As most are aware, most of the manufactueres of model railroad goods, is a part-time business (away from their respective day jobs) and or is a division of a larger manufacturing concern of non-model railroad products.
Two (2) firms, which come to mind as a division of a larger non-model railroad firm, would be Ernst Products and Rick of Rix-Rack/Structure Kits/Misc Parts.
Kramer Products is a example of a part-time business (which is actually full-time in a sense, with any business).
Thinking back the old Model Die Casting Company, of the Roundhouse fame. did a considerable amount of contract die casting/casting work out-side the model railroading industry. As well, they did indeed do a considerable amount of contracting of die casting work for model railroad manufactueres, such as the Original Ulrich Company of North Hollywood, California and also Irving Athearn of Athearn Blue Box fame.
City Classic of Pennsylvania contracts it's tool and die work and injection molding to several firms in the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania area.
Just a few mentions....
I have to assume Adair Shops, the Dyersville Iowa firm that makes after-market weights for common freight car kits, as well as some open load models. is a one man shop.
http://adairshops.net/
Dave Nelson
You are only scratching the surface. Other model railroad companies once did extensive die-cast manufacturing here in the U.S.A. for non-model-railroad industries. Any kind of small diecast parts were made that paid money...even parts to affix labels to bottles that had bladed inserts for the Potdevin Company (I made them on behalf of a train manufacturer--in lots of 5000 finished parts at a time). Those non-model-railroad contracts helped to finance some of the products we enjoyed as modelers.
John
I find this a very interesting topic. I wonder who else is a part time model railroad manufacture.
I gather some of those part timers may be hobbyists who wanted certain items that were not available and decided to manufacture them for personal reasons but also to make a little money and/or pay for the tooling and production of those items. Some of of those business may have started out smaller for those reasons but grew due to popularity of the products.
Back in the 1980's there was an Article about Rick Rideout, a fairly young modeler of the L&N RR and IIRC a motocross racer too. The article featured his fairly large L&N layout in his basement and also mentioned his side business, Rix Products. Many may remember his layout - the website shows photo's which were taken on it:
https://rixproducts.com/product-category/rix-products-ho/
I have the bridge kit featured in the list.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
I believe Life-Like was really a syrofoam cooler manufacturer before it started making foam tunnels for train layouts.
- Douglas
Actually LL was making foam tunnels before the coolers, they used one of the tunnels as an ice cooler during a party. It was succesful, so they decided to get into the foam cooler business which is now called Lifoam.