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Favorite K-line train product

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Favorite K-line train product
Posted by alexweiihman on Sunday, February 25, 2007 12:59 PM
Does anyone have a favorite k-line train item they want to share?
K-Line The Difference is in the Details
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Posted by laz 57 on Sunday, February 25, 2007 1:09 PM

My favorite thing is the Starlite dinner, plays "The TWIST" and smokes up a storm.  You gotta have adinner with girls car hopping in roller skates.

laz57

  There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still; Robert Service. TCA 03-55991
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Posted by Garfield on Sunday, February 25, 2007 1:23 PM
The MP-15 is pretty cool.
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Posted by Signals on Sunday, February 25, 2007 1:34 PM

I like the dump cars that come with their own remote -- for 2 reasons:

1) The cars can be dumped anywhere without the need for specialized track sections.

2) The dumping action is slow enough so the loads don't scatter all over the place.

 

Also, the Voltmeter cars are a great idea -- they make finding voltage drops on a layout a breeze. 

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Posted by willpick on Sunday, February 25, 2007 2:19 PM
Hands down, the O27 switches that were produced in the 2 years before the end. Totally reliable, VERY low profile mechanism. It's the only K-Line product I want Lionel to produce---

A Day Without Trains is a Day Wasted

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Posted by CSXect on Sunday, February 25, 2007 2:42 PM

GEE is it the GG1, the kcc mp-15 or maybe the SD70M all where KCC locomotives

One thing I want but do not have is the animated fisherman on bridge peir...Lionel please re run these.

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Posted by jefelectric on Sunday, February 25, 2007 3:54 PM

My favorite is the F3 ABA set in Lackawanna passenger colors.

 

John Fullerton Home of the BUBB&A  http://www.jeanandjohn.net/trains.html
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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, February 25, 2007 4:36 PM
 laz 57 wrote:

My favorite thing is the Starlite dinner, plays "The TWIST" and smokes up a storm.  You gotta have adinner with girls car hopping in roller skates.

laz57

That... and any of their aluminum freight cars. Tank cars and especially the black bonnet aluminum hopper cars.

Tim

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Posted by brianel027 on Sunday, February 25, 2007 4:48 PM

Man, tough question for me. My early train purchases definitely sided with K-Line over Lionel nearly 4 to 1. Price was a big factor and the reasonable quality for that price. Needless to day for those who know me, the MARX 027 based products rank high on my list. I have a fleet of K-Line S-2 switchers, MP-15's and Alco FA's. For an 027 guy like me, the K-Line S-2 is my favorite loco and am very happy to see it finally back in production under the K-Lionel banner. The K-Line Alco FA is leagues nicer looking than the similar budget Lionel version. And it's hard to beat the bang-for-your-buck MP-15. These locos all have great pulling power and by far better than any similarily priced Lionel single truck mounted DC can motored diesel.

I'd personally love to see those MARX based 027 cars back in production under the K-Lionel banner, only with the better quality paint schemes and graphics like K-Line started doing on them when they marketed those cars as their "S" gauge cars. And it'd be great to see the Symington type plastic truck K-Line used replaced with the current one used by Lionel - which is a superior operating and looking plastic truck to the K-Line version.

Their plastic building kits (though all over the place in scale) are better made than the current Bachmann production Plasticville buildings (of which I've had several terribly warped right out of the box). And they add to variety of the Plasticville buildings. And even the smaller K-Line buildings can be made to seem bigger... like the Police Station - which is now a small factory on my layout by adding a basswood foundation (for height), a new door on the back with a loading dock, and a small Model Power HO water tank on top.

Of course, there are minor quirks about some of the K-Line products, but all of them are fixable. Like the plastic coupler arm on the early Classic box cars has a tendency to come loose from the die-cast assembly when used over a uncoupling track. The plastic on these is a little thicker than the similar Lionel version. I place a finger on the end of the plastic armature where it attaches into the die cast coupler, and I gently flex and bend the entire armature. After I do this, they work just fine. So I have a whole list of things I do to my K-Line cars which makes them work just fine.

