Amt Passenger Cars

Those passenger cars should work well with Lionel or other brands, mix well and stay on the track too. AMT has good quality, just that they may have gone out of business. Another company that don't get in the spotlight is KMT or Kris Model trains, and like AMT might be out of business.

Lee F.

AMT is long out of business.  Some of the tooling (F7's, boxcars, reefers) is over at Williams by Bachmann.

Lionel developed their aluminum cars in response to the AMT passenger cars. (So the story is documented.)

Rusty

AMT used dummy knuckles, and metal operating knuckles, but those original couplers just make them manually compatible with Lionel compatible couplers.

I like these cars because they were the first good looking 3 rail cars that were

complete sets with RPO and baggage cars not found in other comtemporary brands.

AMT was an innovator...their failure has been reported as due to actions of marketing personnel.  As constructed of extruded aluminum, except for the very

first cast cars, these are sturdy cars.

Thanks guys, when I was at a few show's I saw them and they looked good, so 

this will be the first time trying them out on my Christmas train board.

Tin 

Well I got another one today, the only problem is that the first two is Santa Fe 

and the coach is NY Central, mix and match might work out good.

Tin

AMT made lovely passenger cars.

KMT is also long out of business, Andy Kriswaulis having passed away many years ago.  He made great-looking, sturdy cars that were also Lionel compatible.

The only problem with AMT/Kusan passenger cars is that only two western roads

were offered, ATSF, and scarce and expensive Texas Special cars. I only looked for

the western roads, so don't remember all the eastern ones, but there was Pa. as

well as NYC, and Southern, and...??? (B&O?)?

tin guy:

Don't worry about mixing and matching ATSF and NYC equipment as cars of the two roads ran through on certain trains operated by the other.

Enjoy,

Bob

I have a set of Santa Fe's my Dad bought used for me in '64. As a kid in the 70s, I pined for a set of F3s to run with them, but the collection my Day bought only had a ZW and 2340 GG1-talk about mixing road names! I still love to run them. I finally bought the K-Line F7s to match about 10 years ago...and the Weaver Congressional set copy for the ol' Geeg.

Mine are Santa Fe and really look good, a little smaller than the 16" lionel alunimum cars so look good on smaller layouts and with smaller engines such as Lionel Alco's. They don't roll real easy so I put fast angle wheel sets in the original AMT truck sideframes and diden't really help any so I don't recomend that.

I forget the precise relationship and DNA of the AMT/Kusan/KMT companies and products, but they were all related, I believe, and were manufactured in Tennessee (this probably

was the reason that they early on offered some Southern road names such as L&N

and GM&O).  I have a set of the passenger cars (ATSF) that went through Hurricane

Katrina submersion near New Orleans; nice cars, funky condition. Love the trucks.

The Kusan box car tooling - and much else, it seems - you are seeing every time you buy 

a Williams box car. K-line little Alco FA's? Kusan body tooling. Beep? Kusan (by way

of Williams). 

Interesting company. There is a book on its history, by I-don't-remember.

I tried putting fast angle wheelsets in my AMT cars and they didn't seem to roll any better. It seemed to me that there needed to be a female bushing in the truck side for the needle point axle to interface with.

Are there wheelsets and axles that are longer and do a better job of interfacing with the truck sides?

Ahhhh - don't use the fast angle wheels while they're mounted to the needlepoint axles.  You need to remove the wheels from the axles, or buy loose replacement wheels from a parts dealer - I scrounged mine from MPC and K-Line junkers and loose trucks. I put the axle between the jaws of a vise so that one wheel rested on the jaws without tightening them up (put the axle so it has one wheel on the jaws and the other wheel is angled out away from the vise). I then took a small center punch and used a hammer to tap the axle back through the wheel.  Put the fast angle wheels on the AMT/KMT axles - they slip right on.  The cars will roll a lot smoother with the modern wheels on the old axles.  Hope that helps.

Thanks all, for the story on AMT and putting on the fast angle wheels, I've have been

looking at a vista dome car but then again it's different it doesn't have a smooth

roof it has ribs, have to think about that, I'm hoping to get these guy's before

Christmas but will see.

Tin  

The sides are identical - they look fine if you mix up the smooth/corrugated roofs.

The following is the history of the Aluminum passenger cars that started as AMT per Greenberg.

AMT ( American Model Trains )1948 to 1953

AU  ( Auburn Model Trains )1954

KA  ( Kusan Auburn ) 1955

KMT ( Kusan Model Trains )1956 to 1958

Tin:

First, thanks to MTN for the very good summary of AMT and its various corporate descendents. 

