Con-Cor would be another possibility.. but likelyhood would be along the same lines as Red-Caboose..
I didn't think about them! Maybe Jim Conway really did retire this time.
Bill McClung works for IM but still decides what to release with RC. Glad he's still involved, he is great for the hobby.
LBF/Huberts was another one I hadn't thought about, but I still doubt seriously it was Bowser. I had been told by a manufacturer that for the price they wanted for their tooling it was likely cheaper to just do new tooling. I was told that they had also pretty much covered most or all of the available road names. So the oppurtunities for sales volume would make it difficult to cover the cost of the purchase.