One of the many things I miss about K-Line was their line of small switchers: Porters and Plymouths to be exact.
Who owns the rights (molds)? to these engines? I bet they would still sell well if brought back.
Paul
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Good question, I have a Porter that I converted to TMCC, and I have a couple of the Plymouth switchers, at least one of them is going to get TMCC. The challenge with the Plymouth is to retain the cool smoke unit and still have room for the command electronics. 
I might have to put a smaller smoke unit in, perhaps the MTH HO fan driven smoke unit...
Wondering if they haven't surfaced for use by some importer/manufacturer because they're possibly "lost" and forgotten, unlabeled and buried beneath or amidst cluttered piles of "nonedescript tooling" stuffed somewhere within a Chinese factory warehouse.
Eastern Depot still has them in stock according to their website. Do a search for "porter" or "plymouth".
Sure would be great if whoever has them re-released this item. I would think Lionel ended up with them but who knows.
Next Vision Line loco?
HONG KONG Toy Train Warehouse #16....
Walter
Bet there are no computer listing of the locations of each mold in that warehouse .....
Well if they where K-Line's then Kader ( I think that's the name of the company ) probably has them somewhere. If they didn't sell them to another company like Bachmann.
Eastern Depot still has them in stock according to their website. Do a search for "porter" or "plymouth".
I thought those Kline Plymouth switcher sets with the Ore cars were so nice, I purchased several different ones. If they were to be brought back out, I'd guess the price would be significantly higher than what Eastern Depot is asking for them (I just looked). Grab them while you can!
western depot also has some.
The Porter is one of my absolute favorites, but it has one major design flaw. The motor is just too small to carry the locomotive's weight, not to mention pulling/pushing any rollingstock. And I am on my second motor now, and I don't really run it often. See the photo below:
The Porter uses the same motor as the Lionel handcar and 1/32 slotcars (only in a dual shaft form, same guts). And it is a nightmare to put the Porter back together after opening. But I love it anyway. Remember, it is die-cast, not plastic. Next time I open her up, I'm going to try to remove some metal with a Dremel to lighten the load. Actually, I would prefer it with a plastic shell if they can't get a bigger motor inside. I imagine if it were run only in a prototypical switching fashion, the motor would last longer. Running continuously is just too much for that little motor.
Take care, Joe.
The Porter and the Plymouth switcher use the same motor. I keep a spare in my parts box, I've replaced a few of them.
Got my first Plymouth a few months back. Great little engine, one of my favorites.
K-line made a bunch of great stuff. Hard to believe they went out of business.
Anyone know the trick to getting the body off to service the motor?
Sanda Kan had them after Maury Klein sold all of his K-Line tooling to that Chinese manufacturer. Under license, Lionel contracted to use some of that tooling while Sanda Kan remained an independent manufacturer. Sanda Kan was subsequently purchased by Kader, the parent company of Bachmann. Kader discontinued Sanda Kan’s relationship with quite a few American train manufacturers, including Lionel.
Jim R. posted:Sanda Kan had them after Maury Klein sold all of his K-Line tooling to that Chinese manufacturer. Under license, Lionel contracted to use some of that tooling while Sanda Kan remained an independent manufacturer. Sanda Kan was subsequently purchased by Kadee, the parent company of Bachmann. Kader discontinued Sanda Kan’s relationship with quite a few American train manufacturers, including Lionel.
Are you saying that Bachman indirectly owns these tools? These engines seem very much like products that Bachman or WBB would make.
Yes. Kader has the tools and the Bachmann should bring them out... However the mfg cost is probably the big issue. Would you pay $400+ for that small loco new?
If I could also ask?
Who has these molds?
We don’t know what Kader and Bachmann are thinking. Some of the tooling was used by Sanda Kan as O-Line briefly and by RMT later, but the Porter and Plymouth switchers are idling in some dark corner.
Williams by Bachmann has also used some former K-Line tooling, like the semi-scale Pacific, but not much.
I wish we knew for sure.
By the way, auto correct changed my spelling of Kader to Kadee in my reply post above. I corrected it in my post.
Jim R., where are you getting your information? Over the years, much of it has been covered here.
Sanda Kan had them after Maury Klein sold all of his K-Line tooling to that Chinese manufacturer. Under license, Lionel contracted to use some of that tooling while Sanda Kan remained an independent manufacturer. Sanda Kan was subsequently purchased by Kader, the parent company of Bachmann. Kader discontinued Sanda Kan's relationship with quite a few American train manufacturers, including Lionel.
