American Model Trains & Kusan Model Train Box Cars

Just curious - did Mr. Marron ever acquire one of your New Haven cars? Incidentally, as you probably already know, Kusan was once manufactured here in Nashville, TN.

I have a modest collection mostly focused on AMT (both American Model Toy and Auburn Model Trains). Below are photographs of some of the cabooses in my collection.

Included here are:  PRR, B&O, Southern, NYC, C&O, ATSF also an undecorated. All of these cabooses were in boxes marked "Auburn Model Trains" except the undecorated one. It came in a Kusan box. It is also interesting to note that upon close inspection, the "undecorated" cab appears to have been an ATSF with factory paint brushed over the Santa Fe emblem.  It's Kusan box end flap designates it as undecorated. A bit "clunkly" by today's standards, but being lighted, complete with rear end markers, they were nice for their era. 

I've found that the B&O caboose is somewhat rare also.

I have some complete sets of their passenger cars, both smooth and ribbed roofs, along with their boxcars and reefers, gondolas and depressed center flat.

Never purchased any of the AMT F's, but do have all the known RDC's, all in Auburn boxes.    

I attempt to keep it AMT only, but as can be seen with the cabooses  and also with the reefers, some "cross pollination" is inevitable as existing inventory was transferred during the AMT to Kusan sale.  

C.J.

To Tinplate Art:

I offered to sell Mr. Marron one of the KMT New Haven box cars for what I paid for it. His answer was "you keep it as you are much younger then I am so you will enjoy it longer then I would". I was 54 and John was 80.  That was in the year 2000. John passed early in 2003 so John was right.

I wanted to try and find out how many of New Haven box cars might of been produced. One of the other friends in my area told me that a friend of his who lives in Rochester, NY who has been a collector of these cars for many years and told him that he knows of only 5 other New Haven cars all in the Rochester, NY area. Another collector who lives in Ohio had contacted me regarding my inquiry in the TCA Headquarters News said that he has never seen a New Haven box car expect in an KMT folder catalog. To this day only the 5 in the Rochester, NY area have turned up plus my 2.

Yes I knew that KMT product was manufactured in Nashville, TN. as it is listed on the car boxes. By the way for about one year in 1954 the Auburn Model Trains of Auburn, Indiana owned the company. That was the same Auburn, IN. where AMT product was made first from 1949 until 1953. The original owner of AMT was a man named Jack Farris.

To GP 40:

Nice display of cabooses. Mine are sitting on three shelves one above the other that also have other AMT / KMT cars. I have 9 different ones both AMT and KMT.

The B&O caboose has the same number stamping as the B&O 9000 series box car if you have the box car to compare. Yes the B&O caboose is very rare. I also have an undecorated caboose. Most of the cabooses that I have did not come with boxes. I do have a KMT caboose box right next to me that has a label on one end flap that says N.Y.C. Caboose, No. C-23. One of the brown box cars that I have was a Great Northern originally and was painted over and then repainted Canadian National.

Some of the box cars other cars of the same road name come with both flat and glossy painted bodies.

I never purchased any of the passenger cars, expect for the 4 different road name RDC passenger cars, no boxes. My late friend John Marron had the early (1949) sand cast passengers cars.

I do have 3 different F7 AA sets. New York Central, Pennsylvania, and Santa Fe in the blue freight colors.

At one of the York, PA meets in the late 1980s I purchased a box of 40 freight car trucks and I have used some since then to replace some of the trucks on the cars that came with broken coupler knuckles.

Ed New Haven Line in Westchester County, NY.

@ed new haven line posted:

To GP 40:

Nice display of cabooses. Thank you. Mine are sitting on three shelves one above the other that also have other AMT / KMT cars. I have 9 different ones both AMT and KMT.

The B&O caboose has the same number stamping as the B&O 9000 series box car if you have the box car to compare. I did notice that they carry the same number. Unlike Lionel (who with a few exceptions, numbered their rolling stock with their catalog number), AMT boxcars were known to have been numbered with actual car numbers of the prototypes. I have seen photos of both the B&O Sentinel and the green M&St. L, that supports this. Why this practice was changed for the cabooses is a mystery to me.  