And for more info, here’s a link to a Yahoo group dedicated to Auburn, AMT, Kusan, Kris and Frank’s Roundhouse products.  There’s even an occasional posting about trains from other now-defunct toy train manufacturers: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/...ris_Williams_Trains/

There are several members of that group who have plenty of operational experience with the AMT passenger cars.

HTH,

Bill

I've admired the passenger cars for some time and am fortunate to have examples or sets of all the road names except for C&NW cars (never even seen them in real life).  But I have a problem in that when I've tried to replace a broken coupler, the dummy, scale size type, the only part I've been able to obtain is through Olsens.  But their replacement is made of pot metal and droops so badly, it eventually rests on the track!

Does anybody know of the availability of either a good quality metal or even the plastic style coupler?  In fact, I'd even be happy to replace them with the Lionel sized operating knuckle couplers if I could find the bracket to mount them on which connects to the truck.

Those metal repros are the only couplers available right now - you'll have to keep an eye on Ebay for those plastic couplers as most cars seem to have been converted to the automatic couplers AMT developed.

I'll dig out my C&NW set and take a snap...

Some quick snaps of someof KMT's Chicago and Northwestern passenger cars:

thanks for the pics. I woul;d love to find a set of the PRR or NYC cars.

Smoothside/sandcast?  I have some really rough Pennsy cars.  The fluted version cars have unpainted sides and the appropriate nameplates.

Have you tries a "TEFLON" type of oil.  Put a couple of rops where there is metal to metal interfacing, spin the wheels, and see what happens.

I've seen about a dozen sandcast Pennsy and NYC cars - the 4 rough cars I have are definite keepers.  

Wow, looks like I started a nice thread! Just found out two are coming Monday and 

one is coming Thursday, when I receive them I take some photos of them under the 

Christmas tree when up and running and thanks MTN for the great info on the cars  

and WFT trains for the yahoo club info

Tin 

The CNWs are gorgeous! I replaced the trucks with K-lines a few years ago, and the look at leas as good and run far better than the originals. I kept the originals just in case anybody would want to reinstall them, but it's not like my cars were original in the box pieces.

The paint on the Northwestern and Texas Special cars doesn't adhere too well to the aluminum sides - my C&NW cars aren't in the greatest shape.  Finding cars with non-flaking paint is a challenge.  The engines that came with my set are in really great condition.

AMT flyer for the smooth side passenger cars:

Gomez and an AMT dome car:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMxJtMoTnx8

Wow, the car's do look nice, now about that train wreck.

Tin 

Hi all,

   I received the first two of the AMT Passenger cars today and I have to say I'm 

really impressed the built and look is really nice There's a few marks here and there 

but that shiny top can't be beat. I do have one question how do you remove the bottom after you take out the four screws, I'm having a bit of a problem getting 

that off.

Tim 

Mine seem to need to be "angled out" from the right or left side of the bottom plate after removing all the screws. Then as soon as you turn the shell over, the plastic interior doors will fall out...

Mothers aluminum wheel polish and does a nice job on them BTW.

Okay, thank you I just got them apart, seems that the bulbs in the observation 

car were painted blue they might be original, these guy's need a little cleaning 

up and should be fine, thanks for the mother's wheel polish info that was my next question.

Tin

I've always found clear bulbs in the cars I've obtained - a lot of the cars have blue, flexible window insert material. Are your window strips clear? Someone might have painted the bulbs blue to cause the car to match the blue window strip cars.

As for the cars bowing a bit - not a problem, just work carefully when putting them back together.  You'll get the hang of getting the doors to stay in place when putting the ends back on.  If you have baggage cars with doors that have fallen out, put a dab of grease in the door tracks before putting the doors in - been awhile, but I think it works best to do that with the baggage car upside down while working.

Very interesting. I've never seen fast angle wheels that were not already mounted to axles. Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try in the next few daze.

Trainz shows the fast angle wheel as 9050-052:  http://www.trainz.com/p-253542...-angle-truckmpc.aspx

Thank you, I got them back together, seem to be fine, the dining car I have had 

20volt bulbs in it and the windows a tinted blue on both maybe I should paint 

some bulbs blue to cut down on the brightness of the clear bulbs. The only 

problem now I have to rewire them the wire is old and stiff and new wire should 

do the trick and be easy on the rollers.

Tin