If lionel or MTH or maybe even menards offered locomotive kits.Would you get one?

Yes as it would be fun and may even customize it a little .

Not going to happen. It's one way for a manufacturer to make a small fortune from a large one.

Stevenson offers kits for locos now. An SP 0-6-0 goes for something like $600 and is not for a beginner After laying out that kind of money, what would be the advantage over buying a nice R-T-R loco? (I have a friend who does buy loco kits, but his entire version of the hobby is building models).
There are kits offered from time to time on Ebay, if you really must try one.
As for rolling stock, where is Intermountain? Or Red Caboose? Once again, there are rolling stock kits galore offered on Ebay.
There  might be a limited market for a basic loco (USRA, say) that could be modified readily for a particular railroad, but I believe it would need to be offered to the vanishingly small market that doesn't insist on diecast! or brass!

No way.

Pat

NO!

If the price was right, for sure. My guess is the cost of labor to assemble the engines is minimal so I doubt they could sell a kit for significantly less than an assembled engine. 

Pete

Modular components so you could "roll-your-own" version of engines previously not offered? Sure, why not. Kit version of engines produced ad nauseum for the last six decades, nope.

BTW you can still buy locomotive kits.

Stevenson Preservation NYC 0-6-0.

Pete

Eons ago Wiliams had GG1 kits. 

No 

Naahhhh, I llack the skills and interest. 

Layout and structure construction are my favorite parts of the hobby but I don't have room to keep building more and bigger layouts. Building engines and cars from kits would be a good activity for me, so I would try it.

MELGAR

Kits would be interesting......may i offer an low impact alternate...interchangeable engine shells....one day she is a Lackawanny, next day C B & Q...

NO!

Dave

If the price is right and I can pick and choose which features and parts I can buy for it, then yes, I'm all in. If it is just to save a few bucks to end up with the same thing I would get off the shelf at train store, then no.

I would like a selection of small conventional engines, of prototypes from around the country, where the electronics were in a kit that could be installed, IF WANTED, and was repairable and maintainable, the electronics kit made here and readily available. They do not have to be in kit form. We are offered reruns of reruns of the biggest, largest, and hugest, and little that can navigate a 4x8.  I am not interested in buying Triplexes that can turn into door stops with unrepairable, by owner, electronics.  And THAT is how l am voting my dollars 

rex desilets posted:

Not going to happen. It's one way for a manufacturer to make a small fortune from a large one.

Stevenson offers kits for locos now. An SP 0-6-0 goes for something like $600 and is not for a beginner After laying out that kind of money, what would be the advantage over buying a nice R-T-R loco? (I have a friend who does buy loco kits, but his entire version of the hobby is building models).
There are kits offered from time to time on Ebay, if you really must try one.
As for rolling stock, where is Intermountain? Or Red Caboose? Once again, there are rolling stock kits galore offered on Ebay.
There  might be a limited market for a basic loco (USRA, say) that could be modified readily for a particular railroad, but I believe it would need to be offered to the vanishingly small market that doesn't insist on diecast! or brass!

I like diecast but I will not mess with brass.Brass is not for me.

Plenty of kits out there for those of us who build stuff.  Problem is, a really nice 70 year old kit is $300; a new one of equivalent quality would be $3000.

Stevenson kits are a bargain in the sense that he is rolling them out because he loves the hobby and probably doesn't need to make a living doing it.

If the price is right yes. But you will need some way of quartering the drivers.

No.....what a bad idea.....