Mark, known as Mojomark on the OGR and MTJ has done a great deed to all K-line fans. Kindly granted permission by Lionel and its marketing department, Mark has posted a database of the 1999-2005 catologs at www.legacykline.com. Not only can these items be veiwed, but they can also be commented on. I think a great thanks goes to Lionel, and Mark for making this all possible!
Alex
Very nice! Way to go, Mark!
Jim
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Regards, Roy
Alex,
Thanks for passing this link along and many thanks to Lionel and Mark for making the legacy K-Line info available to the hobby. The site is well organized and easy to use. Let's hope interested hobbyists will contribute to it. I know I will if I can.
Pretty cool. I have never owned any Kline stuff but it is interesting to see what they offered. The site would be improved if they showed the cover art from the catalogs. Overall it is nicely done.
Regards,
John
johnandjulie13 wrote: Pretty cool. I have never owned any Kline stuff but it is interesting to see what they offered. The site would be improved if they showed the cover art from the catalogs. Overall it is nicely done.Regards,John
I will pass that on to Mark.
Thanks for the kind words everybody!
In regards to the catalog art, I just got an email from somebody who saw the site and has all the K-Line catalog covers since 1991 scanned. I'll be integrating those into the site in the coming weeks.
Anyone who frequented the original K-Line website will realize quickly the downloaded pages on this new site are the actual product finder pages from the K-Line website, with links and search options as K-Line provided. New catalogs were put into the K-Line website as others like Lionel do, and then were integrated into these product listings.
For those who do not have the original catalogs or want a quick online reference to the last K-Line products, this will be very useful. Of course, K-Line had a long history well before 1999, so as far as my own interests, I'm glad I have the catlaogs, product brochures, fliers, and KCC publications for those a the real wealth of information.
Of course, nothing beats just being a long time customer and knowing the products. In the early days, K-Line made quite a few uncataloged and promotional items. And there were probably more product variations in the early days when the products were actually made in Chapel Hill. For example there's the very common 5120 B&O blue box car with an orange door . But there's also a very very hard to find yellow version of the same exact car. I just about paid for the whole set with that one single car. The very common 5615 L&NE orange gondola is also available as a harder to find red version. And I could go on...
The CNJ MP-15 diesel set, though cataloged, never made it into production. The CNJ steam set did, albeit with fewer CNJ cars. Some of the later sets, such as the Illinois Central MP-15 set have smaller 027 cars that were made only for that set and are very tough to find for sale. Matter of fact, to this date, I have never seen those cars for separate sale anywhere.
Sometimes odd items were thrown into train sets as substitutes. I bought a Chessie System MP-15 set that came with a Reading hopper with a prototypical number that was produced for Boscov's and came originally with the Boscov's exclusive uncataloged Reading Coal Hauler set. Then there's the common 2225 Conrail MP-15, but there's also another version that came with an actual prototypical number (long before all the uncataloged Conrail employee only exclusives), that I believe may also have been made for Boscov's.
As with Lionel, sometimes the most fascinating and hard to research variations are from the lower end products that many collectors and enthusiasts don't pay attention to. I had a Lionel starter Chessie set that came with a mistake brown caboose... got a lot more for that caboose than I paid for the whole set.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
Brianel027 - You are correct, the product detail pages were pulled directly from a copy of the K-Line site that I made before it went under. That's clearly stated on the site. Extracting the metadata for the organization and searching was done separately, and is all new.
You are obviously a fan of K-Line, and would be a great resource to help make the site better. That's what the site is made for. The only data I got from the old site was 1999 and forward. Several people have asked about pre-1999 data, and we (as a community) will begin the effort to add to the site with the cataloged data as people can re-construct it. I hope you will check the site periodically and look to share your detailed knowledge as time goes by.
One of the other things I'm going to add to the site is the ability to submit "articles" for publication. This would be a great place to share about the product variations that you've seen over the years.
I look forward to your contributions. If you have specific things you'd like to share, feel free to us the "Contact" link on the site and we can start a dialog.
Mj
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