K-Line Experts - What does "Train 19" represent?

I believe you hit it on the head.  As K-line progressed from Kusan and Marx to more detailed, semi-scale and scale packaging changed.  Blue boxes seemed to be from the Kusan, Marx tooling.  Red Boxes were more detailed  along the lines of 6464 box cars.  The Train 19 was late K-Line, traditional size starter set type.  Even being entry level they were pretty good.  I know of at least one Train 19 product, an Alaska Railroad flat car, had die cast sprung trucks, additional weight added to the bottom and a removal die-cast pick-up for a load.  No too shabby for entry-level.

I believe they also made some Train 19 engines that were really basic and toy-like.

Didn't this product start out as "Industrial Rail," and weren't they made to retail for $19.99 at the time? Eventually they were picked up by MTH as Rugged Rails and K-Line's Train 19.

That's what I recall from about 1998 or so. Please correct me if I am wrong.

@John Knapp posted:

Didn't this product start out as "Industrial Rail," and weren't they made to retail for $19.99 at the time? Eventually they were picked up by MTH as Rugged Rails and K-Line's Train 19.

That's what I recall from about 1998 or so. Please correct me if I am wrong.

No, Industrial Rail was a different enterprise, and eventually swallowed by Atlas.

I bought a cheap Train 19 wood-side caboose years ago for a project. It was molded in yellow, and had clunky detailing, but did, indeed, have die-cast trucks. Turns out, it was larger than 1:48 O-scale, not to mention sub-scale 0-27. Odd piece. Still have it and the trucks, but it is good for only a line-side building or something. The trucks have value elsewhere.

Train-19 first appeared in the 2000 2nd. edition catalog.  K-Line split the product into Gold, Red and Blue lines.  Train-19 being Blue.  The first releases were primarily  640 series box cars, the single dome kusan tank cars, and some Marx items thrown in.  They all had metal trucks with needle point axles and their typical detailing.  By this time K-Line had literally made hundreds of different items from their Marx and Kusan molds and I suspect decided keep that ball rolling by picking a price point that allowed the customer to add to their car count and a reasonable price.  Gold was the Scale line.  Red was the Classic line.

The Train-19 line was a direct response to the competitive/sales threat from the Industrial Rail line of trains. Same for MTH's introduction of the Rugged Rails line. In fact, MTH initially used Industrial Rail cars for their pre-production paint/photo samples.

With the passing of time, we've forgotten the industry and market buzz that UMD created with their Industrial Rail line of 3 rail trains. Very well reviewed by the train mags and well received by the buying public. Which took a big bite out of K-Line's sales.

So in a marketing move, K-Line basically rebranded a bunch of rolling stock for which the tooling already existed (save for the new trucks made for the Train-19 cars) with a $19.95 list price... hence the name Train-19. In my opinion, those truck sets on the Train-19 cars were the nicest K-Line ever made.

Industrial Rail was NOT a train manufacturer. The product line was created for UMD, United Model Distributors which was a wholesale/distribution outfit. Other train companies like Lionel, MTH and K-Line receive their products at their own warehouses, then sold their products to a wholesaler or distributor who in turn sold them to the hobby shops. Of course, with price increases at each step of the way. Dealers selling IR products could actually make some decent profit while still offering the consumer a discount, because they were purchasing them directly from the wholesaler. No middle man here.

As far as boxes, the Train-19 cars initially came in a redesigned blue, white and black box that said Train-19 on it. I don't think there was ever a clear plan for their box colors after this, other than for the scale products. The real 027 cars (the 5000-series that originated from the MARX tooling) came in mostly red boxes, but also mostly black and gold boxes too. The traditional type locos like the Budd cars, MP-15 and 027 Alco FA came in these black and gold boxes too for a long time.

But then when some of the enhanced features of the Alco-FA's were dropped (like both A units being powered) at least one Alco FA pair came in a red box that I recall: The white and red Seaboard Coast line, which had a powered A unit and then a dummy A unit, instead of both A units being powered. I'm certain there were others too.

@coach joe, there were no specific Train-19 locomotives. The loco your thinking of was the GP9 that was in the K-Line Husky line. The much more toy-like Husky line trains were from pre-existing tooling that K-Line made use of, just putting diecast 3-rail trucks on the rolling stock and using a single MP-15 motor truck (and a dummy truck) for the GP9.

@D500, I'm pretty sure the caboose you wrote of was in fact one of the Husky line trains, not Train-19. K-Line never had a woodside caboose in their traditional line of products, save for the scale side and the Husky line.

@Bill DeBrooke posted:

Train-19 first appeared in the 2000 2nd. edition catalog.  K-Line split the product into Gold, Red and Blue lines.  Train-19 being Blue.  The first releases were primarily  640 series box cars, the single dome kusan tank cars, and some Marx items thrown in.  They all had metal trucks with needle point axles and their typical detailing.  By this time K-Line had literally made hundreds of different items from their Marx and Kusan molds and I suspect decided keep that ball rolling by picking a price point that allowed the customer to add to their car count and a reasonable price.  Gold was the Scale line.  Red was the Classic line.