To get specific, on some other K-Line items:

-I really like the 765-series scale modern stainless steel box car. With it's shortened side and end ladders and no roofwalk, it mimics a larger hi-cube box car on a smaller 027 layout. This is one scale car that looks great with the other 6464-type box cars. How about it Lionel... a good choice Lionel to give the 027 guys a modern looking box car!!!
-The 6464 sized series of woodside reefers. Another nice car for variety.
-The new low profile K-Line 027 switches.
-The K-Line operating searchlight car, especially the newer ones with die cast trucks which work better without any dinkling as I've had to do with some of the early issued older ones.
-The die-cast truck on the Train-19 cars, which in my opinion from running everyone elses, is the very best die cast truck with fast angle wheels made by absolutely anyone - at least for the price. Even better than the UMD Industrial Rail ones.

To add the lengthy list of dumb moves the original K-Line made, the employee-only Conrail sets rank as a big one.

 

For a company that wasn't concerned with collectibles (ie: K-Line's lack of cooperation anmd threatened legal action to stop a K-Line only price guide), their consistant re-issue of previously made products, and for a company that was at one time focused on attracting new customers with their bargin priced, quality starter sets - the lack of these Conrail sets NOT being made for the public at large was a huge mistake. I almost hit the roof when I saw the first set in the K-Line Chapel Hill engineering department and was told they weren't for public sale.
Mark my words, these uncataloged traditionally sized 027-friendly non-scale K-Line Conrail exclusive sets are going to be the MOST collectible K-Line products ever made.... not the scale items. Not only are these in a very desired road name, but K-Line ignored this road (and related roads) on regularily cataloged products. The articles in OGR now publically highlight how neat, unique and now collectible these sets are. I'd own every single one of them had they made them available to the public.
How ironic, that a company that so turned to scale models and ignored modern roads on tradtionally sized products will end up with their most valued, collectible products being the very one roadname they so ignored on the 027/traditionally sized products they also ignored during the last years.
PS: I've reformatted this post about 10 times and cannot for the life of me, get the last paragraphs to break successfully, which is why it looks like one big blob of text. I've dropped in breaks, tried formatting it in Word and cutting/pasting.... nothing works.

brianel, Agent 027

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Posted by Anonymous on Sunday, February 25, 2007 4:57 PM

That's an easy one for me: the little Plymouth switchers. I have a bunch of them, and plan to buy more, as long as Lionel keeps them coming.

I once collected K-Line S-2 switchers, and at one point had more than 80 of them--all in different liveries.  Sold nearly all of them--mostly at York--but I still have a couple or so stored somewhere around here and they'll likely be sold if/when I run across them. 

 

 

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Posted by alexweiihman on Sunday, February 25, 2007 5:31 PM
 Allan Miller wrote:

That's an easy one for me: the little Plymouth switchers. I have a bunch of them, and plan to buy more, as long as Lionel keeps them coming.

I once collected K-Line S-2 switchers, and at one point had more than 80 of them--all in different liveries.  Sold nearly all of them--mostly at York--but I still have a couple or so stored somewhere around here and they'll likely be sold if/when I run across them. 

 

Those Plymouth switchers are great runners, I would of got the k-line porter but it was pretty oversized.

 

 

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Posted by Jumijo on Monday, February 26, 2007 7:51 AM
 Allan Miller wrote:

That's an easy one for me: the little Plymouth switchers. I have a bunch of them, and plan to buy more, as long as Lionel keeps them coming.

I once collected K-Line S-2 switchers, and at one point had more than 80 of them--all in different liveries.  Sold nearly all of them--mostly at York--but I still have a couple or so stored somewhere around here and they'll likely be sold if/when I run across them.

 

I read an article you wrote years ago on those switchers, Allan.  Enjoyable and informative reading. A black Santa Fe would have been of interest to me.

Jim 

Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale

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Posted by cnw1995 on Monday, February 26, 2007 9:31 AM
Their train-set Santa Fe 2-6-2 - a great runner.

Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.

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Posted by bibeaud on Monday, February 26, 2007 9:43 AM

How about all of the great Die-Cast Scale Steam Engines that could run on 0-36 Fastrack (and even 0-31 Tubular).

And let's not forget about the Die-Cast Hoppers and well detailed reefers.

With K-Line, you felt you got a little bit more for your money.

David
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Posted by jwse30 on Monday, February 26, 2007 12:21 PM

Their new low profile O-27 switches were the only products of their I have bought in the past 5 years or so. I really hope Lionel decides to bring them back.

