Hey Rich: I hear you. But on the other hand, the lack of substantial rolling stock and locos in New York Ontario and Western livery forced me to learn to paint with an airbrush and decal.
Two skill sets that I would not otherwise have spent as much time on, so for me, it was a positve thing.
Fact check: I don't paint the loco's for NYOW (the three color job is still beyond me), I send them out.
Joel
I have been modeling Maine Central and Boston & Maine for years, and have the same problem. I used to be able to buy undecorated kits to paint & decal, but those have mostly disappeared from the market as well. I have had to strip the paint off a number of perfectly good models to get to the starting point, i.e undecorated model, to get to the final product I want - a model of MEC, B&M or another road name that is not in the top 10 or 20 road names in popularity.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
When I first entered the HO scale side of the hobby 9 years ago, I bought locomotives and rolling stock that were available without any thought to a specific prototype road name.
However,over the past few years, I have become interested in specific road names to match the prototype that I would like to model. In my case, I am trying to model Dearborn Station in Chicago. The road names that used Dearborn Station included C&WI, Santa Fe, C&EI, Wabash, GTW, Erie and Monon.
I have been successful in acquiring both the locos and the passenger cars for all seven of these road names, but it was no small feat. Most of the road names are not currently available in the form of locos or passenger cars from LHS or on line retail stores. To find them, you have to search sites such as eBay. Sometimes, they are out there. Sometimes, they are not.
I understand the reasons why, but still that is one of the most frustrating aspects of the hobby - - - trying to find locos and rolling stock in the specific road names that you are looking for.
Sorry for the rant, but thanks for listening.
Rich
Alton Junction