I am wondering how far we are from a situation of stagnation in the steam ready-to-run market where there are no remaining unmodelled prototypes that would be commercially viable for mass-market manufacturers.
To judge from the catalogues, it would seem that just about the only era of the steam age worth catering for is c.1960. I happen to have a Combined Volume from 1960 and I have skimmed through it looking for the most numerous classes then in service, and compared these with the availability of R-T-R models.
Here are the classes I have found which were over 100-strong in 1960 and which are not available or announced from either Bachmann or Hornby.
BR Standard
76000 2-6-0Ex-GWR
42xx 2-8-0T 94XX pannierEx-Southern None
Ex-LMS Stanier Class 3 2-6-2T Midland 3F 0-6-0 LNWR 0-8-0 Caledonian 2F 0-6-0
Ex-LNER Q6 0-8-0 (ex-North Eastern) J37 0-6-0 (ex-North British) Ex GCR Robinson 2-8-0 (numerous rebuild variants of which the only one to number 100 was the O4/8 - Robinson chassis with Thompson boiler)
In recent years it seems that the sensible Bachmann policy has been to hoover up all the mixed-traffic classes with 100+ members (Crab, K3, Ivatt moguls, Fairburn tank, Hall). Surely the standard 76000 cannot be far behind. Hornby have evidently not been quite so numbers-driven, but the M7 is perhaps not quite so eccentric as it might seem - I was surprised to see that it was the third most numerous Southern steam class in 1960.
Do any of the remaining locos in the above list have potential as R-T-R models. They are all pretty unglamorous and several of them geographically restricted.
Of course numbers are not everything; the glamour of the named express passenger class and/or wide geographical spread is perhaps a more important factor, but I don't think there is much untapped potential here either - A2 pacifics (too similar to A1's), Clans (not successful, too Scottish), Duke of Gloucester (short lived, unsuccessful and unique
- although high profile and glamorous as a preserved loco). I feel the Standard Class 3 83000 2-6-2 tank might do reasonably well; I think it's the only non-GWR tank class that carried BR green livery and it was used on popular ex-GWR branch and secondary lines such as the Cambrian.
I would imagine that in some countries stagnation must have set in some time ago. Germany's railway were unified and its classes standardised much earlier than ours; I would think that every imaginable post-war German steam class has been available R-T-R for many years. What's it like when there's no scope for new models each year. How is interest sustained?
I suppose one factor that might change is the production methods. Manufacture may become so automated that it will be possible to produce single locos cheaply to individual orders, so there will be no need for long production runs to make R-T-R locos commercially viable.
Andy