K-Line Caboose

Is this the model with a thick plastic railing?  Perhaps if you could show a photo I could tell if my Lehigh Valley is the same series.

K-line made dozens of great scale cabooses. Mine are all Milwaukee. They made four different ones in Milwaukee alone. Don

Don's so right! I owned several of the scale-sized, and highly-detailed extended-vision and bay-window styles in various roads. Really nice, and from what I remember, very reasonably priced for the level of detail.

Well, nuts.  K-Line did a beauty of an ATSF wood sided caboose, and I have failed to place a photo of it in my file.  Here is a pre- war Lobaugh that is not half as nice, but three times the value:

 

Here is a link to a printing of the 2003 KLine catalog with the cabeese in it.

<cite>www.yorktrains.com/YORK/2003fe_preview.doc</cite>‎

This is one of five or six Milwaukee cabooses I have. Luv them. Don

Heres a list of the bay window cabooses from the legacy k line website:

 

 

 

K612-1052	Santa Fe Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-1053	Santa Fe Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-1091	B&O Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-1371	Milw Rd Scale Bay Window Caboose	$49.95
K612-1372	Milwaukee Rd Scale Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-1411	Conrail RR Police Smoking Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-1431	CSX Scale Bay Window Caboose	$45.00
K612-1432	CSX Scale Smoking Caboose	$40.00
K612-1471	Lackawanna Bay Window Caboose	$40.00
K612-1731	Katy Bay Window Caboose	$59.95
K612-1751	New York Central Scale Bay Window Caboose	$44.95
K612-1771	Nickel Plate Scale Bay Window Caboose	$49.95
K612-1791	New Haven Smoking Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-1831	Norfolk Southern Bay Window Caboose	$59.95
K612-1891	Pennsylvania Scale Bay Window Caboose	$44.95
K612-2011	Southern Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-2012	Southern Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-2031	Southern Pacific Classic Bay Window Caboose #1650	$64.95
K612-2034	Southern Pacific Police Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-2036	SP Scale Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-2112	Union Pacific Scale Bay Window Caboose	$44.95
K612-2113	UP RR Police Smoking Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-2114	Union Pacific Bay Window Caboose	$64.95
K612-21721	WP Scale Bay Window Caboose # 428	$70.00
K612-4461	Virginian Bay Window Caboose	$40.00
K612-7600	Spirit of ‘76 Bay Window Caboos

 

 

Heres a link to the website that archives alotof the great K Line stuff.

 

http://www.legacykline.com/app...ml?useraction=search

My personal favorite, a K Line woodside.

 

EastonO...Former Kline center cupola caboose (now with operating marker lights) and N5C PRR style porthole caboose (now also with 'Little Wally' brakeman figure) are now made exclusively by RMT.

 

Check them out on RMT website www.readymadetoys.com

 

 

Thanks.

 

Walter M. Matuch/RMT

Rick:

 

Thanks for posting that link.  Is that supposed to be a complete list of everything K-Line produced?  Just spot checking it quickly, I have two items I don’t see listed.

 

Bill

Actually there were seven scale Milwaukee Road cabooses, counting K-Line by Lionel. Two versions of the bay window (one each with Milwaukee Road and CM&StP herald), two slightly different extended vision (the first one a special run for a store in the Milwaukee suburbs, the other a regular production item), plus one steel and one woodside offset cupola caboose. Add to that another bay window during the K-Line by Lionel era. This was the same bay window body painted as a work train crew car. It's authentic right down to a correct road number except that the prototype was a ribside caboose, not a smooth-sided Thrall like the KBL model.  There were also at least two traditional sized cabooses, a very early one with a center cupola (no resemblance to any actual Milwaukee Road caboose) and a special run work caboose for a dealer in southern Wisconsin (ditto). 

I have four K-Line cabooses -- 3 bay window (UP, SP, and SP Police) and an extended vision (CNW). All are nicely done. The weak point is the pickup rollers in the trucks. which sometimes pop out of position -- not a major problem to fix. At some point I'll switch them all over to Kadees, but for now they're fine. I still troll eBay for them as you only have too many cabooses when they exceed your number of locomotives.

Matt raises a good point about the rollers. I have about eight K-Line cabooses and the lights flicker on every one of them. There's some intrinsic design problem there. I've fiddled and fiddled and finally given up - despite having two rollers on each caboose, careful cleaning of both the roller and the wipers on the axles, and numerous incantations and imprecations, they still flicker. 

I have a Lackawanna K-Line caboose that is my favorite. It is a smoking caboose. 

 

It has a switch on the bottom for conventional or command that controls the power to the smoke element. What a great feature. I have melted a chimney or two in my time by running conventional smoking cabooses at command voltage, 18 volts.

 

K-line had so many great ideas they put into play. 

When ever I see these at a train show I snap them up regardless of road name. My favorite are the wood sided and steel sided offset cabeese

I have a couple of the extended vision cabooses and agree they are great.  But I always thought they look just a little larger than 1/4 scale.  I didn't take any measurements or look up the prototypes to compare for scale accuracy, but comparing to other scale cabooses and freight cars on the layout . . . . is it just me or has anyone else thought so?

          p. metz

 

So that stems the question... to Whom did the dies go to? Lionel? WBB? Do you think these will be made again?

 

I have a couple of the extended vision cabooses and agree they are great.  But I always thought they look just a little larger than 1/4 scale.  I didn't take any measurements or look up the prototypes to compare for scale accuracy, but comparing to other scale cabooses and freight cars on the layout . . . . is it just me or has anyone else thought so?

          p. metz

 

The extended vision cabooses are big in real life, and the side extensions make them look bigger. Here's a prototype photo.

 

Sorry for the error, correction made.

I have one of the K-Line smoking cabooses, before Lionel, a Reading Lines caboose.

Will have to look for the number. It has a lighted interior and figures sitting in the caboose, cupola roof pulls off.

I run it with my MTH Reading Lines T-1 4-8-4 steam engine and some Reading Lines hopper and boxcars, or some old Reading beer cars, or a couple of Reading & Northern hoppers.

 

Lee Fritz

I consider myself someone who responds to posts, but I don't usually do a post from scratch.

 

Thank you ALL, very, very much for your comments, pictures and especially the lists and links to all these cabeese! I had no idea there were so many different types and so many folks had them!

 

Thanks again everyone, Terry

Great, now I need the NYC cabeese 

Here's a pic of my K-line Southern Caboose (K612-2012) - my favorite caboose thus far. I just won the B&O version of this on Ebay and paid $49.00 for it - so I'm pretty excited to get that as well...

 

The K-Line scale cabeese also struck me as being slightly oversize.

 

Rusty

I have this too and also my favorite. I have a Lionel CNJ caboose ordered from the SE13 catalog and hope it will compare favorably. Fred

here are a couple of my Conrail K-line cabooses:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry RMT but I just can't get over the funky looks of the PRR N5c Cabin car.