mnsteve25 wrote:that would be great if they offer the m-8 even better if its in ho scale but they will probably come out with an lirr m-7 soonerI'm kinda surprised they don't have the LIRR M-7 already. Lionel probably doesn't care about differences like the third-rail shoes. As far as they're concerned, LIRR models would just need different numbers, yellow ends instead of blue, and decals with the words "Long Island Rail Road" instead of "Metro North Railroad." Pretty cheap and simple changes, that don't require altering body molds. (After all, this is the company that's passing off their generic, old-timey (wooden) station platform as a Metro-North platform, with the only difference being stickers with Metro-North "signage" included.)
As for the M-8, that might be kinda pushing it. Making models of Metro-North and LIRR are already kind of a "niche" market to begin with (they appeal mostly to folks in the NYC area, as opposed to Amtrak models that would be more familiar on a nationwide scale), let alone narrowing it down to just the New Haven Line. Making an M-8 isn't just as simple as painting the ends red instead of blue... M8's would require changing the mold to reflect the different top headlight design and other car-shape differences, as well as adding pantographs. If you insist on Lionel and you want M-8s, you'll have to settle for buying M-7s and modify on your own.
Perhaps a specialty maker like IHP will produce M-8 shells, but you'll pay a lot more (being a smaller operation, they invest a lot of time and money into building products that are usually handmade, not mass-produced). Chances are, even this will not happen unless they receive plenty of requests from reliable customers... and in that case, the scale will depend on the majority of those requests.
Last edited by pnaw10 on Thu Nov 06, 2008 2:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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