K-line 21" passenger cars 10 years later.....thoughts

I agree.  I picked them up around $75 each, and had I known how much those 3-rail trucks were worth, I could have reduced that with a bit of eBay activity.  I got the PRR and CNW cars with the thought of refinishing them.

The Sunset cars are lots nicer, but for me the K-Lines were way more than adequate.  I don't think the diaphragms are here to stay, but I know how to make them out of black paper with metal striker plates.

Very nice cars!  If you plan to sell an extra set let me know.

I have a great many of these cars.  K Line is still the best.  I am a recent fan of the 21 inch Lionel.  

Over the past few years I have managed to collect the entire K-Line Empire State Express 21" cars and they have to be the best passenger cars in my collection.  Although the glue that held the passengers in their seats had come loose over the years it is an easy fix and gives one the opportunity to add more paying customers once you've mastered the art of taking them apart.  I love the close coupling and some of them actually have adjustment screws for moving the trucks just a bit and one has a switch on the underside for controlling the lighting.  I wish someone would invent some full width diaphragms for them.  As I have been told all the K-Line ESE 21" cars are accurate renditions of the full sized ones.  I also have an entire set of the 18" Golden State passenger cars along with the K-Line Rock Island E8's to pull them.  It's a shame they went out of business.  Lionel continues to re-release some of their locomotives but not the passenger cars.   PS:  Your Pennsy baggage car by Weaver is another recent rarity.  

As far as I am concerned, I think K-line set the bar substantially higher for all manufacturers with their detail, clean lines, lighting, and actual passengers rather than silhouettes.

JoeG

jini5 posted:

I went digging for some train items today and found (4) PRR K-line passenger sets(4 car and 2 car sets). I found 2 sets of broadway and 2 sets of congeessional. Now I remember......... Back in 2005 Kirk form Justrains had a TRUE blowout on these(as He often did). I found the receipt in the  boxes. 299.00 for 4 car sets and 108 for the 2 car sets.WOW! what a deal. I remember thinking I should buy more than 1 set of each at that price. So I did. Looking at the receipt, apparently I still have more somewhere. I will have to look. Since I have never run any of them, I took a set out today and run them for the first time since new(11 years ago). I've added a few pics.

So I was thinking......What are your thoughts of these cars after all this time has passed and now other companies are now doing 21" cars. I know the newer cars are better detailed, but  does anyone else like me just think these K-lines are the greatest? The Congressionals that I found are polished aluminum......no one else does this. Not even 11 years later. I'll take the polished aluminum over the painted plastic.

Very nice; what "photo" program are you using to produce the smaller pictures that allow you to enlarge with a double click?  I would like to do the same.

Thank you

Yes, there is no doubt K Line set the bar for others to try and achieve the same quality.  And, Kirk, at Just Trains, has always been one of the best for acquiring great items for the best prices.  I have the complete set of the Golden State cars, with some duplicates, and when pulled by the K Line R.I. E8s, what a beautiful consist it is.  Also, the CZ 21" complete set pulled by K Line WP and Rio Grande motive power around my layout always draw comments from visiting friends.  yes, from the detailed reefers, passenger, and other great rolling stock, along with the "ahead of their time" engines, K Line contributed so much to the O Gauge pastime we all enjoy.  I really do miss the KCC items and the great items/catalogs they produced.

  Another thought from above, should anyone produce full width diaphragms for between passenger cars in your consist, what a difference that would make, and look great! 

Jesse    TCA  12-68275

The K-Line cars can't be beat for quality and price.

NH Joe

The only scale length K-Line passenger cars I have, are the New York Central Empire State Express consist, and they are truly spectacular. There were issues with the pick-up rollers on most all of the early K-Line passenger cars, which would burnout the coil spring which kept the pick-up roller down on the center rail. By soldering very flexible, stranded wire around the pick-up roller assembly, the problem was corrected. K-Line supplied new pick-up roller assemblies to anyone who requested them, during the process.

Yes. The 21" cars are my favorite...

Actually, I am glad Lionel will be raising the bar with their new releases, they are not aluminum, but that's OK. They look just as nice.

We collected all the K-line business cars.  Some of them are 21" and great cars!

I have the K-Line 18" SP Daylight, ribbed passenger cars.  I don't care that they are not scale.  They are excellent cars.  Matt

I have the K-line ATSF 21" cars, and the business car, too (my favorite). Bought them when they came out, more or less, I guess. Been a while. Beautiful, of course. Wish that I had gone the NYC direction, now - but I had - still have - that RS 5.0 3751 4-8-4, so...

But - as time goes by, I often wish that I had gone the 15" (or were they 16", in this case...?) route - they were available too, as I recall. The 15"/16" look better on most layouts, even mine with 072 curves, and, being scale-sized in all but length, still make a gorgeous train, but look less "navigational" on curves.

