Shortly after I got interested in O gauge model railroading and especially MTH products, I joined their club. A while later I received some information about a new MTH diesel they were going to create and the club newsletter offered special pricing to members the Railking Imperial ES 44ac. Well, I had only a RTR set and thought this might be a way to get a diesel with a lot of features. Well, they did release it in March 2015
Product Description:
ES44AC Imperial Diesel Engine With Proto-Sound 3.0 - MTHRRC
Cab No. 2014
Well, during the long (it seemed like a year) wait between the offer in the newsletter and delivery to my house I was fortunate to obtain several other marvelous MTH locos (gifts, train show purchases, estate sale bargains), a lot of them PRR but also Monon, IC, etc).
The buyer's remorse is mostly about the shell and the "road name". While it is a nice product, I just hate that I have MTH advertising rolling around my layout. Can anyone suggest other possible solutions than these?
* Is there much of a collectors market for these MTH Club locomotives
* Can you buy a different shell for the diesel? Does anyone know availability of such or price? (MTH released quite a few different road names)
* Are there many folks or businesses that do custom repaints? And what might that cost?
* Are there decals I could put over the MTH logos? Suggestions about kind and where to buy? Yes, I understand. I still have to explain the odd paint color scheme--maybe I could just say it was a one-off for a small private railroad.
* Suck it up--we all make stupid mistakes, some are just more costly than others.
I think I paid just what the retail for all the roadnames is but I have to check my cc statement; maybe I got a small discount.
Thanks for any help ... and for listening (reading) my tale of buyer's remorse.