Yes the B&O caboose is very rare. I also have an undecorated caboose. Just curious, does it also show evidence of being repainted? Most of the cabooses that I have did not come with boxes. I do have a KMT caboose box right next to me that has a label on one end flap that says N.Y.C. Caboose, No. C-23. One of the brown box cars that I have was a Great Northern originally and was painted over and then repainted Canadian National. I hadn't noticed evidence of a repaint on any of my boxcars or reefers.  I'll have to examine mine more closely. I haven't really shopped for any in quite some time, but it had been my experience that of the 12 boxcars known to be produced by AMT,  both the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National boxcars are somewhat more difficult to find, along with the New York, New Haven and Hartford boxcar..

Some of the box cars other cars of the same road name come with both flat and glossy painted bodies. I've noticed the same traits on not only the boxcars, but the stock cars and reefers also, even ones in identical AMT boxes come both ways. I have "shiny" and "dull" painted ATSF reefers too, however, the dull ones I have did not have a box when I acquired them, leading me to surmise they may be from the KMT era. I have Gerber reefers with Tuscan painted roofs and ends and also one with white ends. The variations are numerous.    

I never purchased any of the passenger cars, expect for the 4 different road name RDC passenger cars, no boxes. My late friend John Marron had the early (1949) sand cast passengers cars. I've only come across these cars one time, some 30+ years ago and the gentleman who had them was not willing to part with them at the time.

I do have 3 different F7 AA sets. New York Central, Pennsylvania, and Santa Fe in the blue freight colors.

At one of the York, PA meets in the late 1980s I purchased a box of 40 freight car trucks and I have used some since then to replace some of the trucks on the cars that came with broken coupler knuckles.

Ed New Haven Line in Westchester County, NY.

Thanks for sharing your information, I always enjoy comparing notes with fellow AMT/KMT enthusiast.

C.J.

Ed,

Good to hear you talk of John Marron.

I was fortunate to get to know John through many train meets and club activities here in the Albany area.

I don't remember if he moved to this area in his later years or was just visiting.

He was one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet and was always generous with his knowledge and experience in the hobby. He is missed.

Between John Marron and Joe Ranker, another train collecting legend who frequented events in this area in his later years, we were constantly entertained and educated by stories and anecdotes of the early days of train collecting.

Thanks to you and C.J. for the education about AMT and KMT trains in this thread.

Jim

To Jim Policastro:

I started attending the Wednesday night's at John's home in February, 1977. John parent's purchased the home in the mid 1920s and this is where he lived until his passing in January, 2003. His father passed in the late 1950s. I did know his mother who passed in the mid 1980s. John married his wife Margret known to all as Peggy right after WWll. Peggy passed in 2014. They met when John was in the army and stationed in Mississippi where she was from. In there home here in Harrison, NY John and Peggy raised 3 daughters. John's father owned a butcher shop in the Harlem section of New York City where they lived when John was born in 1919. John worked for his father and when WWll started his became a butcher in the army. Being a butcher in the army he did not see any direct combat but when he was stationed in Alaska he always had his rifle nearby. When not in a combat zone he was a working for the army officers at several stateside bases in the base kitchens. Of the several stories John told me regarding WWll two stand out in my memory. First, John's mother was of German born parents so he knew the German language from her. When he was stationed in Mississippi where he met Peggy there was also a German p.o.w. camp there. The army had him guard the German prisoners when not working in the kitchen. Unknown to them, John would listen to what they were talking about especially anything regarding there combat operations and then John would report this back to his superiors regarding what they were saying. The most interesting story that John told me was the time when he was assigned to a German p.o.w. troop train taking them to a p.o.w. camp somewhere in Wyoming. The trip started from Philadelphia to just outside of Chicago via the Pennsylvania Railroad. From there the cars were transferred to Chicago and Northwestern Railroad to Omaha. From there the cars were again transferred this time to the Union Pacific Railroad and on to Wyoming. Now here is the best part of this story, as the train was entering Cheyenne it passed the Union Pacific engine house area, John said that when German's saw the Union Pacific locomotives such as the challengers (4-6-6-4s) and the bigboys (4-8-8-4s). the p.o.w.'s were so amazed at the size of these locomotives that one said in German "with locomotives like that we (Germany) already lost the war". Now that was certainly a lasting first impression for them.

