Railking steam engines

@Bob B

MTH will be delivering a Railking Imperial 0-6-0 steam locomotive model in six road names (and many more liveries in custom runs from individual dealers) but not in New York Central or New Haven versions. I sent several messages to MTH requesting NYC and NH versions but never received any replies.

MELGAR

I agree, I have a bunch of RailKing steamers in various styles and wheel arrangements.  Does anyone know what happened to this tooling in the MTH break-up?  I hope they continue to be produced, although given current market conditions, demographics, etc., I doubt we'll ever see another NEW body style.

(For that matter, I think the last new RailKing design might have been the UP FEF, circa 2002!)

What other road names are some of these shops offering, off the east coast?

@colorado hirailer posted:

What other road names are some of these shops offering, off the east coast?

Go to the MTH website and select "News." Scroll down and you will see an announcement dated June 6, 2023 and listed as "2023 RailKing O Scale USRA 0-6-0 Steam Locomotives Announced." In the text of that announcement is a link to a list of dealers, custom runs and images of the locomotives and tenders.

MELGAR

I am looking for Railking Hudson’s, pacific’s, and mountain types

As a semi/O27/traditional scaler, I'm very interested in hearing how others opine on this thread. I've been running semi-conventional and TMCC about 20 years, mainly Lionel, a few K-Lines, and some Williams/WBB. About 3-4 years ago, I decided to add DCS to my new layout (nearly done) so I could add Rail King engines to my roster. Since then, I've purchased 6 Rail King engines new from two forum sponsors. Love them. I was able to get some versions that Lionel had never made in semi/O27/traditional scale.

My timing was impeccable....right before Mike Wolf announced his retirement and the subsequent reconfiguration of MTH and also right before Lionel announced LC+ 2.0.  Had I waited a bit longer, I probably would've stuck with TMCC and added some LC+ 2.0 which brings 4 chuffs to the semi/O27/traditional scale market. In fact, Lionel has come out with 2 of the engines in LC+2.0 that I bought recently in RK.

I've stated for a while that O Gauge hobbyists' interests seem to be at two ends of the spectrum. On one end, the inexpensive fantasy toys in RTR sets for around the Christmas tree and, on the other end, the finely detailed, high-priced,1:48 scale engines and rolling stock. Not complaining, just accepting the market's reality. To Lionel's credit, the roll out of LC+ 2.0 has been greater than I expected, but that's the only manufacturer that's cataloging new products twice a year in a line for me.

Thankfully, I've accumulated about as much as I need, so I can be selective going forward. I predict that any new purchases for me will be LC+ 2.0 (or 3.0 when that comes out) rather than Rail King.