K-Line cabooses

David, great picture.  I purchased that same Big Boy caboose years ago in the Purple hall from Jeff afrom the Train Loft.  I had reason to talk to him last year and he told me he still had a few for sale.

Your right Marty, I called him a couple of months ago and he said he had a few left. Nice guy to deal with. 

Do you have any pictures of the Milwaukee Road cabooses?

But, UP never rostered any EV cabooses, even though they acquired 150 of them with MP.

Ron

I have that caboose, I really like it. I also have a CNW K-line caboose that is very nice. I didnt eve n know it existed until I saw it at a swap meet. Got it for a steal $35. K-Line made some fantastic stuff, its too bad we lost them as a company

I also have this caboose, and I don't care that it's not prototypical, it's fun. I also have a several other K-Line cabooses, all very nice, and agree that it's a shame K-Line is lost.

I agree David that K line cabooses are very fine models!  I have a beautiful C&O woodside caboose.  Probably the best looking caboose( and only K line )  of all 15 in my fleet.   The one problem is that when I turn on the smoke unit, the roof gets so hot that it begins to melt.  Obviously I now run it without the smoke unit turned on.  This caboose is a great match for my Lionel 0-8-0 switcher 

The smoke unit overheating problem pointed out by trumptrain is universal. The smoke units in K-Line cabooses should be left turned off, or better yet disconnected or removed. If you really want to see your caboose smoke, they can be turned on for a few minutes at a time, but they cannot be allowed to run out of fluid. I have a whole bunch of K-Line cabooses and I never turn on the smoke units. 

Here's a poor picture of a Milwaukee Road bay window, one of my favorites.

Art

K-Line did quite a few custom runs of cabooses and other things. The Milwaukee Road EV caboose shown in my photo above was a special run for Sommerfeld's in Milwaukee. Western Depot had custom runs of SP and WP bay window cabooses, as well as scale size PFE and WP-PFE woodside reefers. There was also a custom run of three UP boxcars decorated for the Big Boy, Challenger, and 844. That was done for a shop that I think was in North Carolina, but I'm not sure of that. 

Jeff at Train Loft commissioned that set of boxcars, along with a set of tank cars, hoppers, as well as the above "Big Boys" caboose.

LINK

We were all spoiled when K-Line was around. They supplied us with wonderful product that compared to some of today's releases are still standouts.

K-Line products were really great.  I have most of their 18" and 21" PRR lightweight and heavyweight passenger cars, as well as a lot of their excellent 40' reefers.  Their cabooses were the best.  Here are some shots of mine:

The top row is K-Line, the bottom row is MTH

K-Line caboose with an MTH GG1

Caboose from 13 colonies set

The caboose on the left is K-Line, the one on the right is Lionel.  The K-line is so much better!

Only K-Line and MTH have come close with pre-1960's Santa Fe cabooses.  K-Line did a good job of capturing the look, and I think they were first with the correct paint scheme.  MTH copied the K-Line paint scheme right down to using the same numbers on the caboose.  They both offered two numbers, the both had the same two numbers.

OK, speaking of cabooses, er, cabin cars:  How do you get inside of a N5C so I can reglue some windows?

My Southern K-Line caboose.

Great weathering job on your Southern caboose.

Art

I really like my K-Line hacks.  Good heads up on the heat damage potential from the smoke units.  They are somewhat oversized, but I don't care.  CAPPilot provided a great comparison picture.  Note the top row of K-Lines vs. bottom row of MTH.

Stack 

Jeff, I will put some photos up when I get home

As has been stated, most of us didn't appreciate K-Line as much as we should have when they were still around.  I bought a lot of their cabooses and freight cars, but would have bought more if I had known.  That is especially true of their passenger cars.

Art

Here a a few of mine. Nice cars.

I really miss K-line. 

So here are my CNW Cabeese, yes I said that controversial C-Word. Up first is the K-Line Extended Vision then the MTH Extended Vision and lastly the Atlas O Trainman Extended Vision. IT seems like CNW only had one extended vision caboose to model since all three have the same number and all three look nothing alike in size, detail and color. I wonder if they maded different proportioed extended visions or can people not measure.

Seems like thses K-Line Cabooses are the nicer ones around, the Lionel CA-3/4 cabeese are pretty **** nice too

My favorite K-Line caboose is this Union Pacific.

Art

Another favorite is this C&NW, but I don't like the white steps.  I plan to repaint them when I weather it.

Art

Boy, some real nice cabooses.

I believe the controversial term is cabeese

Got a new favorite one in the mail today. I really like this K-line Thirteen Colonies Caboose. Only cost me $30 shipped

Found this thread started by Dave1 back in July. Surely there are more K-Line cabeese out there?

Spotted this one here on the Forum last week and it arrived this afternoon. One of our club members picked up one last year and I've always admired it. Now we have one at home!

I think this Santa Fe is also a K-Line but it's packed away so I can't verify it...

I have the Milwaukee Road Extended one left !

I had the bay window one as well !

The problems these had (at least the one owned) was that the roof melted around the smoke stack .  I ran the smoke unit .  I stopped using the smoke unit . preserve the caboose .   The bay window was never used before I sold it ! 

A lot of nice cabooses. I have a small collection of eastern roads, and always looking for more. In fact, I have a hunch Santa will be delivering one this Christmas. I wish MTH cabooses had smoke units.

Don

A problem with smoke units was that when using TMCC or DCS, the constant voltage of track power was too high for smoke unit to operate properly.

See RMT instructions for similar former KLINE N5C caboose smoke unit.

Walter/RMT

www.readymadetoys.com

My K-Line Hudson was in need of a caboose for quite awhile.