@Andy Hummell posted:Did Lionel even acquire that tooling from Sanda Kan? Lionel bought some of the former K-Line tooling from them, but does anyone know if they got the J1e tooling?
Andy
@RickO posted:Well I believe, Lionel has "acquired" ,and remade every other scale K Line steamer. I.e., light Mike, A1 berkshire, 0-4-0. B6 0-6-0, K4 , Shays etc (I might be missing something.
I still say. If you look closely at the crescent shaped counterweights on the VL Hudson. They are suspiciously identical to those on the k line j1e.
@harmonyards posted:Rick, I’ve proved that every recent Hudson the big L produced after 28072, 38041, & 28084 are direct descendants of the Kline Hudson. I’ve taken my Legacy J3a shell off and it’s darn near a bolt on swap for the Kline shell. If it weren’t for the bigger rearward facing motor, it would bolt right up,…..clearly Lionel modified the Kline tooling to get a better motor on the Kline chassis,……we’ve already proven this on a bunch of Kline Berkshires by directly bolting legacy chassis right to an older Kline shell,….obviously those earlier legacy Berk chassis have the larger rearward facing motor,…….so you don’t have to believe, ……it’s true,….😉
Pat
@Frank Mulligan posted:So, Lionel didn't buy the Hudson tooling from MTH because they already have the K-Line tooling.
Although Lionel produced Legacy versions of what appears to be K-Line tooled/derived K4's, Berkshires, Mikados, A5's and B6's did we EVER get direct confirmation that Lionel actually purchased the related tooling? Rather, did Lionel just license or rent the tooling on a production unit basis from Sanda Kan (or whoever currently possesses and/or controls the tooling) which either would likely cost less than the overall upfront tooling purchase or possibly be the only option if the tooling holder was not interested in an outright sale and preferred to retain ownership but allow a negotiated production run.
Since K-Line's 2006ish collapse and subsequent aforementioned Lionel Legacy production offerings, IRRC it was only forum members that said that Lionel either bought or had the former K-Line tooling... was this just presumed since Lionel was offering product from that same tooling? During discussions w/ Lionel staff at prior York meets, I do not recall Lionel specifically stating that they owned the tooling. Responses would be more in the vein of "we're excited to offer product XYZ with our feature packed Legacy control/sound system."
Though, does it really matter who owns the tooling? In the end, probably not, as long as quality production can continue to be made from whoever decides to arrange production and import what was a very finely tooled product.