I've come to prefer the compressed cars in the "real model" (non-club, nice but non-huge layout) world.

I had a set of K-Line bi level and streamline Santa Fe sets, business car too.  Sold them all, at a nice profit I might add.  I liked the cars and they were always on the tracks, but the $$$ was hard to pass up.

John

Those K-Line passenger cars have always been a good investment.  Although in my opinion they weren't all that inexpensive when new yet they have held their value and then some over the ensuing years.  I'll bet that some of the Weaver trains will also go up in value in years to come. 

I remember seeing the Kline 21" pass sets and passing because they were way too big and had all the cheap looking plastic details attached to the aluminum.

Oh well it's a good thing I'm not forecasting market trends!!

We only have a few assorted PRR cars in 15" and 18", as well as a beautiful set of the UP cars that Doug had modified with LED lighting, a scale coupler on the rear and more passengers. These are my favorites but a recent addition of the B&O 15" 4 car set gives them a good run!

Hope to someday have the 21" B&Os and a set of the Northern Pacific's in either length.

Yes, the 21" aluminum business car "Atkinson" I have for the ATSF (naturally).  It is an excellent car for finish on any passenger consist of my 18" or 21" cars I run.  Although only 15" in length, I do still like the two Millennium cars with display cases I bought in 1999.  I also purchased over 25 of the nicely detailed reefer cars, U.P., ATSF, S.P., etc. I pull with others to make up a consist of 50 pieces total behind my 4012 Big Boy, an MTH model I converted over to TMCC and RS from ERR.   As stated by many, the products produced by K Line are timeless and more than worth having in any collection.

Jesse    TCA  12-68275

MTH A-B-B-A PA's pulling eleven 21" K-line cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr5wq5dQx2k

Rare Union Pacific 21" cars on DASH: 

FLAT end observation 

RPO/Lounge 2 pack

first UP sets I've saw for sale in a year!

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

I have a great many of these cars.  K Line is still the best.  I am a recent fan of the 21 inch Lionel.  

Hi Marty Fitz, I recently got a K line Empire State Express Engine,with TMCC and Railsounds.

It is in Like new condition,I traded a guy a nice Postwar#736 for it. For those of us who cannot afford The newer Empire Express by Lionel,it's quite a nice stand in. Looks just like Lionel's,but no smoking whistle, etc...

I have been trying to find out when it was made, the Model # is:#3270-002.I do not believe it is Scale like the New Lionel version, but seeing this thread made me think about asking about any info I can find on the engine.It is not on the K line Site as far as I can tell.  

I found out that the Empire State Express cars were made in 1999,(I believe) was this engine put out the same time as the passengers were issued ?

I have been calling it "The Poor Man's Empire Express!!,but it really is a nice looking model of the Empire Express.I ran it in TMCC mode, and I'm not thrilled with the railsounds.The Whistle is okay, and the Bell is EXCELLENT,but the other engine sounds could use an upgrade.It has a puffer smoke unit, but really puts out lots of smoke for a puffer.

I have talked to George(GGG)about converting it over to a 3 volt,Proto 2.0 setup so it will have better sounds and a fan driven smoke unit.  

If you or any of the other guys here on this post could tell me when it was made, and what version of Railsounds it has, I woud like to know.

Maybe I can upgrade The Railsounds to get some better sounds out of it,I don't know, because this is my first TMCC engine I ever bought.Can you upgrade these like the MTH stuff???  

So,does anyone know What year this was made??Any Links???

I have a video of it on my You Tube Channel:Lionel For Less  I don't know how to put a link to it on here.Search for K lineman my channel if anyone wants to check it out.

Marty,I will have a package for you on the way for you after York,as we spoke about.  Thanks Again.Have a great time at York Everybody!!!!!

God Bless.-Kenny Baughman

I just wish someone, preferably MTH, would do BIG SKY BLUE GN, with matching engines engines...hint :-)

I recently purchased a K Line C&O Madison passenger car with silhouette windows, but would like to change the windows to match the rest of the K Line C&O cars that have plastic windows.  Has anyone been successful in doing this and will you be willing to share the process?

Ten years ago, I bought the complete Southern Pacific and ATSF sets from Kirk at Just Trains. The close coupling, hidden uncoupler tabs, ride height, and overall look are, to me, just right. I've even grown to prefer the more subdued colors of the SP set.

Hal

Yes, k line 21 inch cars were leaps and bounds ahead of their predecessors.  I was used to the Lionel mpc 15 inch congresssionals and wow, what a difference having scale cars with nice details.  We now have the sunset congressionals since they are much more prototypical , however, the k line cars showed us what was possible and they seem to have held up well in value.  