K-Line didn't sell their tooling to Sanda Kan. K-Line was in debt $3.8 million to Sanda Kan, and another $1.5 million in financing. Sanda Kan received the K-Line tooling because they were unable to pay their debt. Even without the additional trouble of the legal action with Lionel at that time, it is a big question mark as to as whether K-Line could have continued in business with that amount of debt. If you remember at the time, buyers were being sought to take over K-Line, but all that fell through in negotiations. Yes, Lionel did produce a couple catalogs of K-Line product under license, no doubt to help recover some of the debt left by K-Line, and also because Sanda Kzn had no wholesale/retail network in the USA the way Lionel did.
Sanda Kan also had their own difficulties (also made worse by the money owed them) and if I recall, went through at least a couple of owners before Kader, the parent company of Bachmann, purchased Sanda Kan. And when the "big shakeup" happened where Sanda Kan dropped some 60 train companies from production, Lionel and Aristo Craft were two companies not totally dropped. And since RMT was at that time, affiliated with Aristo, they could continue being produced at Sanda Kan. All those other many companies dropped, including Atlas, were left scrambling trying to locate a suitable product contractor facility.
Some of the tooling was used by Sanda Kan as O-Line briefly and by RMT later, but the Porter and Plymouth switchers are idling in some dark corner.
O-Line Reproductions was never a real company, but just a product re-branding by Heartland Hobby Wholesale. They didn't have the product produced for them but rather took delivery of product produced for RMT that, for whatever reason (most likely lack of money), was not taken by RMT.
None us of truly know where all the former K-Line tooling currently is, though it seems like a safe assumption that Kader still has it, especially since some of it has been re-issued under the Williams by Bachmann banner.
We all know the O gauge market is soft, and obviously Bachmann knows this too. If you look at their website, they're still consistently offering new products in HO and N scales, so they obviously know what is selling and what is not. To be fair, they have brought out some new O gauge product (there's a 70-ton switcher in the works), but not nearly the same numbers as HO and N scales.
Like PRRHorseshoecurve said, there's also the current manufacturing costs (something their company reps have made also mention of) in addition to the soft O gauge market. I have little doubt that if the sales numbers were as strong in O gauge for Bachmann as they are in HO and N, we might see more product coming out. And the lessons of K-Line's demise are still reverberating in the industry... You can't spend more money on engineering of new tooling and then production runs than you are bringing in through sales revenue.
Paul, good post. Will we see you at York?
Marty Fitzhenry posted:Paul, good post. Will we see you at York?
Hi Marty, allow me to assure you I have been given the appropriate amount of ^&*^@#@ by our current TCA President Joe Fanara, ably prodded and assisted by Mr Stuart Rankin and Mr. Steve Serenska for not going to York this week.
Truly the only thing I needed at York was to reconnect with some of my friends (you...) whom I have not seen in far too long.
Fall York especially - something about the colors in the trees on the way down and having a maple donut with Apple Cider....
I am excited to have for the first time in 17 years a place to truly build a layout and display my trains. My train $ right now are earmarked for Mianne Benchwork and RCS #6 Switches.
Marty, tell Dotty I said hi - safe travels.
Paul
gunrunnerjohn posted:Good question, I have a Porter that I converted to TMCC, and I have a couple of the Plymouth switchers, at least one of them is going to get TMCC. The challenge with the Plymouth is to retain the cool smoke unit and still have room for the command electronics.
John, I am envious of your talents. I couldn't tell you how to even get inside one of these critters to replace a motor much less add TMCC.
Interesting idea you have in another post to route out extra metal to lighten the load.
Paul
brianel_k-lineguy posted:Jim R., where are you getting your information? Over the years, much of it has been covered here.
Sanda Kan had them after Maury Klein sold all of his K-Line tooling to that Chinese manufacturer. Under license, Lionel contracted to use some of that tooling while Sanda Kan remained an independent manufacturer. Sanda Kan was subsequently purchased by Kader, the parent company of Bachmann. Kader discontinued Sanda Kan's relationship with quite a few American train manufacturers, including Lionel.
K-Line didn't sell their tooling to Sanda Kan. K-Line was in debt $3.8 million to Sanda Kan, and another $1.5 million in financing. Sanda Kan received the K-Line tooling because they were unable to pay their debt. Even without the additional trouble of the legal action with Lionel at that time, it is a big question mark as to as whether K-Line could have continued in business with that amount of debt. If you remember at the time, buyers were being sought to take over K-Line, but all that fell through in negotiations. Yes, Lionel did produce a couple catalogs of K-Line product under license, no doubt to help recover some of the debt left by K-Line, and also because Sanda Kzn had no wholesale/retail network in the USA the way Lionel did.