J White

 

 

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, February 26, 2007 12:37 PM

The g scale GP engin I bought last year is broken and no one can fix it for a good price.

I liked it very much and finished out the paint scheam -it  came all yellow and I had to put red trim and gray top on it. but now it looked fine! But the axel gears are spliting one gone and crackes in the others. my repair man said I could get some made for $75 - but that is the price of the engin!!!

Has any one had these made or know of how to get them from k-line / lionel.

MY repair man said athen's gears are made the same and split  - and do have replacment parts.

and and another g scale train has a gear like this but has a differen # of teeth and will not mesh with k-line worm gear.

Help for a favorite product!

 

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Posted by 1666Columbia on Monday, February 26, 2007 1:01 PM

Hello,

     

I have a Lionel 022 O27 switch that turns into an O27 curve and to a siding where I keep my K-line GP38.  The fuel tank rubs (Barely) the box part of the switch when I take the GP-38 out to the main O42 line.  If I replace the 022 switch with the K-line O27 switch, will by GP38 go trough the switch without rubbing? 

 

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Posted by 1666Columbia on Monday, February 26, 2007 1:04 PM

My switch question was a responce this this entry:

 

 willpick wrote:
Hands down, the O27 switches that were produced in the 2 years before the end. Totally reliable, VERY low profile mechanism. It's the only K-Line product I want Lionel to produce---

 

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Posted by lionelsoni on Monday, February 26, 2007 1:08 PM
Are these gears (worm wheels) made of zinc?  That would explain a lot.

Bob Nelson

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Posted by fjerome on Monday, February 26, 2007 3:21 PM
california zephyr. i finally managed to get the elusive diner. have some extra domes that were renamed and renumbered so, with the addition of two Lionel sleepers, i have a prototypical consist.
Fabulous Forrest at the Brewer Avenue & Pacific
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Posted by nblum on Monday, February 26, 2007 4:02 PM
Remote control dump cars are my favorites.  Diecast hoppers a close second, they were quite novel when they came out the first go round.
Neil (not Besougloff or Young) :)
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Posted by alexweiihman on Monday, February 26, 2007 6:32 PM

 nblum wrote:
Remote control dump cars are my favorites.  Diecast hoppers a close second, they were quite novel when they came out the first go round.

 

Those dicast k-line items are great, they have such good deatail and are so rugged.

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Posted by Anonymous on Monday, February 26, 2007 8:09 PM
I really like the B&O Capitol Limited. Its a bit out of my range, but maybe I'll just have to start saving. I recall someone on the forums saying there was an even nicer version of it available too. Is that true?
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Posted by alexweiihman on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 5:22 AM

 Skullie wrote:
I really like the B&O Capitol Limited. Its a bit out of my range, but maybe I'll just have to start saving. I recall someone on the forums saying there was an even nicer version of it available too. Is that true?

 

I just got the orignal k-line version a week ago and it is the best purchase ive made.

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Posted by Jumijo on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 5:26 AM

I'm intrigued by these remote controll dump cars. Might have to buy one!

Jim 

Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale

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Posted by laz 57 on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 7:24 AM

ALSO...

  PRR F3s ABBA runs great just got them.  Unbelievable detail.

laz57

 

  There's a race of men that don't fit in, A race that can't stay still; Robert Service. TCA 03-55991
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 7:43 AM
The new C&O Extruded Aluminum Covered Hopper I just bought last weekend... no pics yet... only K-Line item I own, and I spent 45 minutes tracking down the dealer so I could buy it!

I also want to get the fisherman on the pier (I have my eye on one at the LHS).

Saw a load of K-Line stuff at the show that I wanted but couldn't buy... maybe at York!
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Posted by Anonymous on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 7:02 PM

 alexweiihman wrote:
I just got the orignal k-line version a week ago and it is the best purchase ive made.

Whats the difference between the one you bought and the new one?

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Posted by alexweiihman on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 7:13 PM
Looking at the k by lionel catolog, the diffrences are that the orignal k-line has brass builders plate, more serpretly applied piping, it is not a solid color its smoke box is grey, and it is a lighter shade of blue.
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Posted by superwarp1 on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 7:46 PM
Didn't see them mentioned.  The Scale Berkshires.  B&A, B&M and the rest.  Best darn engine they ever did.

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