K Line Steam Porter--who's got one?

I've had one for around 2 years. Cute little engine, very detailed and tons of smoke from it's fan. That's the positive side. On the negative side, it's small wheels and short wheelbase bang through my 027 switches and it doesn't pull much. It's very light and too many cars produce wheel slip. But if you have a few small cars (like ore cars) with good bearings it will pull them. I stress small because the engine if very small and normal sized cars look huge behind it.

Roger

And.....it has no sounds.

Roger

Roger...thanks for the info.   Are they similar in pulling power to the Plymouth switchers?  I have 3 of those and they are good for pulling the small coal cars or moving a boxcar or two. 

Santa Fe,

I have a Plymouth as well and I have a feeling that they are very similar inside with a different shell. They seem to have the same pulling power. If you want, I could test that by putting the same number of cars behind each (I don't have a drawbar scale). Let me know.     I have my Plymouth hooked up to my magnetic gantry crane and it moves the crane along it's own set of tracks. Looks cool and was an easier solution than hooking a DC motor and gearing system to the crane. But it pulls that no problem. Occasionally, I drop the Porter in there for a different look.

Roger

I had one - past tense because they're so oversized as to look funny with other scale equipment.  But if that wouldn't bother you, they're a great little critter.

I bought a used one about a year ago, and I love it. The only problem I had with it was the headlight because it was a bright white led light. I changed it out with an amber bulb from Lionel, and it looks a lot better to me.

Unfortunately, mine fried a board a few months ago, and I'm still not sure if I want to replace the board or get a boxcar and go all out with it.

Anybody got a photo WITH other steamers, such a a Consolidation or Pacific, to show

size, as one comment above mentions "oversized"?  (not undersized?)

I converted this one to TMCC and also added a roller to the "tender" to enhance the reliability.  It runs over switches and dead spots great now, nifty little locomotive.

I have a porter that we put ERR TMCC in was not easy had some help with a good friend

  John Will  here is a video of both of them running 

we had to find some way to hold the electronic.i found some old tenders Lionel made 

in the 70s for a cheap set. It looked good with the porter.

I've got 4 of them.  Love em!  They look great IMHO with 19th century style equipment, ore cars; the Atlas short skeleton Log cars are one of my favorites. It will pull 3 of these loaded, 2 looks about right.  No sound, I keep an Air whistle on the line somewhere for mine.  (Real Porters of this type are in fact surprisingly quiet. Saturated steam, little cylinders and a tall stack)  Their proportions match well with Lionel Generals, making a good combination for a 19th century layout. They also work well with Streets track, for a little interurban fun.

And if you ever have a smoke contest, these are hands down winners.  Please let someone have picked up this tooling!

thanks everyone for the great responses.  They really do seem like neat little locos. 

Hopefully I can find one at York this coming fall (if not sooner).

As far as the smoke referenced by Drydock and others, is it comparable to an MTH unit for smoke output?

I'd say the smoke is comparable to an MTH unit, except it does not chuff. It is a constant stream of smoke. It's like a smokescreen.

I have 3 of them.  I love them all.  I have never tried the smoke.  

They are really good for train shows when you allow kids to run trains.  They can't go fast enough to derail because of the small wheels.  We set them so that they only go forward and let kids run the wheels off of them.  These have proven to be a very reliable engine.

Hi Folks,

     Here is my K-Line Porter from last Christmas on a very tight loop of GarGraves (O24).  I have a whistle in a shortened boxcar with a homemade tender, log car, and cowcatcher.

Nice pulling power, and there are 2 pick-ups under the log car to power the lights in the bobber caboose, which adds drag.  I love the Porter!!!!

          Add a cowcatcher, save a cow!!!!

Take care, Joe.

IMO, the smoke doesn't have anywhere near the volume of an MTH unit, but it does pretty well.  Truthfully, it looks a lot better when you take the stack spark filter off, that really slows the stream and defuses it.  As you can see, I have mine chuffing, I thought that made a big difference in the appearance.

Here's the thread where I detailed my TMCC conversion: K-Line Porter TMCC Conversion Project, IMO there's no way to get the electronics into the locomotive, so I opted for the little tender.

great little unit. one of our club members used to run it on the logging line. Don't see them at all at local swap eats

Those can be used to portray early mass transit:

I have two of them. The first one met with an accident when I dropped it in the church parking lot...it still runs but need some new paint. The other one I purchased at the Lionel Warehouse sale for around $45.00. Actually I purchased two of them, all they had and they were both the same locomotive. The plan was to sell one and keep the other. My wife demanded that both be sold on Ebay. Then I discovered that one of the locomotives screw was stripped out and the boiler front was stuck open. I was really bummed when I couldn't sell it as new after I super-glued the screw. So I was stuck with it. You know what they say "you win some and then you get to win some".

Scott Smith

Gee Scott, you had to abuse that Porter just to keep it?

I have 2 of them, a Keystone coal and coke porter and a Ringling Bros porter.

I just finished adding Bullfrog Snot to the rear drive wheels of my Beaver Creek Version. Big difference but.......it wouldn't go through some of my switches. Apparently, it needed the ground surface of the wheels. So, I scraped it off one wheel and it went through the switches fine and also gave me the benefit of increased traction (even just one wheel).

Roger

I have the Ringling Brother's version & love it!   

Coincidentally, it is the only modern (post 1973) locomotive that I own in O scale.

For now, its' duty is pulling a string of five Marx 6" side dump cars.

 Dave

There was a Grandt Line On3 Porter kit that I assume is in scale.  Since that added

tender was a reality for many of these, including one of the prototype roads I am

interested in,  small size (for the computer programmers to add electronics) should not be an obstacle to a scale sized version, from, say Rich Yoder, if we hadn't ticked him off with undersupport (of the 44 tonner).  Was that Grandt Line version available as a powered kit?  I am not sure it was.  A lot of kits get thrown out there, such as a caboose kit, and there are no trucks or power available for it, so they don't sell, or never get built, leaving a sour taste.  I have a logging loco kit languishing for just this problem. 

Gentlemen,

   This is one engine I wish I would have purchased for our Christmas layout, might look around for one of the old K-line Keystone Coal Porter engines again, they are definitely way cool.

PCRR/Dave

Has anybody kitbashed one of these to a more O "scaliness" size, like shrinking the cab size? The proportions look very narrow-gauge to me, particularly when it runs alongside regular O gauge equipment. Example below on the 3' gauge Antelope & Western.

Real steam locomotives with no lead trucks tend to bounce around too.  I worked on the Thomas 0-6-0 from Strasburg three weekends in a row this year when it was operating where I work, and felt like I had worked out all day by the time I got home each night just from getting bounced around.