When you find yourself trying to remember a show (or any works) that's on the tip of your tongue but just out of reach, come here - the collective brain of the TVTropes community can probably help. Post all the details you can remember (examples help). If you're looking for a trope, head over to Trope Finder. Have general questions about tropes? Visit Ask The Tropers!
I'd guess our old stand bye Galaxy Express 999. Plot concerns a boy's desire for a mechanical body to replace his weak real one.
Oh and there's a train, in space.
Gotta guess ghost in the shell.
He said 80s GITS is early 90s minimum (and Shirow's work from the 80s doesn't have assembly lines).
I feel like the main character (who I don't remember at all) was a girl. I am a girl and watched mostly girl-ish stuff. This was definitely for children, also, even though the fact that this has stuck in my mind for this long makes me question the propriety of it, haha. This may be significant or not, but for some reason I associate the word "cherry" with it.
Saber Marionettes? Again, it's too new (came out in 1995 apparently) but the main plot involves a planet where women are virtuall extinct, so emotionless female robots are provided. A young boy has three such robots, Cherry, Lime, and Bloodberry. The main plot concerns him finding that Lime has a circuit for emotions. No idea if there were assembly lines involved.
I know this is a long shot, but I'm trying to remember a movie that I watched as a kid (late 80's). Now, I don't know much about it, and this is my first time posting here, so please be kind. It was in, like, 80's anime-style. It may have been about dolls or something. I only really remember one scene: this sort of dystopian assembly line these automatons were being cranked off of. They looked like children (or dolls?) but whatever sinister entity was doing it had maybe removed the souls from dolls or something. I'm really sorry that this is so vague, but I'm just hoping that this may spark some glimmer in some troper's mind and they can finally lay this to rest for me.