K-Line S Gauge

[hugoroundhouse]

I bought a K-Line S Gauge U.P. boxcar last Friday. Put it on the track and thought, "Boy this looks nice and rolls smoothly, etc.,... until I rolled it up to the other American Flyer cars in the consist. The K-Line is not just a little bigger, but a LOT bigger. I looks odd in the middle of my train. It almost makes me think they took an O-27 body and put it on S Gauge trucks. Has anyone else noticed this difference? [B)]

Jim E.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have too. I purchased a Seaboard box car earlier this year. The owner of the store I deal with explained this was new tooling and was not created from 027 stock. I never took the time to measure the new box car to check the scale, but it is larger in height and width than any American Flyer "S" scale car I own.

Dave

[otftch]

One thing I've noticed with over forty years of model building is that every manufacturer scales thier items thier own way.I can"t really explain it but its true.When you buy a scale rule,they are all the same.I think it has something to do with the molding process or where the molds are done.
Ed

[Anonymous]

I bought a couple of K-Line Coca Cola boxcars on sale, and I can't even run them of 0-31 track. They are now just for display.

[galy95]

Jim
Those cars are 027 gauge cars from one of the old manufacturers. ( K-line rep said either Marx, AMT or Kusan, He couldn't remember ). Lionel tried that a few years back putting it's 027 cars on S gauge trucks. It didn't look to cool sitting in the middle with American flyer or other S gauge cars.

[brianel027]

For the record folks, these cars are from the old MARX tooling and are the same exact 027 cars that were once so plentiful from K-Line in starter sets and as separate sale items.

As a once gung-ho K-Line guy I immediately recognized those car bodies when I saw the announcement for the new "S" guage cars. Notice in the catalog how K-Line does not refer to them as S scale, but S gauge. They also mention in the text that these so-called new cars are an alternative to the more expensive American Flyer cars. And something like why pay more to run cars with your kids.

Which I thought was funny since I don't know of too many guys who have American Flyer layouts today that they are doing for or with their kids. The American Flyer stuff for the most part is just a tad bit pricey to be giving to kids for their first train layout.

For the llife of me, I could never figure out why K-Line didn't take these much nicer paint jobs that they did on the S guage cars, and do the same for the 027 cars... just issue these same cars with 027 trucks? Especially when they continued to offer the same ol' same ol' releases in the 027 versions.

I think a lot of this has to do with the perception that K-Line does not want to be seen as a maker of "toy" trains. I always thought (even in the early days) that K-Line made fine affordable product. But K-Line didn't start receiving any repsect from serious modelers or the model train press until the F7 diesels came out in '96 or '97 I think. Even OGR when they reviewed the F7 ran the headline "K-Line finally gets serious". Huh? Like K-Line wasn't serious before? I always thought the non-scale S-2 switcher was pretty serious in my book. Even K-Line's slogan at the time was something like "Get Real."

I think simply put, K-Line saw this initial introduction of these cars in the S gauge market as a way to make generate some badly needed revenue with scant llittle investment (other than the truck sets) off existing tooling. If K-line put any money into these S guage cars, it was in the paint masks which were by far the nicest ones these smaller MARX origin cars had seen thus far. K-Line's investment dollars were going squarely into the scale end of the 0 scale market at that time.

I know had they bothered to issue these MARX origin cars with 027 trucks, and the same quality paint jobs in some current roads like Conrail, BNSF, NS and CSX, I would have been very interested. And I think others would have too.

But this lack of decent paint masks and modern road names also answers the question as to why I have repainted just about every single smaller 027 K-Line car like this that I own. And the few I didn't repaint like the red Southern box car, got additional details and decals, and had the inside of the car primed to eliminate the translucent effect of the car.

[hugoroundhouse]

I would find it hard to disagree with you, Brianel027. That's as good an explanation as any I've heard.

I got out my son's 027 Lionel set that has a boxcar in it. Next to the Lionel, the K-Line S Gauge is smaller. (Next to the vintage Flyer , the K-Line is larger). So it's somewhere in scale never-neverland. It looks good, roll smoothly, built well - but it's the last one I'll buy. I don't have the kind of money needed to buy rolling stock to sit on a shelf.

Jim E. (sticking with Flyers! [:)]

[phillyreading]

I too just found that K-Line S Gauge is more like Lionel O Gauge from the 50's or 60's
with S Gauge wheels. My K-Line caboose # 4101 for Reading Lines when put inside an older hopper(Lionel 6456) hangs over the sides and is almost the same length. Also noticed that K-Line has made some 027 spin-offs as I call them, low cost cars, that look more like S Gauge than 027, K-Line 6028 Cities Service to name one. I have no problems with buying K-Line but I will look closer to see about the size differance first, K-Line stands behind thier product with warranty work.

[arnoldafl]

Have you ever looked at old video of trains taken near the end of the steam ear? The box cars are not all the same length or height. So I never was bothered by the different size of the K-line boxcars. The cabooses and hoppers do seem to be a little too big thou.

[brianel027]

Arnold makes a good point that with real trains, cars are often very differeing in size. But on a train layout, it helps to keep some perspective as to what you run. Obviously a "scale" operator isn't interested in these smaller "027" MARX origin cars for example. If you put one of these 5000 series K-Line cars next to a full scale Atlas, Weaver, MTH etc. box car, you will really see the dramatic difference.

At one time, trains were much more "toys" than they are today. Even though ultimately they are still toys... it's just that many are more realistic and to correct scale proportion than ever before. It's often thought that cars like the 9-inch length Lionel type and these 5000-series K-Line cars from the old MARX tooling were designed for ease of handling in the smaller hands of kids.

On my "less-than-scale" 027 layout, I find the 5000 series K-Line cars look fine with cars like the 6464 sized box cars. Even the 765 series K-Line modern steel box car looks okay. Without the roof walk on my layout, it resembles a high cube box car and that's just how I think of them.

There was an article in Classic Toy Trains in March of 1993 I believe called "Scale is the Thing" which they should re-run. The article had a chart where cars and locos were rated on a percentage of their true-scale proportion. It's very helpful if you are running smaller than full scale cars, to run other cars that are in that neighborhood of size.

Like I mentioned above, all the current K-Line S-gauge cars are really from the old MARX tools for the older smaller 027 cars. I wi***hey had issued them with 027 trucks instead, but I think there is a real negative stigma in today's train market against anything that is non-scale and called "027" even though there are still plenty of 027 operators.