What does it take to do a special run of a locomotive?

 private custom run???

Only cash and lots of time....

Private runs are what I did/do in the plastic kit and die cast hobby. 

Cash was the most vital item.

MTH did a great job on that engine.  

I think more commuter rail and tourist locomotives could sell in F40PH's.  TriRail, Grand Canyon, Panama Railroad, to name a few.

Also, I think there is room for an MP36 in the many roadnames like MARC, Railrunner, Trirail, Salt Lake City and whoever else has these.

If you go ahead with your project, have it done when Lionel is producing the same bodies with other paint schemes. If you piggy back, it will be a lot less then if you go with a custom run of bodies...they would need to set up dies just for you

"just extra $$$ out of my pocket."

Wouldn't buying one of the special run locos be that, also? Probably much more. I assume you would be interested in one...

What about the commuter cars?

Do you need matching commuter cars to pull?

Look up the mp36 and there is a lot of commuter railroads that picked up this locomotive, even across the northern boarder. In time someone in o gauge needs to make this model.

Weaver did short runs or one-off lettering of their steam locomotives.....And MTH even did a run of NKP and Monon 2-6-0's for a shop in Indiana. I assume nobody is doing that now. 3rd Rail might be somebody who could do a custom run of steam locos for a shop with deep pockets (I realize that is a contradiction) l wonder what a minimum quantity for a 3rd Rail run, from scratch, is? (but that and the cost is probably an industrial secret)

colorado hirailer posted:

Weaver did short runs or one-off lettering of their steam locomotives.....And MTH even did a run of NKP and Monon 2-6-0's for a shop in Indiana. I assume nobody is doing that now. 3rd Rail might be somebody who could do a custom run of steam locos for a shop with deep pockets (I realize that is a contradiction) l wonder what a minimum quantity for a 3rd Rail run, from scratch, is? (but that and the cost is probably an industrial secret)

3rd Rail is pretty straight forward.  For a locomotive that hasn't been done before it takes approximately 100 units in brass to and 750 units for a plastic diesel with 20 minimum per road name with custom detailing. 

There are some customers who do purchase 20 units to get the road name they want when a production run is announced.

 

 

Is it possible to buy some undecorated units when a production run is being made by Lionel, MTH or Williams and have them finished by a company like RGS in PA? I believe that he can even do custom boxes.

Contact Lionel, they have a minimum order however, and it my be detrimental to ordering them.

I believe at one time you could order club cars, but the minimum order was 500?

Weaver used to make custom cars as well, and the minimum order was I think 200.

 

As a former TCA Convention Car Committee Chair, club cars have the following order minimums:

MTH:  256 units and they will do two variations in that minimum.

Lionel:  500 for traditional O scale cars, 300 for scale O cars, and 100 for the inkjet printed made in USA cars.  I have heard that 100 will be the minimum for the former Weaver cars as well using the same inkjet printing process.

Atlas:  100 units with four road numbers.

Williams:  Has not expressed interest in doing club cars at this time.

I don't know what the minimum for these manufacturers would be for a locomotive.  The key is to piggyback it onto a current production run - i.e. what's in the most recent 1 or 2 catalogs.

Wonder what the cheapest recent brass 3rd Rail steamer went for, each? I seem to vaguely remember some around $1000, but suspect now north of that, as not recent. 100 of them is $100,000!!, so cost, as suspected, is prohibitive. Just need to find 99 more people that want what l want, and.... wishy-washy buyers killed the MTH McKeen car.  Unlike 3rd Rail, l would want a big deposit.