Saw a thing on 'How It's Made" this week about the manufacturing of these 1/8 scale trains. It is the fastest growing segment in model railroading. this guy has obviously not bought this off the shelf.
I bought castings years ago and started building a "Cariboo" locomotive. I got the chassis built and then lost interest because I wouldn't have a place to run it. I'd still like to build a scale traction engine one day.
Traction railroads ( trolleys if you aren't into it ) are really cool and especially the industrial traction locos . I have an HO scale one in plans that I haven't gotten around to scratch building .
Model rail roading is a huge world wide hobby with hundreds of thousands, in North America, Europe, the British Iles is a big one especially.
Every night and weekends , guys in their shops with lathes turning, and milling machines milling.
This is a massive market for the homeshop sized machining equipment from offshore.