Now back to John's Wednesday night gatherings in John's basement surrounded his train collection.  Most of the men I met when I first starting going there in 1977 were in there 50s, 60s, and 70's. Well known train collectors such as Louis Hertz, (Doc) Robinson, Joe Ranker, George Tebolt, among several others. All of these fine men have passed except for George Tebolt. One thing that I still remember happening at John's house was the evening one of these guys walks in with a carton in hand and dumps out on the concrete floor several dozens postwar freight cars. Any car $5.00 each he said. As most of the guys were more into the prewar trains I don't think any of these cars were purchased. I didn't buy any even though I was in my early 30s as I had kept all the trains that I had gotten new back in the 1950s.

John and Peggy started hosting their train friend's and some of there wives who would come with their husband's on almost any evening. All you had to do was to show up until when his father had gotten ill. At that time it became Wednesday night's only. After his mother had passed and all of the daughters had gotten married and moved into their own homes, John's collection took over all the rooms on the second floor including the kitchen and the attic where the 3 daughters had their bedroom.

With all these "train men" in attendance you would learn a lot about collecting electric trains and of course there were the train collecting stories. Over the years several younger guys starting coming. In the area where John lived and I still live there were two train shows three times a year each, one at The Westchester County Center in White Plains, NY and another in Greenwich Civic Center in Greenwich, Connecticut. If you stopped at John's table and inquired about something John was selling and during this conversation if John felt that he liked you he would invite you to his Wednesday night gathering. Some of the new guys were railroad employees from the area so a new line of conversation and story telling was started. Since John passed we try to meet once a month at one of these railroad employee's home in his basement surrounded by his railroad collection during the colder evenings and during the warmer evenings we meet on his back deck. I am the longest surviving member of the Wednesday evening gatherings, 1977 to the present. 

Ed New Haven Line.

ED New Haven Line

Thank you for starting this thread and sharing your stories of AMT/KMT/Kusan trains. Also enjoy seeing and reading others AMT/KMT stories.

I too starting collecting a few AMT/KMT and Kusan trains a few years ago. I have most of the cabooses except the rare B&O that GP 40 has. They are my favorite caboose as they are made so well. I have most of the common scale size brown boxcars, and a few of the common reefers and stock cars, the gondola and the Monon flatcar. I have a set of the Santa Fe Passenger cars and a Santa Fe Budd car. 

In the Greenberg Book on page 28 they list the 36406 New Haven 9011 black and white paint all black doors, red and white lettering boxcar. They do not show a picture. Is that the rarest KMT boxcar that you are referring to? On Robert Trains homepage at http://www.robertstrains.com/Kusan39.htm , scroll down towards bottom of page, he has a picture of a New Haven checkerboard boxcar. I was just wondering if that's the rare one.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Passenger cars with some AMT/KMT/KUSAN/FRANKS ROUNDHOUSE boxcars

AMT/KMT caboose with a Menards New Haven checkerboard boxcar. Menards looks to be using same moulds as the AMT/KMT boxcars. This is the closest I will ever get to the rare one, but I'm ok with that.

A couple of my favorites, very colorful.

I have a KMT T-10 transformer but missing the handle and green light jewel. Does anyone know where I can get replacements or if something else might work like a Lionel TW orange handle or some other type of light jewel. If not, no big deal. 

Thanks for sharing.

Dean

Ed,

Thank you for the information on John's life. As I said, I consider myself fortunate to have known John for at least a short time.

I think John must have started visiting upstate when George Tebolt moved to Spencertown NY from New Rochelle. George became an active member in the local train clubs and brought John to many events. 

I'm a relative newcomer to the hobby.  I grew up in the Bronx, but didn't get into collecting until I moved to Schenectady and joined TCA in 1985. But, I am very happy to have known at least a few of those gentlemen from John's Wednesday night meetings.

What is sad is the wealth of information about toy trains that has been lost with the passing of those men. While some is preserved in books such as the Greenberg guides, it does not compare with what they had learned on their own from years of hunting down trains and discussing variations among themselves.

