I have seen a pair of K-Line(before Lionel) F-3 diesels for sale, # 25811 Reading F-3. Are they both powered or just one powered? I am expecting both to be powered for being listed at $335.00 on an auction site.
Lee Fritz
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They are likely to both be powered units. However, check to see if the motors are horizontal in the power trucks, as opposed to the verticle configuration that is common today. I've never heard of the horizontal setup being used for anything other than conventional. Definitely no room for a flywheel.
Chris
Chris,
The motors are mounted on the side, most likely horizontal, and have the gears right next to them, no way that I know of to mount command control. You would have to change out the motor sets to add a flywheel or anything like it.
If they are both powered it would be a nice set of engines. I know that K-Line has on occasion made a three unit set of powered diesel engines with the first engine controlling all three's direction, and used a wired tether.
Lee Fritz
Actually, it's very easy to add command to those if you desire. The ERR Cruise Commander will work with or without flywheel motors.
Information on K-Line products is available on the Legacy K-Line website. I don't have the URL handy, but you can just Google Legacy K-Line and it will come right up. The site should tell you whether both units are powered.
Both are powered, it's shown with a B-Unit as well, though they just say AA.
http://www.legacykline.com/app...;p_oem_sku=K-25811TC
I'd think twice on these. I had the similar set in Milwaukee road, this one: http://www.legacykline.com/app...mp;p_oem_sku=K-25431
It has six motors, and they were all driven from one standard Lionel DCDR motor driver board. When you ran it awhile, the board was HOT! The speed regulation was not all that great either. Finally, they are not candidates for upgrades to cruise control in the existing configuration if you want to go that way.
I have these and they are both powered. Can run solo or together.
The B unit was a separate sale item K2581-2642.
The 2 A's came with TMCC, RS, Cruise, Smoke & Electrocouplers. This was one of the later versions of cruise so it should work OK.
Interesting. I also have that Milwaukee Road set with six motors and I've run it quite a bit, with some heavy trains, and never noticed any excessive heating. I even ran it a couple of times with an extra powered B unit (before I realized what a load I was putting on the electronics) and it still ran cool. The current draw of those can motors is quite low. I don't remember how much current it was drawing, but it was surprisingly little for a six-motor combination. As I recall it was less than one amp per motor.
A friend of mine has the later AA version of the K-Line set in SP. When it was new he fried a board (presumably the power supply, but he's not an electronics guy and he really didn't know which board). K-Line fixed it under warranty, but they told him that the smoke units placed an excessive load on the power supply and he should turn the smoke units off permanently or he'd blow another board.
Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
Both are powered, it's shown with a B-Unit as well, though they just say AA.
http://www.legacykline.com/app...;p_oem_sku=K-25811TC
I'd think twice on these. I had the similar set in Milwaukee road, this one: http://www.legacykline.com/app...mp;p_oem_sku=K-25431
It has six motors, and they were all driven from one standard Lionel DCDR motor driver board. When you ran it awhile, the board was HOT! The speed regulation was not all that great either. Finally, they are not candidates for upgrades to cruise control in the existing configuration if you want to go that way.
Thank you for the answers. I would not be upgrading to any cruise control or command control if I bought these, would run them as is, maybe go to track power under the DCS command control set-up.
Lee Fritz
Sounds like this is a different design than the Milwaukee Road ones I was talking about. I know that I was happy to get my money out of those on a resale. I'm a big K-Line fan, so these sound like a nice set from what Steve says.
