Bowser's friend George Hockaday asked if he was able to produce some hobby parts for him in HO scale, since they were in short supply due to wartime rationing.
His redesigned steam locomotive kit was still in production, so Bowser accepted manufacturing contracts to produce everything from rocket nozzles to parts for toy guns.
In the meantime, considerable time and money were spent on developing finely detailed brass castings for his model steam locomotive kit.
After the contractor hired to produce the castings quit, Bowser discovered the wrong type of plaster has been used to make the masters, which created poor quality parts.
Despite sales being hurt by postwar inflation and a general economic downturn, Bowser went ahead with design and production of his most ambitious project to date.
Working from actual Union Pacific Railroad blueprints with the aid of an early mechanical calculator, Bowser recreated the 4-6-6-4 Challenger in HO scale.
Unfortunately, the manufacturing issues encountered over the last few years had depleted the company's finances and Bowser was forced to accept additional contract work to pay for production of the Challenger.
Since the factory was in full production at the time of Bill Bowser's ouster, Acheson was able to stockpile a considerable number of kits to sell over the next few years.
The assets of Penn Line Manufacturing were purchased as a bankruptcy sale in 1963, which included the tooling and parts inventory for several steam locomotive models based on Pennsylvania Railroad designs.
[8] In 1985, Bowser acquired Cal Scale from John Anderson and Harry Parker of Fresno, California, which added thousands of lost-wax brass steam locomotive detail parts.