Lionel Acquires K-Line ??

[Bob Keller]

Call me crazy, but if Lionel wanted to product rock-bottom priced starter sets, it wouldn't need to license K-Line's stuff to do so.

They can crank out the O-27 stuff with plastic trucks just like they did during the MPC era.

[Anonymous]

So the consensus is that Lionel will drop the good K-Line stuff and keep the bottom-feeders for starter sets?

[lionelbob]

When Lionel buys MTH, now that'll be news (good news)

[FJ and G]

A few minutes ago I ordered K-Line's battery powered Coke set for 027 track. Methinks that now K-Line has vanished, that I have a collector's item. [:D][:D][:D]

[phillyreading]

I wonder how long Lionel will keep K-Line products? As Lionel has American Flyer rights also but very little new stuff in A.F.
Lee

[wallyworld]

Another interesting aspect of this development aside from what K-Line products Lionel
decides to either continue or drop or support..is MTH's reaction in terms of their product line.

[cmrj]

I knew this would happen. Seem's like Lionel alway's had an intrest in K Line.Their catalog's have a lot of the same layout feature's. Have a good day Mike [^]

[Bob Keller]

FWIW I've just taken an hour to go through legal documents and Lionel is licensing the K-Line name/brands, etc. from Sanda Kan (or more precisely a second new company established by Sanda Kan to smooth the process). Lionel would have the option to buy under certain conditions.

[Nick12DMC]

Just in case you did not know Lima is now owned by Hornby. So you can
follow my logic that Hornby might be intrested in O gauge.

Nick

[brianel027]

Well, this all remains to be seen as to what happens. Though some K-Line products bear similarity to Lionel products (DC can motor truck assembly, 6464 type box cars) they are different and not interchangeable. I would imagine Lionel would drop some of these products. I would also imagine that the K-Line price advantage will be something of the past... will Lionel continue to offer the superior K-Line Train-19 products at a price point that is almost $10 less than the list for similar stater Lionel products.

But it wasn't K-Line's pricing that led to their downfall. K-Line surveved for many years making quality competitvely priced non-scale 027 products. Even when they started introducing scale sized products in the mid-late 1990's, it was slow and calculated. Sandra Kan would not have continued making the trains for K-Line had this debt existed during what I consider to be the glory days of K-Line. The trouble began when they aggressively started introducing many newly tooled scale products with a lot of development costs that couldn't possibly pay for themselves given K-Line's price point. And obviously the massive jump into the scale arena (though popular) was a huge mistake and cost K-Line their future, because even with the competitive prices, in this saturated market, K-Line still had to blow out and reduce prices on brand new scale products.

And please don't mention the battery sets and the Husky line. The battery sets were what they were, but the Husky line was another huge mistake that didn't take.

So this will be interesting. But given the history of Lionel in this matter, competitors were bought out in the past to only be forgotten or eliminated, giving Lionel more market share and more control over industry pricing. the past two CEO's of Lionel had both expressed interest in the stability of list/discount prices in order to maintain and hopefully increase the prices of after market/collectible products... which in my mind is something Lionel shouldn't worry about. But the previous theory of everything Lionel made being worth more money tomorrow certainly led to speculation and therefore increased sales. It wasn't so long ago when buyers bought one item to run and one to keep mint in the box.

[riverrailfan]

Atnd they will make good on k-line club cars at there own expense.

[Demon09]

This is pretty exciting news... I just happened to pick up a K-Line hopper car today very cheap ($12.00 brand new in box) and came home to see this news......

I just wonder if Lionel will continue to make the K-Line products as inexpensive as they seem to have been.... I don't look too much at the detail as I do for the affordability. I'd like to see where Lionel goes with offering this in their new product line as well.....

[prewardude]

Looks like Mikey may have finally met his match! [;)]

[Anonymous]

Wow,

This is great. But, If I want that K-Line New York Central Set with the Pacific I better buy that before I buy anything else.

steel rails

[Bob Keller]

Well, we're not talking buying a company for one or two pieces of tooling. There aren't any of K-Line's products that MTH needs to make its line complete, any more than I think Lionel does, to make its product line complete.

