I wish Model Railroader would present an article on painting locomotives and cars with the focus on how the manufacturers accomplish this task. I've painted and decorated many of my own cars and locos but I always seem to have trouble with small details. The manufacturers seem to have perfected this technique and I'd like to see how they do it. Of particular interest is the sharp deliniation of color lines and straightness of thin stripes. How do they do it? Is it mechanized?
Ed Locklin at mp367.
Most likely, the manufacturers do not paint but print the lining and small detail, using a pad printing process.
Model Railroader has an editorial staff. They depend on submissions from readers and other outside sources to provide a slush pile, from which they select articles to print.
You might contact someone in China (where most model locomotives are manufactured these days) and see if that person can gather photos and other data from which you can assemble an article. Alternatively, that person could submit an article - bearing in mind that it will have to be written in simple, grammatical English. Or you can travel to China and do your own on-the-spot research.
The probability of the Model Railroader staff dispatching someone on a trans-Pacific journey to prepare such an article is somewhere between zero and i (the square root of negative one.)
Chuck