Wishing Marklin would do a special car for Autism Awareness/Acceptance. Many on the spectrum, be it child or adult are drawn to trains and many are model railroaders. I myself am on the spectrum being diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome several years ago. A whole train could be done over time covering the various subsets of Autism, Aspergers, PDD-NOS ect. I would take anything in HO or gauge 1. I have done a couple custom G scale items for myself using LGB European 2 axle passenger coach and a complete Kalamazoo USA style passenger train. I always get lots of comments when I run them at shows or open houses. Marklin has done many other special cars and locomotives such as the Unicef ones ect. With the rates of Autism on the rise, maybe if M does it on a model, the full size companies will do one as well! A simple 2 axle box car would be an excellent first piece to see how it sells. I personally would get several to run together at shows I plan to take my portable layout to. Mike the Aspie

I have messaged them with no response to it. I would suggest anybody who is interested in seeing a car or even a lok made up send a message to M to push the issue to the board room table. Many different autism groups that cars could be done for to create a special train. Many of the folks I chat with on forums either are themselves on the spectrum or have children who are. Most times they love trains of any kind. I can say that when I run my G scale custom autism express, it generates lots of attention and discussion about being on the spectrum. At larger shows its hard to miss that I myself am on the spectrum as I will have my headset style hearing protection on to cope with being in a loud social event all day. Without it, I will probably have a meltdown at some point or at minimum be not so nice person to be around later in the evening from being over stimulated all day. Now that I am rebuilding my portable HO scale Marklin layout for shows, along side my home layout, a custom train is on my agenda. I just hope that Marklin would jump on the support bandwagon and make up a custom car, maybe donate a % of sales to an autism support/research group of thier choosing. It would be an excellent project for them to get fully involved with on many levels. With the big increase in diagnosis in both children and adults that were skipped over as kids, the very frequent love of trains among those on the spectrum, this should be an easy decision to say yes to. They can once again show the legacy of the oldest model train company and be the first(that I know of) to get behind and support autism research, awareness and most importantly, Acceptance of the condition. I have read that folks from M read these forums, so I hope they see this thread and take it to heart and consider doing this. Mike the Aspie.

Another option would be to get this German site to do some wagons.

Piko also has a similar offer: https://www.piko.de/DE/i...ndividuelle-modelle.html

MC