Any time I showed one of them an obscure piece that I wanted more information on, I received more interesting facts than I could ever have imagined. Greenberg's guides would have had to be the size of a set of encyclopedia to contain it all!!! 

It was a great time to be a collector!

Glad to hear that you have kept up the tradition of the old Wednesday meetings, but with new faces. I wish I still lived a little closer to the city so I might be invited to join you.

Jim

Back in the early York years, at that "bandit meet" once held in an auditorium close to the station downtown, l set up several times and explored dealer offerings. Under a table l once found and bought a set of Pa. lettered cast aluminum cars, for l have a friend whose dad worked on Pa. pass. trains, and l picked up Pa.cars for them.  The cars were kind of crude and were not wanted, so in this early Bay era l resold them to a collector in the SE.  I collect western roads and have ATSF AMT cars.  Probably should have kept the cast cars, and would have, if with western lettering.  Never seen any other cast cars.

Ed: THANKS for sharing your Marron get-together recollections! Must have been very informative sessions!

Also, it is unfortunate that much valuable anecdotal historical information has been lost with the passing of those early and very knowledgeable collectors who once gathered in John's home.

Hi to all:

If any of you want to continue the conversation regarding AMT & KMT, please contact me at my email address which is edmickey@optonline.net, there I can give you my phone number to call me so that we can talk AMT KMT. In this way I can be in my train room to examine the cars as we speak rather then having to go back and forth between the room where my computer is and my train room. I am sure there are other questions and comments and I don't want to give any wrong information as to what exactly I have as far regarding car colors, etc.

Thank you,

Ed New Haven Line.

Thank you to the two forum members who answered my above posting to continue the AMT/KMT discussion via the phone. I look forward to sharing our history with these two companies products and how cars were gotten.

Looking thru my collection, I have a black new haven #36406 box car, including 1 that was painted but never lettered, and I have (4) K series #55001 black new haven box cars which I think are equally  as rare, any info on this? I would be willing to trade. I didn't know about the 466096 B&O caboose existing and it was nice to know as I have 1 that I thought was a repaint or something.  Thanks for informing me that it was made.  I will provide photos if anyone is interested.

To fredwf:

Could you further describe your #36406 New Haven box car. Is it the scale one or the Kusan K-line one? I know of 8 scale New Haven's including the two that I have. I would think that there were more than just the 8 that I know of produced around 1956. If it is the scale version it has a silver aluminum floor, with all metal trucks and wheels. The car is painted red, white and black in 3 rectangles.

Ed New Haven Line in Westchester County, NY

I don't collect KMT per se but for while was buying rolling stock lettered for industries located in Western New York. That included Genesee Beer and Simon Pure. Also Kodak. A few years ago someone was selling various KMT Kodak boxcars including the common yellow one, less common blue with white door and blue with blue door, less common white and apparently very rare green Kodak boxcar. He claimed only 5 green Kodak cars were made and it had a $500 Buy It Now. Not being a collector but mainly interesting in building a decent size train of Kodak equipment I passed.

Curious if anyone has a book or any other reference material on the Kodak cars? Sounds like it may be rarer than the above mentioned NH car.

Pete

The Kodak box cars were sold by Andy Kriswallace (not spelled correctly) of Binghamton, NY under the Kris Model Trains name from the late 1960s to about the mid 1980s. I purchased two for a friend who was from Rochester, NY but now lives in Darien, CT.  One at the Hamburg, PA. train meet and the other at The Greenwich, CT. train meet back in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1987 Kalmbach published at hard cover book on AMT. KMT, and Kris product authored by John Bradshaw. I have that book.

Ed New Haven Line.

Not sure how I missed this thread - I have a black/red/white New Haven KMT/Kusan scale sized boxcar I picked up not too long ago that can be added to the known kills. I also have a New Haven shell that was masked/painted and hand lettered rather crudely which I picked up off Ebay years ago. My hunch is they were a pain in the a** to mask off and probably had a lot of rejects. I remember seeing one on Ebay when Al Cox's son auctioned off some of his dad's trains - the black/red/white checkerboard NH went for a hefty price (I managed to get some of the decaled prototype Kusan boxcars Al had, and also a pristine Rutland and B&M boxcar as well - I didn't have the money to get everything I wanted when those were being sold as they were all listed at the same time). I'm on the prowl for a Missouri Pacific Eagle car - I'd like to add one to my fleet of the more colorful cars Kusan made.

