I MISS K-Line

K-Line had some awesome product.  I own quite a bit, especially the operating cars and accessories.  Since their product was made at Sanda-Kan,  I often wonder if they would have made it through the changes at that factory If they had not closed shop. 

I agree  ,love this set ,just bought it,,late to the party!

And Williams went out with a profit from the sale to Bachmann. That was more of a planed retirement.

gg1man,

   You are absolutely correct but it does not change the fact that we actually lost a major independent train company supplying our hobby.  Both K-line and Williams are

no longer independent companies supplying much needed competition and quality in our O gauge train hobby.  It really is to bad that neither company exists any longer.

PCRR/Dave  

K-Line and Lionel reached an agreement to settle a intellectual property issue. Unfortunately Maury ran his mouth and the Judge killed the deal. That combined with a business plan that relied on high volume and low profit margins finally shut the doors.

 

Fascinating!  I never realized a lot of the litigation was around the PowerChief 120 transformer.  Was it the "F" version or all 120 designated items?  I also didn't realize it had issues.  I have 3 PowerChief 120F transformers and I think they are terrific.  I don't have problems with them (that I've discovered); they have seen very light use.

 

Please tell me more!

 

George

What I miss the most about K-Line is their passenger cars.  At this weekend's DuPage show the most sought after items that I saw were some K-Line 21" passenger cars. 

 

I also miss the K-Line Intermodal cars.  They were diecast and still are among the best looking cars available.

 

Art

For a kid getting into the hobby the price was right for their cars and I wasn't getting junk.  My father and I made multiple exclusive and early order purchases from the K-line collectors club.  When I was younger I eagerly anticipated their cataloges more than lionel's.  and now that i have the money to buy all those trains I wanted, unfortunately many of them are hard to find.  For example, I've been looking for the 2 car (baggage and coach) ad on set to complete my 15" PRR madison broadway limited set, but the only one i found recently went for over $200.  I think when it came out we only paid $100 for the main 4 car set!

Actually, I do and I don't.

 

I am glad K-line existed and had the creativity to create 'Streets and a lot of good locos and ideas.  To a great extent they were (at least initially) disruptive in a very positive way and shook up a sleepy, tired hobby industry.  

 

But they continued to be disruptive, and, as understand it, to not play entirely by the rules, and ultimately that led to both a lot of unpleasantness and their demise in rather ugly but spectacular manner.  

 

I know many people love K-line locos and cars, but I'm not a fan.  Yes, their scale Hudson was awesome as far as model detail and accuracy, but in all but one case, newer locos run better, sound better, etc., and have replaced K-line locos on my layout with V Hudsons, etc.  The one exception is a 4-6-6- tank engine, like the Hudson, great model and good looking.  I hope Lionel or MTH will bring out a Legacy or Premier version - I'd like a better runner/better sound/smoke..   I used to like K-line passenger cars but I gave those away and now much prefer MTH.   

Lee,  Folks upgrade those Hudsons and Tank engines with fan driven smoke and PS-2.  I have done several.  That was the problem with third party, only TMCC and RS 4 available at the time, unless the manufacture bought PS-2 kits and did the upgrade.   G

I have the CNJ K-Line Tank Engine, it's a very cool and well detailed locomotive.  Mine has an ERR Cruise board in it, the K-Line one bit the dust.

Interesting I was just thinking about how much I miss K-line last night. I am presently unpacking all of my trains after a six year hiatus. As I unpacked I am still impressed with their construction.

When I first started going to York my first stop was Train Express. They always had a nice selection of K-line items at good prices. Sadly they closed their doors in August of last year.

 

David

First I heard about a "Powerchief" tranformer......all the noise back then, I thought,

was about the reissuance of Lionel's biggie transformer and its MTH competition.  But, I probably did not get beyond the passenger cars in the K-Line catalogs.  While I

would buy head end cars in 15", as protoypical, others I wanted in 21".  Does a professed preference for 15" cars mean the longer cars are cheaper?  Not what I noticed when I was actively hunting them, for they seemed more uncommon, and so

priced.  (although, I was just looking for western roadnames, which are less in demand)  K-Line had the roadnames, too.  Of course, aside from the aluminum cars, I never liked the Heavyweight RPO car, but never, yet, got around to modifying one with the installation of credible RPO doors.

Wasn't aware of the issue over the transformer either. I thought it was something to do with TMCC.   in fact have never seen one that I know of.  Can someone post a photo of it please?

I know very little about the Power Chief litigation. Lionel alleged that the Power Chief was a copy of the CW-80 and at least one electronics expert whose opinion I respect says that appears to be the case. Why anyone would want to copy that boat anchor is a different question. 

 

As far as the units themselves go, the problems I've seen fell into two categories: sloppy assembly and bad components. The one I repaired was missing a shunt resistor across the variable output terminals. When I replaced that it worked fine. I have another one that I took apart but never got around to finishing the diagnosis and repair. I think it probably has a bad volume pot but that's not confirmed. I've also heard about bad solder joints inside the units. The banana jacks on the output terminals are also often loose. Power Chiefs are a pain to take apart because they are riveted. Some guys re-rivet them when they reassemble them; I prefer to use sheet metal screws.

 

I haven't heard anything specific about the F (fixed voltage) version but far fewer of those were made so I wouldn't expect to hear as much. The fixed/accessory circuits on my regular versions both worked OK, even though the shunt resistor was broken on the one I fixed. If you have three of them and they all work, I'd say you got lucky. 

Yea I to miss them.I have the freedom train gs4 a very powerful locomotive.Has a very wonderful sounding whistle.I have had it pull a 40 car freighttrain.I also have a mike wp(now seabord air line).One of my smaller locomotive but can pull just as well asmy bigger locomotive.I was very disspointed when kline went under.They made great trains one can only wonder.If kline was still around what they could have put on the market.