Sanda Kan also had their own difficulties (also made worse by the money owed them) and if I recall, went through at least a couple of owners before Kader, the parent company of Bachmann, purchased Sanda Kan. And when the "big shakeup" happened where Sanda Kan dropped some 60 train companies from production, Lionel and Aristo Craft were two companies not totally dropped. And since RMT was at that time, affiliated with Aristo, they could continue being produced at Sanda Kan. All those other many companies dropped, including Atlas, were left scrambling trying to locate a suitable product contractor facility.
Some of the tooling was used by Sanda Kan as O-Line briefly and by RMT later, but the Porter and Plymouth switchers are idling in some dark corner.
O-Line Reproductions was never a real company, but just a product re-branding by Heartland Hobby Wholesale. They didn't have the product produced for them but rather took delivery of product produced for RMT that, for whatever reason (most likely lack of money), was not taken by RMT.
None us of truly know where all the former K-Line tooling currently is, though it seems like a safe assumption that Kader still has it, especially since some of it has been re-issued under the Williams by Bachmann banner.
We all know the O gauge market is soft, and obviously Bachmann knows this too. If you look at their website, they're still consistently offering new products in HO and N scales, so they obviously know what is selling and what is not. To be fair, they have brought out some new O gauge product (there's a 70-ton switcher in the works), but not nearly the same numbers as HO and N scales.
Like PRRHorseshoecurve said, there's also the current manufacturing costs (something their company reps have made also mention of) in addition to the soft O gauge market. I have little doubt that if the sales numbers were as strong in O gauge for Bachmann as they are in HO and N, we might see more product coming out. And the lessons of K-Line's demise are still reverberating in the industry... You can't spend more money on engineering of new tooling and then production runs than you are bringing in through sales revenue.
Thanks for the clarification, Brian. I summarized the long history too succinctly.
Just a couple more points of clarification.
Yes, I knew Maury was in financial trouble at the time, but it was in fact an orchestrated sale to Sanda Kan that included more than just the tooling. Sanda Kan took ownership of the K-Line name, which is why it could be licensed to Lionel. Maury had no choice due to his debt, but the sale had to be negotiated nonetheless in a manner similar to bankruptcy proceedings here.
Lionel’s arrangement with Sanda Kan only continued as long as the licensing agreement was in place. Kader honored that contract. I’m not aware of any production at the old Sanda Kan facilities for Lionel after 2010, however. Are you saying there was?
As far as the O-Line product, I never said O-Line was a separate company. I knew it was merely a brand created by someone to sell off the product that had already been made by Sanda Kan. I had forgotten it was the American distributor Heartland, so thanks for pointing that out.
The real point of succinct post was to establish where the Porter and Plymouth tooling is. The answer is it’s in China and under Kader’s control. As to why it hasn’t been used by Kader, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions by suggesting that Kader thought the market for O gauge was soft. The company’s decision to create new models shows that. But if your point was that Kader thought there wasn’t enough money to be made in those older products, you might be right. I do believe Kader thought that selling those items at the higher list price than Maury had previously would have made them tough sellers.
The Plymouth and Porter sets (or stand alone engines) were a great deal when they were offered, but I probably wouldn't be lining up to buy them at twice (or more) the old price.
-Dave
Don’t feel bad Paul I won’t be at York either but January is a good month with Trainstock and then Springfield at the end of the month. Hope to see you at one or both of those events! I need to get my hands on another Porter and I do miss K-Line.
Chris Lonero posted:Don’t feel bad Paul I won’t be at York either but January is a good month with Trainstock and then Springfield at the end of the month. Hope to see you at one or both of those events! I need to get my hands on another Porter and I do miss K-Line.
Hey Chris, I look forward to seeing you at both January events. A good month indeed.
Paul
Hey thanks for you clarification Jim R! Your reply to my post shows you do have some knowledge about what happened. So many times though you do read other comments on the train forums, such as when the OLR product started showing up, that there was a brand new train company, which simply was not the case.
I also am not aware of how long any Lionel products continued being made at the SK facility. I just remember reading one of the industry publications that listed who was and who was not dropped from SK production, and Lionel and Aristo remained on the not dropped list. Obviously in the case of Lionel, they have used differing vendors for production of very high end products versus the rest of their line. I remember Early Light as being one vendor named that was making starter sets and products of the like.
