Question about RMT Ore Cars

Aside from a small number of Lionel cars produced a few years ago with die-cast sprung trucks, I think the RMT ore cars are the best out there... and certainly the best bang for your dollar.  Many of us here snagged boxes of them at $10 per car when Walter had a huge clearance sale over a year ago.  But even at their current $25/car sale price for the latest items in-stock at RMT, they're a much better bang for your buck than anything Lionel or MTH currently offers with typical MSRP's up around $50/car nowadays.    I won't touch the latter units until they're offered on blow-out.  

Sorry I can't comment on the Rivarossi connection.  Never knew they offered ore cars in O-gauge.  

David

Those were made by Roco for Atlas.  Rivarrossi/AHM never offered an ore car in O.

Rusty

Rusty

Rusty, you are 100% correct.  Looking at the pics again blown up a bit, I can see the Atlas name there. Thanks,

Peter

There was a nice feature in another train magazine about all the various ore cars produced by the 3-rail train makers. According to the story, K-Line tooled up their own ore car, which is the one being produced by RMT.

BUT when I look at the comparison photos in that article (MTH, Lionel, Atlas, K-Line), I can see no difference between the Atlas (Roco) version and the later K-Line one. I've never had them both in front of me to make a real comparison, but by the photos in that article, they look identical in every aspect (size and detail)... save for the mounting of the trucks. The K-Line ore cars ride high on the trucks.

All the other ore cars have slight detail or size differences: even the Lionel plastic and die-cast ore cars are slightly different.

I've compared the two. Here's a photo I contributed to an October 2013 thread:

(link to original post--you can enlarge the photo posted there)

There are six mold gates in the bottom of the Atlas car, but only four in the K-Line. I'd say K-Line most likely tooled their own...but they had the Atlas version as a handy reference. It's still a puzzle as to why they cloned the original truck mounting, as they had to know they were going to use arch-bolster-ed Symington trucks with it, and the originals were designed for trucks with flat bolsters.

---PCJ

Not sure where K-Line had their car tooled.....but you have to be careful about having a part cloned in Asia. We sent part of a kit to our tooling folks in China. It was a vintage part and had a small and what we thought was obvious defect. When we got the 'new' cloned part it had the small defect perfectly tooled.....just like the original.  They are really good at cloning......to good at times.

May be the same thing here.......didn't think they needed to change something.

I have a bunch of the RMT ore cars, 50+.  They were obviously a steal at $10/ea, and the $25/ea price is still far cheaper than the alternatives.  They are very nice cars, and I'd say they compare very favorably to the Lionel/MTH/K-Line cars that I also have.

I think you'd be very happy with the RMT models.

The short answer is, they are the K-line cars.

The correct answer...the RMT ore cars are made from FORMER K-line tooling that is now owned by Sanda Kan/Kader Industries. RMT now uses this tooling but has upgraded the painting and lettering while also introducing railroad NAMES that were not previously produced by K-line.

Thanks to all posters and the nice comments.

Walter/RMT-D

www.readymadetoys.com

The lettering on the RMT cars is very nice on the RMT cars Walter, that part is 100% true.

No question that the graphics are exceptional.  RMT ore cars are tops!

The Atlas ore cars sat at a prototypical height when on their original trucks.  Everything made since sits too high - in the case of the K-line cars on plastic trucks, waaay too high!  As for detail and proportions, the Atlas cars and their K-line/RMT clones are the best.  Lionel cars are too narrow, and the detail on the MTH cars is crude in comparison.  I have all of them (around 80 or so cars now), the vast majority are Atlas or retrucked K-line. 

RMT has the best factory decorated cars out there.  It would be nice if they had more car numbers.

I know both K Line and the old Atlas kits are the same size inside, because the loads are interchangeable.

A thanks to all who took the time to post.  I have some of the RMT cars and they are very nice.  Once re-trucked with Athearn Trucks and Intermountain wheels they ride nice and low and the Kadee height is perfect.  I have 4 of the old US Hobbies brass cars which I am using as "the standard" and they match the size very well.  Once they are "dirtied up" a bit, I don't believe one can tell them apart at normal viewing distance. 

Cheers,

Peter

Dose anyone know how many numbers that RMT did on the ore cars? Thanks I was just wondering. Choo Choo Kenny

Typically, they had two road numbers for each road name.  They have a bunch of different road names.

I think just two different per road name.

With ore cars, you need lots of them if you are going to do a "unit train".

Anyway, how many railroads ACTUALLY have them?

Thanks for that photo RailRide. The only photo in the referenced magazine article that showed the cars all togeather showed them from the end. The photos showing the car sides were separate pics. Your photo really illustrates the difference between the two.

I agree the RMT ore cars are very nice. Despite that, I prefer the smaller size of the Lionel ore car. Then again, the scale proportions of the RMT (K-Line) ore car no doubt helps contribute to the popularity of the car. The covered and open hoppers from RMT are just as nice as the ore cars, though certainly not as scale in proportion - and I don't see as many comments about them here. Needless to say, I also really like those and have those... very few choices in traditional size that have the modern BNSF swoosh logo. Thanks RMT.

And thanks again, RailRide.