The B&O caboose is one I've never seen before - could someone post some snaps of one? That car was probably made in miniscule numbers like the AMT B&O F units. Has anyone ever seen/owned the Southern Pacific F unit listed as NRS in Bradshaw's book?

The Pennsy sandcast passenger cars are tough to find - I have a set that are in rough condition - the paint and lettering is pretty sad looking and the observation is missing it's rear door. I tried getting a set of the NYC sandcast cars but got outbid by a fellow collector in northern Indiana who had deeper pockets than I had at the time. They weigh a ton - I can't imagine a Lionel 2332 trying to move a 3 car set of those back in the day. If you can get the wacky search fiunction to dig up some threads I posted you'll find pictures of my Pennsy sandcast cars, some shots of C&NW passenger cars, and an NYC F unit that I found that was brought back from the dead (a life in a wet basement damaged the frame and reverse unit,  but the shell was pristine).

Not so much the weight, the trucks didn't roll well. Gramps added Lionel trucks to his "crap set" and they were fine (2 Auburn, ribbed and smooth sided streamlined aluminum sets Great Gramps gave him.

Great Gramps sold most of his prewar Lionel gems around the 50s so he could collect EVERYTHING from one company and have it complete (he "won").  I recall everything mentioned, but not without some reminders from you.

  There is a blue roof and ends Gerber too. (the darker blue).

A lot of the paint on these cars was "light" with fuzzy edges from poor masking. Like it was simply manilla paper stencils vs a sticky mask.

A few years ago I sent all the empty boxes I found to WTF Trains (member here) Mostly KMT era.

If they had better trucks, Lionel's cars might have bombed imo. They looked way better than Lionel in my opinion, and Gramp's, and Great Gramp's.  For all of us to actually agree was kinda rare. Debate is a family trait.

I only have a Kusan Atomic Reactor and Army Command caboose. Neither close to "nice", but they were priced right at $25 for the pair.   I love the caboose has a figure on the "rear porch" 😁 2 rail plastic trucks, wheels and couplers.  (An O ring around the Kusan knuckle keeps them from slipping out of a Lionel couplers in an S turn, etc.. Not a lash-up, it acts as a stop and if you open the Lionel's they separate fine.

Gerber cars, and the impressive number of cool tobacco & alcohol billboard art cars made these very memorable for me.  It may be how I ended up a commercial artist as a young man. I could stare at them for hours.

I think I may have a 1970s photo of Gramps shelves with some Gerber variations, checkerboards, and a Ralston/Purina car in sight.

Gramps tested motor types for Williams as his first carbodies were being developed. We used those modded Auburns a lot for that. In the end, Jerry let him keep an ABBA solidly coupled version that took two people to rail it.

@Adriatic posted:

Not so much the weight, the trucks didn't roll well. Gramps added Lionel trucks to his "crap set" and they were fine (2 Auburn, ribbed and smooth sided streamlined aluminum sets Great Gramps gave him.

Great Gramps sold most of his prewar Lionel gems around the 50s so he could collect EVERYTHING from one company and have it complete (he "won").  I recall everything mentioned, but not without some reminders from you.

  There is a blue roof and ends Gerber too. (the darker blue).

A lot of the paint on these cars was "light" with fuzzy edges from poor masking. Like it was simply manilla paper stencils vs a sticky mask.

A few years ago I sent all the empty boxes I found to WTF Trains (member here) Mostly KMT era.

If they had better trucks, Lionel's cars might have bombed imo. They looked way better than Lionel in my opinion, and Gramp's, and Great Gramp's.  For all of us to actually agree was kinda rare. Debate is a family trait.

