K-Line Tubular Track?

Mike,

They could have, it's hard to say. There had to be a few exceptions. Somewhere someone had to be making the larger sizes. To this day I have brand new 084, 096 & 120 radius tubular track marked KLine/Made In USA in sealed case lots. These are in my last remaining storage unit. My children are in control now. I no longer have access .

 

"Pappy" 

The rails are virtually identical to Lionel's, so those may have been made the same way.

Had a layout years ago [70's to mid 80's] ]in a full basement.  I started with Lionel tubular.  Then I ran into K-Line.  Folks at hobby shop made fun of K-Line.  Bought as it came in long lengths, wide curves and was less expensive.  Went to FL on vacation for a week.  Came back and humidity had gone up in basement and all the Lionel track had surface rust.  K-Line, not a spot.  Lionel was glad to "run" K-Line out of business [I'm sure MTH was jumping up and down with joy too].  Made a good product at a reasonable price.  

The K-Line Shadow Rail O gauge track is a three rail version of Kusan two rail track:

 

 

 

So I wonder if K-Line got the tooling from them through Andy Kriswalus, or some other avenue, and what tooling RMT is using for the Kusan based SuperSnap track system.

Wow never made the connection to Kusan from the new RMT track or K-Lines version of the same.  Did Kusan tool the switches too?

I could be wrong, but I think K-line tooled the switches. On my previous layout I used them. They were very good switches, and very cheap. Our local Hobby Lobby carried them, and with a 40% off coupon, I think I was paying around $20.00 per switch. When Hobby Lobby quit carrying K-line and clearanced them out, I was paying $12.00 for them. Bought all I could find.

 

In my opinion, the track system was very dependable, and fairly complete when considering the curves and operating track sections available. I found that using the super snap track and adding Lionel track pins, that the electrical connections were very roboust.

 

Alas, when I built my current layout, I wanted wide curves (O-36), and Atlas steel track was being blown-out, so that's what I went with. Don't think I've ever had a derailment caused by track. The Atlas is a little more fragile, a little more scale, but sometimes I wish I had kept my K-line track.

A complete guess here. K-Line had a lot of Marx tooling. Perhaps their line of track started there. And yes their switch's were well made and fit the Lionel footprint.

The K-Line switches were all newly developed at the time of their introduction.

 

Kusan had two rail manual switches:

 

No, there is no resemblance at all to Marx track or to either metal or plastic Marx switches.

The switches were a K-Line product. But they could have used Marx machinery or parts from to produce modern track.

The O-27 would probably resemble Marx somehow, which has unique form from a markedly different rolling & crimping process, but it is instead a direct copy/clone of the superior, heavier Lionel O-27. Marx never made track in full "O" profile.

K-Line was the first extra long tubular track I ever saw.  When I first saw the long sections in the 80's with the 15 ties per section, I was sold.  I purchased over one thousand feet of it and started my layout in 1982.  The track is still down and in perfect condition.  No rust no issues. 

I have some of this, more pleasing to the eye than the standard tie spacing that Lionel used when they eventually came out with the 35" sections.

I'm using older K-Line Shadow Rail and Snap track on my  so called Post War style layout using Lionel 0-22 switches.

My layout......

  Click photo to enlarge....

I never knew Kusan was two rail.   Also..since we are kinda on this topic here...were the K-Line tankcars..both single and two dome..based on the Kusan Tankcar?

The K-Line 1 dome "chemical" tanks were Kusan, the 3 dome oil cars were Marx.

I use K Line 096 curves on my three main lines with added ties and Brennans Ballast 

Were the K-line 6400 boxcars based on the second generation Kusan Boxcar tooling?