My son and I are in the process of putting together an HO layout. We are modeling modern era Midwestern themes, centering around a BNSF mainline. We would like to add the North American Ethanol industry as a central theme of our industrial part of the layout. I have been attempting to locate the North American Ethanol locomotives, tank cars, and hopper cars to acquire for our layout, but have had very poor success in finding any of these. If anyone knows where a person could find those, it would be appreciated. I never dreamed it would be this hard to locate that equipment. Please and thank you in advance.
The North American Ethanol series of structures, locos, and rolling stock was done some time back as a limited run series by Walthers.
As you can see here, the locos, rolling stock, and half the structures have sold out and been discontinued: http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=&scale=H&manu=&item=&keywords=North+American+Ethanol&words=restrict&instock=Q&showdisc=Y&split=300&Submit=Search (http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=&scale=H&manu=&item=&keywords=North+American+Ethanol&words=restrict&instock=Q&showdisc=Y&split=300&Submit=Search)
The only way you'll find the 'Discontinued' items is on eBay, Craigs List, train shows, and flea markets.
You're other option is find equivalent equipment from other manufacturers, like Bachmann, and repaint it for North American Ethanol.
Len