6. Specific experience related to the Model Railroad industry is not required " Companies like MTL and Exactrail and Intermountain seem to think that they don't need model railroaders to work in the art department.
I agree with your comment generally, but my understanding here is that they don't require people to come from model railroad
industry,
yet it doesn't say they don't want
model railroaders 
I dare to say that I belong to the latter category (mostly the armchair seated division :-[ though) yet I've never worked in the model railroad
industry ;D
FWIW, I'd suppose that ER want people to know that having worked for other manufacturers before isn't a pre-requisite, and that 'amateur' model
railroaders can apply for a position too
That said, I don't know many model railroaders who know everything about what have rolled on rails between say 1920 and 2010, so I guess the
research manager position isn't the easiest one in the industry.
There are of course a lot of helpfull internet groups and historical societies out there, but may be asking them to help can bring problems
with competition intelligence ???
Comparing with other hobbies (military modeling, etc...) the model railroading crowd is may be the most hard to satisfy, manufacturing wise.
The Panzer IV certainly knew a good number of versions (at least 5 or 6 I guess), but not many are going to discuss the opportunity of offering
the Ausf.J with a AA MG34 instead of a MG42 ;D
Model railroaders generally want the most common prototype to be made, which is perfectly understandable, whereas other modelers are less
concerned by such statistics, and sometimes even like 'rare birds' to be issued.