The old saying "you don't know what you got until you lose it" always comes to my mind when I read the love fest comments about K-Line now-a-days. There were many people who didn't give K-Line a chance until all the big blow sales started happening, where folks were gloating about how they got a high-end K-Line locomotive for $250.00. That was a very obvious sign, for those who didn't know, that things were not going well for K-Line. Their debt with SK didn't just happen overnight. What is good for the consumer, is not necessarily good for the train maker. People now admire all the new product from new tooling that K-Line introduced. But you have to have sufficient sales in order to help cover those tooling costs.
As to why these Porters and other products have not shown up as re-issued production, I don't have a solid answer. But as reps from Bachmann have said, higher production costs today are playing into the thinking.
I’m always using you as a resource of information regarding K-Line, Brian, so I appreciate your post.
By the way, I too have the original Plymouth switcher release (Milwaukee Road) and Porter steamer, and, yes, the cute factor was part of the reason I couldn’t resist.
When K-Line moved more toward scale-oriented models in the late 1990s, I also jumped on board, joining the K-Line club and adding impressive pieces, including K -Line’s scale New York Hudson, Milwaukee Road F7 A-B-A set and C&NW GP38-2.
I was impressed by both the pricing and the quality. Sanda Kan really was an excellent manufacturer.
So I miss the Porter, the Plymouth, K-Line and Sanda Kan deeply.
I'd like to see a Lionel Porter set with these cars from the new Lionel "shorty" line:
I don't think bringing back the Porter as it was designed originally is a good idea with that undersized motor, but it might be a hit in a nice matt-finished plastic shell instead of the weighty (and costly) die-cast. The new Lionel Bluetooth board could be housed in the trailing shorty boxcar above. Just my humble opinion!
Take care, Joe.
Jut scores a Porter o-4-0 at Western Depot. I checked out Eastern Depot and their website scared my away. Did not feel secure using them at all.
Are either loco an O scale model....? I understood the Porter was oversized, so never bought one. Can't see why a good model with
I just did a search on ebay for Porter and I see some ON3 by bachmann listed, So maybe there using them for that.
Railrunnin posted:Marty Fitzhenry posted:Paul, good post. Will we see you at York?
Hi Marty, allow me to assure you I have been given the appropriate amount of ^&*^@#@ by our current TCA President Joe Fanara, ably prodded and assisted by Mr Stuart Rankin and Mr. Steve Serenska for not going to York this week.
Paul:
I always try to aid and support TCA President Joe Fanara in everything he does. The guy works hard and I was happy to be able to help. I'm sure Stu R. feels the same way.
See you at Yor ... oh ... sorry ... never mind. 
Steven J. Serenska
The Porter and Plymouth are a lot of fun, I'm hoping mine last forever and I don't have to do "gunrunnerJohn surgery" to them anytime soon. I've also been thinking about pairing either of them with the new "shorty" items, we'll see!
rtraincollector posted:I just did a search on ebay for Porter and I see some ON3 by bachmann listed, So maybe there using them for that.
No. They're not.
The only On30 diesels by Bachman are a Davenport:
and a Whitcomb:
Rusty
colorado hirailer posted:Are either loco an O scale model....? I understood the Porter was oversized, so never bought one. Can't see why a good model with
Yest, the Porter was WAY oversized, however, the Plymouth was properly sized for O Scale.
Rusty
RSJB18 posted:Got my first Plymouth a few months back. Great little engine, one of my favorites.
K-line made a bunch of great stuff. Hard to believe they went out of business.
Anyone know the trick to getting the body off to service the motor?
The hood hooks under the cab, so the cab screws (4, I think) have to be unscrewed first, then the ones holding the hood. Not all screws in the chassis need to be removed--I believe four of them in the center only hold the direction and smoke switches in-place.
Now my turn for a question--is the speeder (as offered by RMT/O-Line, etc) motor unit the same as the Plymouth (i.e. mounting holes, etc)? They appear to have the same wheelbase, and I was thinking of snagging a blowout speeder or two to have a backup power truck in case one of the three Plymouths I have suffers a burnout.
---PCJ
falconservice posted:They could be made again out of lightweight thermoplastics. The people at Bachmann have to know the demand for a new version.
The tooling already exists for a diecast model. That’s usually where the added production cost comes in — or use to back in the day when diecast molds lasted decades. Diecasting molds are made cheaper now, don’t last as long and are amortized more quickly by the sale price.
Material cost for what goes inside the mold is insubstantial against the total cost of construction. Cheaper materials for the shell would only lower the price $20 or $30 against what would otherwise likely cost $200.
Besides, for such small locomotives, lightweight materials would require more weight to be added somewhere. And there isn’t much options on where to add weight other than the shell. It pretty much has to be diecast metal throughout.
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