Wouldn't it be nice to get any paint scheme on demand?

Or more plausible, being able to get the factory paint without the lettering. That'd be great for people who want different road names or want to freelance a line with a known railroad paint job but different lettering.

I posted that in the past. Same with supporting items. I cant even find track anymore. It took me over 25 years to collect all the fallen flag roads I wanted, which shouldn’t have to be. But I finally did it. That couldn’t be done today as model trains have seen their heyday. Trains are too expensive today and no longer at the top of consumers lists. Serious period modelers really don’t have a chance of collecting and completing a layout in such a manner these days. Problem is the scale part of O never was as serious enough as H.O. Alas O came close to doing that, but the rest never fully followed through with the proper items.

H.O. doesn’t have the sane obstacles as our O MFG’s created. Scale in O should have been strictly 2r from the beginning, never a crossover. Never seen tracks in life with 3 rails.

As for LI, MTH should have bought the Island model works molds. Then we would finally would have cars closer to the real thing. As mentioned, these could be done on a 3d printer along with shorty bay window cabooses. I wish I had some double decker MU's as well. After I complete this next layout, I plan to get into 3D printing and make the COMMON items no one else ever bothered to make or offer in O. MTH Scale-Trax and Super O thin center blade rail were the next best track for 3r but never advanced like it should have.

I think things would have improved if we didn’t loose Jim Weaver so soon. He got it right.

@p51 posted:

Or more plausible, being able to get the factory paint without the lettering. That'd be great for people who want different road names or want to freelance a line with a known railroad paint job but different lettering.

Not a bad idea.

@SIRT posted:

Scale in O should have been strictly 2r from the beginning, never a crossover. Never seen tracks in life with 3 rails.

I hear ya, but ...

Just who, or what, was supposed to prevent this crossover from happening?  Things evolved the way they did for a reason.

There's a problem here that you may not be aware of: You're telling many, many, many of us very clearly that our hobby isn't your hobby, and in fact never should have been a hobby.

Don't we have much, much more in common than not?

BTW --  I love this custom paint idea.  3-D painting (if evolved from 3-D printing) might just work.

Mike

@SIRT posted:

Scale in O should have been strictly 2r from the beginning, never a crossover. Never seen tracks in life with 3 rails.

Sure glad you didn't win that election.

As for never seeing tracks in life with 3-rails, you just didn't look hard enough.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_rail

Just looking at it from a different perspective. I knew I'd get a rise out of you John...

Whatever makes you happy.

@Bob posted:

Buy an airbrush, learn to paint and you can have your wish.

exactly

Want to paint anything on demand? Buy one of these.

https://www.mimakiusa.com/prod...tbeds/ujf-6042-mkii/

Pete

I am not an artist, but I can follow logical steps, and have had painting success.  Here’s some Railking NYC Madisons I just finished. Spray paint, decals, and pin stripe tape. You can have any road name on any model. Part of the fun of “modeling “!!  JohnA