MTH would have had no interest in buying K-Line for the tooling for a hopper car. It would be cheaper to make new tooling for an 0-4-0 or a Hudson or a boxcar than it would be to buy the company and assume debts etc. just for a few pieces that individually, might be nicer than MTH's.

I'm not saying that K-Line never made anything nicer than an MTH or Lionel or an Atlas product, just that buying the whole firm wouldn't make any sense for MTH.

[superwarp1]

QUOTE: I think MTH's product line was better than K-Line's, so I don't think it would have added anything to their catalog, and why would Hornby want to get into an over-saturated O gauge market selling US outline trains?

How you can say that is beyond me. Yes PS2 is tops right now but when it comes to detail Kline was a close second to AtlasO. Look at there die cast hoppers. Look at the detail of the trucks on the rolling stock. Look at the Berkshire engines.

Regards,

Gary

[4kitties]

Dang, I bet there goes the K-Line price advantage that was getting me hooked on their products.

Joel

[mickey4479]

This is good news to me. I have purchased a K-line PRR B6s switcher, a billboard reefer and a caboose and like them alot. I am glad Lionel is involved rather than MTH as I wonder what if anything MTH would have done about service issues on K-line locos with TMCC.

[Buckeye Riveter]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jaabat

The press release stated that the showroom would only ocassionaly be open to the public.

Jim

Then I will only visit it occasionally.[:D]

[Jumijo]

The press release stated that the showroom would only ocassionaly be open to the public.

Jim

[Buckeye Riveter]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jaabat

Wow!

Un-freakin-believable!

Jim

[#ditto]
Bob, as time passes it will be interesting to hear who else was a the negotiating table, i.e., MTH, RTR, Williams, ????????, Mattel, Tyco, Hasbro, Kodak, GM, Ford, AT&T, BPS, etc.

I'm just glad it wasn't Micro Soft because a train crash everyday would be annoying. [:D][:D]

The best part is that when I travel to the BIG APPLE I will have something else to visit while Mrs. Buckeye is shopping. [:D] I always wondered when Lionel would say good-by to the state up north. [:)]

[Anonymous]

Ya know? Someone made an interesting observation on another forum. Lionel now owns the rights to American Flyer and Marx (at least what's left of the tooling). And it only took them about a century to do it!

[lynbrookyankee]

I was more interested to see that they plan to open a show room in NYC! I fondly remember my father taking me to the Lionel showroom - I dont remember much other than the full size front of a locomotive that was at the entrance. After our visit (and copy of the new catalog) we went over to the Gilbert Hall of Science to see their train layout. I enjoyed the recent Grand Central Christmas display & look forward to my visit to the new show room.

[spankybird]

I just hope that Lionel will make the K-line 027 switches.

[Anonymous]

That's good news to me! Maybe they'll re-release some of the old Marx stuff (RDC and S-3). Glad K-Line will be around a while.

Heck, they could just call the whole shebang "K-Lionel" !

[Jumijo]

Thanks for the leads, Bob.

Jim

[Bob Keller]

Jim,
Check out skytrex.com.

They sell UK O gauge ready-to-run wagons. They are scale - and pricey - but you might be able to adapt their couplers (hook and chain). I've got several on my home layout.

Also Lima made some O gauge UK outline wagons. I have a few of those as well. Check ebay.

[dougdagrump]

I'm pleased with this turn of events, I wonder if this had anything to do with the slower than expected K4 and Berk shipping from Sunmodels.
I believe that some of the K-Line products helped to improve the the product of both Lionel and MTH. Not to mention the price points to consumers, but that was also one of the ingredients contributing to their demise.
[^] [tup]

[Anonymous]

I hope this means Superstreets will continue. It is a shame that right as it was being released K-line was going through it's troubles. It would be nice to see some Superstreets to Fasttrack conversion sections.

Also the comments in the Lionel release make it seem that K-line will continue as a brand. I am curious as to how. Will it be totally separate with it's own catalog as it was in the past or will it become a lower cost division of the main brand like Railking to MTH? I suppose it could be some combination.