K line was one company that seemed to take time in detail on the day. They are missed

Definitely missed.

K-Line was a quality manufacturer and supplied some very nice products. When they went out of business, Sanda Kan acquired 100% of the tooling for monies owed to them. Then Kader (who owns Bachmann/Williams purchased Sanda Kan and should now have quite an extensive inventory of tooling.

A little known manufacturer of top end O gauge trains also went out sometime in the 90's. That was Bill Bensons, Right of Way industries in Ohio. Talk about realism and detail; that line had some very fine offerings and may have been the first company to offer scale size passengers cars.  To my knowledge no one knows what happened to the Right of Way industries tooling.

I hope I am not stepping on anybody's toes here, but I am truly surprised at all the positive opinions of K-Line.  My own experiences were just the opposite.  I bought several freight cars, and the couplers wouldn't work right on all but one.  A lighted caboose had a short in it. One truck simply fell apart.  The only engine I bought, a steamer also new, had multiple problems:  The tender whistle didn't work, the smoke unit quit very quickly, and the side rods would snag once per revolution.  Eventually, they fell off of one side.  I sent it to K-Line Service, but after return it still has always snagged with a click when in reverse.

 

I agree, though, that their passenger cars looked nice.

 

So all in all, no, I don't miss K-Line.

I too have the freedom train with all the cars that go with it. I wish that they had made all the freedom train cars that existed in real life. I'm lucky also to the fact that when I was 9 I got to see the real AFT in person,

One of the biggest mistakes I made in this hobby was selling off my six sets of K-Line spine cars.

 

 

 

They would accept trailers or containers.  I hope somebody re-issues these  because I want back in the Intermodal Game.

When they first released their GP 38-2, that was the bee's knees for me.  What struck me, aside from the great amount of added on detailing, was the fact that finally here was a Geep that had more modernized Blomberg trucks.

 

I also really liked their scale coil gondolas, aluminum tank cars, bay window and extended-vision cabooses as well as their woodside reefers.  Their aluminum ACF hoppers though were a bit of a let down; felt the detailing on those, especially the stirrups, were not up to par with other offerings they came out with at the time.  What also struck me was they were the first to follow in Atlas O's footseps and start offering cars that came with pre-drilled & tapped mounting holes for 2-rail conversions, and also selling 2-rail versions of their trucks as well as knockoffs of the Kadee coupler.

 

They became the next scrappy underdog kind of like Mike Wolf in the 1990's, shaking things up in the market and rattling the saber.  That said, as others have noted, poor business decisions is what ultimately did them in.  Maury did stake the claim that he was pushing for K-Line to be number 1, but I think in reality he was pushing too hard, too fast to try to achieve that goal.  Simply too aggressive with his attempts to undercut the competition, and what amounted to thumbing their nose at Lionel after the preliminary settlement was the final nail in the coffin.  I also think that Maury's aversion to having his products reviewed by the major publications (even threatening lawsuits as I recall) instead of welcoming them didn't help much in getting additional product exposure either.

 

Then there's that infamous row between our own OGR's Allan Miller and K-Line over his B6 switcher from years past.  What fun that was to hear about! 

 

I too miss K-Line. Maury Klein was innovative and really pushed the envelope which kept the pressure on Lionel and MTH

K-Line is a favorite of mine.  Their offered a lot of unique and creative products. I got into O gauge because of Super Streets and their interurbans expanded my vision beyond just streets and trolleys.  I have a couple of passenger trains awaiting the space for a larger layout. Wish I could get more interurbans.

Steve,

   Nothing like competition to keep the industry moving into the future, the loss of K-line and Williams to our hobby  undermined the competition in the hobby.  I agree with you 100%

PCRR/Dave

I liked K-Line. I have a very large collection of their 6464t type boxcars and a good number of tank cars. I was working on the Santa Fe map cars when they went with the metal ladders, that killed it for me. I have recently begun the hunt anew for them at the last York and Greenberg shows and I have all but one now.

 

Jerry

Something that impressed me was that when they brought out their scale Mikado, it was detailed for each railroad. High headlights for the PRR and B&O, number boards on the smokebox for the UP and C&O, correct builder's plates according to who built engines for which railroad, and lots of other little details. I haven't seen any other manufacturer detail out a die-cast engine in this way. 

I loved their collectors club.

You could choose an engine with no options or fully loaded.

Bought some of the best $100.00 locomotives in those K-line years.

Want a matching caboose No problem $40.00 more.

Matching six car hoppers $100.00

 

I saved my money in anticipation of the KCC announcement flyers.

 

My favorite K-line cars are the O27 Heinz offerings.

NOT the "F" version - which is a pretty good unit with lots of flexibility.

 

The PowerChief 120 was a virtual clone of the CW-80 operating platform/architecture, including the programmable accessory output, BUT with all of the bad aspects/flaws of the CW addressed & "fixed".

 

K-Line made the black / "U" terminals/posts common as they should be, gave it a 270° range on the throttle instead of the CW 90° , and allowed it to put out a full 7 amps as it's capable of, all without the annoying cooling fan, and put an actual power switch right on the unit.

 

Unfortunately, it does suffer from some very poor quality control(not always fatal) that can often be repaired if you want dive into it. If you have one that works, they are wonderful power supplies.

 

Maybe Lionel should have given K-Line a medal instead of suing them!

I was having a hard time missing K-Line last weekend when the center roller of K-Line South Shore interurban would short out over a K-Line O-72 SuperSnap switch over the straight route.