When these cars were being dumped, l think about the time K-Line went out of business, l bought all the Western roadname RPO's, and several other two car sets l could find (and win).  I was hoping K-LINE would do RI, and Mopac.  Except for RPO'S, most of them were the 21 in. cars.  Soon after that in shows l set up in, duplicates did not sell....story may now be different.

I have a couple Sunset cars next to a K-Line car, and I have a lot of mixed K-Line and Mac Shops cars.  Happy with all of them.  Sunset's are better in all ways except initial cost, but I am quite happy with the K-Line.  All need new diaphragms, and will get paper accordions when I get around to it.

Kirk and K-Line had these things discounted to $75 each.  How could I resist?  So I have UP, PRR, Empire Builder, two gallery cars, B&O, and Zephyr - all 2-railed.

I could not do the Daylight - corrugations and window height were incorrect.  Sunset sort of fixed that, but I used the slightly more correct Speer extrusions.

If I am repeating myself, it is because this thread is ancient, and I did not go back and read all of it.

All I can say is the K-Line 21" passenger car sets are holding up better value than the Weaver 21" sets. It's the interior of the K-Line cars  as well as its sturdy construction that keeps the value up.

My only regret is that I wish that I would have known about these K line 21 in Long Passenger cars prior to me designing my layout. I use the old tried-and-true of a 72 diameter curve as my minimum knowing that everything in O scale would make the curves. However, just because something makes the curves doesn't mean it looks good in doing it. If I had to do it all over again knowing about these 21 in Long cars a 96 diameter curve would have been the smallest curved I would have used on my main line. Fortunately just by sheer luck about 70% of my main line is an 89 diameter curve or greater. But that still leaves my bottom 30% of a $72 amateur curve. It looks more like the wild mouse at an amusement park than a railroad when these cars go around a 72 diameter curve. Oh well, it's like everything else hindsight is 20/20.

I have an aluminum 10 car set of the 21" K Line California Zephyr which I enjoy very much.  While they lack the realism,adjustable couplers, and LED lighting found on the Atlas CZ cars which I also own, I really like the polished aluminum appearance of the K Line CZ cars.  

I  read that overseas production of new 21" aluminum passenger cars is drying up because of the rising costs of production.   While it is difficult to read the tea leaves going forward, it  seems possible that rising international political tensions and the possibility of foreign trade wars could also affect future production volume of these cars, or at least their selling price. 

For now at least I am holding off on ordering any yet to be produced foreign trains until I have a better handle on how this is likely to play out.

Bob

K-Line 21" cars are some of the finest cars ever made.  

I bought a set of the 21" Superliner cars.  They were spectacular, the only weakness was the trucks, size, detail and rollers.  I did a full interior, but the floors has all sorts of perf board holes, which I just had to ignore.  But I was upset they never came out with the lounge car with its wrap around windows.  To me that is the defining car of that series.  I ran into Mr. Kline at York once and asked him when he was coming out with that car.  I got a sneering reply, " when I am ready to".  Never did.  When Lionel came out with their 18" set, I sold the K Lines and bought the Lionel set.

Still have their 18" set of Super Chief cars though.

I still pick these up when the price is right and I have the spare funds to purchase them.  My last big find was 18 21" daylight cars of which 14 were uniquely numbered and named.  That was a little more than a few years ago.  Not at all close to the prototype and the colors are too dark, but they still look good to me.  My challenge is with that many cars, I need to change the light bars to LED or pull the pickup rollers off.  10 amps won't cover even the 14 cars plus locomotives. 

Nice sets for their time.  I'm partial to GGD, but the upfront investment is steep.  However, you would see similar pricing on new aluminum 21" scale cars built today at $200+ vs. those of nearly 20 years ago.

I found this thread today and agree with all the comments.  I have the shorter cars in  NP and Milwaukee and they make a beautiful train.l  However, I have had a few pick up roller assemblies fail and need to come up with either replacement springs or some kind of substitute.  Has anyone else had this problem?    Phil

I have the Santa Fe (8 cars) and the Southern Pacific Daylight (10 cars) 21 inch sets. IMHO, the ride height (practically no gap between trucks and car body) and close coupling (practically no gap between vestibules) are as good as it gets. Also no ugly button coupler contraptions on the ends. Not a rivet counter.As long as they look "right" to me, I'm happy.

Hal

I guess that I must like the 21" observations:

I have 6 PRR 21" K- Line passenger cars, and a few other PRR odd ball passenger cars. Love 'em....they look great!

I've run them in consists with my GGD S.F. Super Chief cars many times at NJ Hirailers. They look great and never had a problem. Quality cars for the money.