Lionel Maxi Stack..MTH Husky Stack..K-Line

[Anonymous]

I bought this last weekend at a train show. It's a Lionel 6840 Doublestack Set from 1997. The # is 6-16975. It may also be called a maxi stack . The actual car body is 12". The containers are 8 1/4' and the total length including couplers is 26 1/4" I dont think this is quite scale, but it looks equally good pulled behind older Rail King diesels, or new Lionel scale diesels. I would like to find some more of these.
My question is..Did Lionel make a similar car before of after 1997, and what are the numbers?

How would this match up to the MTH Rail King 30 series Husky Stacks?

Does K-Line have any articulated cars that would go well with these?

My main concern is that they dont drag on my 022 switches. These clear with about 1/8" to spare.

The reason I ask is because we only have one train show a year here, and not much O stuff here. Therefore everything I buy is mail order. Have you ever tried to get car measurements from an online train store? Well then you know what I mean. Also none of the major train makers give measurements for all items, not even if you have all the catalogs. I have decided that Lionel's site and MTH site run neck and neck for lack of information in this area.

I'm sure there are some of you that have every catalog ever published, alas I do not, so I am requesting your help. What do you think...Tim

[willpick]

Tim, I don't have the Lionel stack cars, but I do have the MTH and k-line ones. The Railking car is 14 1/2" coupler to coupler, the 48' containers are 8 3/4" long(scale container would be 12"). The K-Line is closer to scale--- car is 16" coupler to coupler, containers are 10" long.
I don't know how long the MTH Premier Huskys are, but I suspect that they would be longer than the K-Line's----- by the way, all the K-line & MTH cars are SINGLE cars-- they are NOT articulated[banghead][censored]. I really wi***hat MTH would make a 3 unit articulated!

[Big_Boy_4005]

Tim, I think the first Lionel stack cars were the N&W, but I don't remember what year they came out. As for size, the Lionel cars are very undersized, but on the bright side, the containers are interchangable with all of the trailers lionel makes, and will work with the loaders. There is a slight difference between the upper and lower containers that allows them to be stacked.

The K-line cars are very nice, but may be a tad under full scale. They are diecast and rather heavy. It will be interesting to see how they pull up grade.

The MTH premier are full scale and huge. As such they can pose a clearence problem at bridges and tunnels if you use both containers stacked.

I'm not sure if the Lionel loader can handle the larger containers from K-line and MTH. I find it unfortunate that those 2 brands of containers are not quite compatable. It seems the the holes for the stacking pegs are misaligned by about 1/8". Figures!!!

[Big_Boy_4005]

Here's a photo with examples of all 3 manufacturers cars. The MTH premier is absolutely 1:48. The K-line has markings on it that say the containers are 48 feet, but that is not true. They are really 40 footers at 1:48 scale. And then there's Lionel at much closer to 1:64 which translates to S.

[Anonymous]

From what I see the MTH rail King may look good with the Lionel, as far as size.

Big Boy , Thats a nice looking CN .
Willpick , thanks for the measurements.

Tim

[Big_Boy_4005]

Tim, I picked all of those up in Ebay. The CN was a bit of a bargain, because one of the containers was not the one that originally came with the car.

The MTH permier is 17 1/2" long, that's 70 scale feet, and the trailers are 12" or 48 scale feet. They are some of the tallest cars on my layout. They will not work with any postwar Lionel bridge, unless you take off the top container.

[Anonymous]

Lionel actually sold their Maxi-stack to the "American Flyer" Club and only changed the wheelsets. So they are 1/64 or S scale.

I have a bunch left over from when they were the only game in town. If you
like these things and live in New Jersey, drop me a note. I'll part with them quite reasonably. Don't want to get involved with mailing them. Originally
sopld for about $65.00 a pair if I remember correctly.

I have the Sealand Containers, N&W and I believe some BN ones.

[michiganutfan]

I also have some of the Lionel Maxi-Stack cars that I will sell for a reasonable price if you are interested. I can provide more details if requested.
Thanks,
Lee