A Look Down the Track: The Future of Folsom Locomotive Works

Now that the bulk of the chaos surrounding FLW’s physical move and digital storefront transition is finally behind us, I wanted to take a moment to give our customers a look behind the curtain.

The past several months have been a major period of change for Folsom Locomotive Works. We have moved from Etsy to our new dedicated webstore, expanded production capacity, continued developing new products, and started laying the groundwork for what I hope FLW can become over the next several years.

When I launched FLW in October of last year, I did not have a grand business plan. The whole thing started because I wanted to create a few freight car models for myself and see whether anyone else might be interested in them. That was really it. I knew there were gaps in the N scale market, especially for Southern Pacific modelers, but I had no idea how much interest there would be.

The response has been far beyond anything I expected.

In a fairly short time, FLW has grown from a personal side project into a real small business, and more importantly, into something that feels like it has a purpose. The goal is not just to make products. The goal is to help fill long-neglected gaps in the hobby, especially for modelers who care about prototype accuracy, transition-era railroading, and the kinds of cars and equipment that major manufacturers often overlook.

As my skills, equipment, and business model have developed, my long-term vision for FLW has become clearer. I would eventually like FLW to become one of the first manufacturers offering ready-to-run, 3D-printed model trains at a small-production level: highly detailed, historically researched, brass-quality models without brass-level pricing. That path is still full of unknowns, and I am still working through exactly what it would take to make that model practical, reliable, and sustainable. But that is the direction I would like to move.

In the immediate future, the focus will remain on expanding our current product offerings. The next project in the pipeline is an expansion of our existing B-50-15 and B-50-16 boxcar line: Southern Pacific’s USRA single-sheathed boxcar copies. These cars had several SP-specific differences from the more widely available USRA designs, making them a natural fit for FLW. I teased these a while back, but progress slowed while the storefront move, production transition, and personal life tasks took priority. With those major distractions mostly out of the way, they are back on the workbench, with an expected launch toward the end of Q2 of 2026.

The next major step in FLW’s business plan is the development of a Car of the Month subscription program. This is still a work in progress, so the final details may change, but the basic concept is a monthly boxed release built around a complete freight car kit.

The current plan is for each monthly box to include a pre-painted, unlettered car body that has already been primed, painted, and gloss-coated for decals. The box would also include trucks, couplers, and a single-production-run decal set. In other words, everything needed to complete an exceptionally rare train car except the final clear coat to seal the decals.

The subscription would also include a few additional perks. Long-term subscribers may receive quarterly bonuses, which could take the form of store credit, one-off detail parts, special accessories, or even occasional bonus car kits. Subscribers would also receive early access to new FLW releases, with a private advance link before new products are made available to the general public.

The details are still being refined, but the ideal launch window for the Car of the Month program is Q3 of 2026.

Beyond that, I also plan to begin scaling select FLW models up to HO scale. The tentative timeline for the first HO offerings is early Q4 of 2026, just in time for the holiday season. If that launch goes well, I would like to expand the Car of the Month concept into HO sometime in Q1 or Q2 of 2027.

On a more personal note, FLW’s success has had a very real impact on my family. The strong support the shop received in December of 2025 helped give my wife and me the confidence to move forward with buying our own home and beginning the next chapter of our lives.

And on that note, I am very happy to share that we are expecting our first child, a daughter, in October of this year.

That makes the continued support of FLW more meaningful than ever. Every order, every shared post, every kind message, and every recommendation to another modeler helps support not only this small business, but also my family’s future. I do not take that lightly.

As always, I welcome your input. If there are models you would like to see FLW produce, or if you have thoughts on the Car of the Month plan, the HO expansion, or anything else we are working toward, I would genuinely like to hear them. Some of the best ideas for FLW have come directly from conversations with customers.

Thank you for your continued support, encouragement, and patience through this period of growth and transition. FLW would not exist without this community, and I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to keep building it.

Jordan Whitecar
Founder, Folsom Locomotive Works