome and lines, part of the walkway on each side, and the air tanks. While this is not a MTH model, I have done the same with MTH models to achieve what I want. There's many others that also do this and that's why I am making this suggestion.
Thanks for listening.
