One of the fun parts of buying and selling old model trains is that I get to find forgotten and overlooked companies which produced cars with custom paint jobs.

There are of course now-defunct companies who made whole kits (train clubs and historical societies also sometimes do this), but there were also a fair number of companies which bought (for example) Athearn cars in bulk, painted them, and then sold them to the general public.

It seems like it was quite common for Athearn in particular to work with companies who produced aftermarket paint jobs. The reason I bring this up is that I just encountered a couple of those companies for the first time today, and I thought it would be cool to share them with you.

The 4 companies I have encountered which did aftermarket paint jobs on Athearn cars include:

• Bev-Bel,
• Greenway Products,
• Mexicana Models,
• Rail Runner Custom Cars

Bev-Bel is still around, but Greenway closed last year (the founder died), Rail Runner appears to be defunct, and I can’t find any info at all on Mexicana.

I plan to add more names to this list as it comes up, but I thought this was cool and wanted to share.

featured image via Deposit Photo