I only have a Kusan Atomic Reactor and Army Command caboose. Neither close to "nice", but they were priced right at $25 for the pair.   I love the caboose has a figure on the "rear porch" 😁 2 rail plastic trucks, wheels and couplers.  (An O ring around the Kusan knuckle keeps them from slipping out of a Lionel couplers in an S turn, etc.. Not a lash-up, it acts as a stop and if you open the Lionel's they separate fine.

Gerber cars, and the impressive number of cool tobacco & alcohol billboard art cars made these very memorable for me.  It may be how I ended up a commercial artist as a young man. I could stare at them for hours.

I think I may have a 1970s photo of Gramps shelves with some Gerber variations, checkerboards, and a Ralston/Purina car in sight.

The sandcast AMT passenger cars weigh more than the extruded corrugated aluminum types (the first version of the extruded cars were one piece extrusions and were heavier than the later version where the sides and roof were separate pieces - the sandcast cars had really thick castings and were the lead sleds of the passenger cars AMT developed). A single motored Lionel 2332 GG-1 is normally a slippery runner and would have surely spun it's powered wheelsets trying to start a train with the sandcast cars. The AMT trucks are indeed poor rollers - I swapped fast angle wheels onto the AMT axles of my AMT passenger cars and they rolled better after the swap (the fast angle wheels are a touch wobbly, but they roll better on the axles than the AMT wheels which don't spin very well even after a thorough cleaning and oiling). I dual motored a NYC F unit and could easily lug as many AMT passenger cars as I could tack on behind (I had a T-10 190 watt KMT transformer that put out an honest 24 volts - those Pittman 7 pole motors were designed for higher voltage running than Lionel's motors). If you do run AMT/Kusan made F units be aware that they do not coast at all when the power is cut - you'll have a pile-up of cars behind you unless you ease off the power.

As far as the New Haven checkerboard car is concerned, I'll see if I can dig out my car and take a shot - it's buried in one of my tubs of AMT cars.

@MTN posted:

 

.........The B&O caboose is one I've never seen before - could someone post some snaps of one? ...........

As requested, a few photos of the AMT B&O Caboose and its' box ........that's a reflection/glare on the side of the car in the first photo.....

C.J.

My entire collection, plus a set of MP Alcos

@GP40 posted:

As requested, a few photos of the AMT B&O Caboose and its' box ........that's a reflection/glare on the side of the car in the first photo.....

 

 

C.J.

Thanks for the snaps - I guess the search begins. Is the box under the car in the first shot printed for a B&O caboose, or is it from another caboose?

I thought I’d add these photos here. Never knew Betty Page’s Nashville was home to an O gauge manufacturer.

 l believe Kusan ( or their molds)  later became K-line 

The Nashville Kusan train factory building is located on Belmont Blvd adjacent to what was once the Tennessee Central Railway belt line (now the I-440 corridor) It was a veterinary clinic for years after Kusan closed the train production facility. The plastics company later moved to Massman Drive off Elm Hill Pike and continued making small novelty toys for some years. A mother of one of my middle school students once worked there.

So Betty Page Was born in Nashville.

She was almost valedictorian at Hume-Fogg  https://www.newspapers.com/cli...ncement-with-bettie/ ) . She was one thousandths behind a male student and lost out on a full ride scholarship to Vanderbilt . She was convinced it was because she was female. 

Thanks for sharing the information about I-440 and where the factories were!

So Kusan purchased AMT and the KMT purchased the line. Is that right?    I have a few KMT box cars and they size about midway between O gauge and scale. They are well done and look very nice. I often find NOS cars at the trains shows for $10 ea . The only thing that I dislike about them is the plastic frame trucks. I switched over to metal trucks from the rerun 6464 Lionel LLC cars that now seem to be selling at the shows on the cheap.

@Dennis LaGrua posted:

So Kusan purchased AMT and the KMT purchased the line. Is that right?  

A pretty good Kusan page can be found here HERE.

Rusty

Dormant thread bump - after a long search I managed to unearth a mint Missouri Pacific KMT boxcar in its correct box - that was a tough one to get. Still looking for an AMT B&O caboose, and a Kusan/KMT C&EI boxcar (the one I have was clearcoated for some odd reason) - it's a placeholder until an uncoated one shows up...