I have some good news.
I have been emailing back and forth with Ryan Kunkle about the presidential observation car Ferdinand Magellan. I was wondering how much work went in to this unique railroad can. He said it will not be a perfect match to the real car, but it will be close using existing tooling.
I was surprised how much he has researched the car. He even sent me photos from his file on it. This comes from his earlier job with Lionel. Ryan was in charge of researching locomotives and rolling stock for Lionel so that they could determine what would be the best to produce and bring to market.
With all the criticism we throw at Lionel it is enlightening to know they do this work before cataloging future product.