Thank you very much, exactly the info I was hoping for.  What I bought (yet to receive) looked like a Single Dome Kusan Tank Car with upgraded Trucks.  The Kusan plastic trucks with 1 piece plastic wheelsets aren't the smoothest rolling cars out there.  A K-Line Aluminum Passenger car with 2 pickup rollers, rolls easier. 

@brianel_k-lineguy posted:

The Train-19 line was a direct response to the competitive/sales threat from the Industrial Rail line of trains. Same for MTH's introduction of the Rugged Rails line. In fact, MTH initially used Industrial Rail cars for their pre-production paint/photo samples.

With the passing of time, we've forgotten the industry and market buzz that UMD created with their Industrial Rail line of 3 rail trains. Very well reviewed by the train mags and well received by the buying public. Which took a big bite out of K-Line's sales.

So in a marketing move, K-Line basically rebranded a bunch of rolling stock for which the tooling already existed (save for the new trucks made for the Train-19 cars) with a $19.95 list price... hence the name Train-19. In my opinion, those truck sets on the Train-19 cars were the nicest K-Line ever made.

Industrial Rail was NOT a train manufacturer. The product line was created for UMD, United Model Distributors which was a wholesale/distribution outfit. Other train companies like Lionel, MTH and K-Line receive their products at their own warehouses, then sold their products to a wholesaler or distributor who in turn sold them to the hobby shops. Of course, with price increases at each step of the way. Dealers selling IR products could actually make some decent profit while still offering the consumer a discount, because they were purchasing them directly from the wholesaler. No middle man here.

As far as boxes, the Train-19 cars initially came in a redesigned blue, white and black box that said Train-19 on it. I don't think there was ever a clear plan for their box colors after this, other than for the scale products. The real 027 cars (the 5000-series that originated from the MARX tooling) came in mostly red boxes, but also mostly black and gold boxes too. The traditional type locos like the Budd cars, MP-15 and 027 Alco FA came in these black and gold boxes too for a long time.

But then when some of the enhanced features of the Alco-FA's were dropped (like both A units being powered) at least one Alco FA pair came in a red box that I recall: The white and red Seaboard Coast line, which had a powered A unit and then a dummy A unit, instead of both A units being powered. I'm certain there were others too.

Thank you for the detailed explanation.  Love this forum for all the respective experts.

I have noticed that there were a number of variations in the Alco FA/FB over time.  Separate Metal Ladders and Handrails eventually replaced the molded in details from the original Kusan Molds.

Thank you to all that contributed to answering my question.

@brianel_k-lineguy posted:

@D500, I'm pretty sure the caboose you wrote of was in fact one of the Husky line trains, not Train-19. K-Line never had a woodside caboose in their traditional line of products, save for the scale side and the Husky line.

Ah. Y'know, that "Husky" name does ring a bell; that caboose certainly was just that - husky.

I miss K-Line.  It did quite a bit of its own, unique stuff.

Years ago, I purchased a K-Line set with the above-mentioned GP9, two cars and a caboose. The freight cars and caboose were from the “Husky” line – not to scale and quite toylike.

The engine was almost all plastic; the track that came with the set was plastic as well. That’s because the engine was battery powered and remote controlled.

I was quite disappointed with the set, because I had visions of a O gauge garden railroad. I planned to take old O tinplate track, paint it up, and use it outdoors. However, the wheel gauge on the loco was too wide to run on any track other than what came with the set.

I eventually sold most everything for parts.

K-Line certainly made some interesting stuff.

@MainLine Steam posted:

I just bought a K-Line O27 Freight Car and the Box is Blue/Black with Train 19 graphic on it.  Car is identified as O-27 Scale.  Are these somehow different than Blue or Dark Red or Black Box with White Stripe O27 Cars?  Does anyone know why they are called train 19?

Was this done in latter years of K-Line, when Scale Cars moved to Yellow/Black boxes?  I have also seen some freight cars in Red/Black Boxes.  Thinking there is a chronological order to the box design?

Thank You to any "K-Line Experts" that can clarify.

I learned a lot in this thread: https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...9-vs-industrial-rail

The Train 19 bit is because all of the cars were catalogued for $19 and some cents; usually $19.95 (though maybe one was $19.60?).  They were also almost all O-27.  They had a ton of nice cars, but one of the fences on K661-1751 "NYC Flat Car  w/ '98 F150 Pickup Truck & Painted Figures '#6611751' " is loose.  That being said, it is the nicest flatcar I own--regardless of manufacturer.

Over the years K-Line boxes went from blue and white to black with white pinstripe to train 19's black with blue.

Side note: my first engine was a K-Line NYC S2 (#2321) which came in a black box with gold & white pinstripe.  I love that engine.  It was my Christmas gift that year, and I still run it even though it doesn't pull as much as my Williams F7.  I discovered a few years ago that if I pulled all the hair out of the gears--and oiled them (the gears, not the hair)--that that S2 ran much better.
(Cleaning it also fixed the issue of sometimes stalling on an O22 switch with a heavy load of cars. )

We have a small blue rubber band that we added to one of my dad's MPC 2-4-0 plastic steamers (#8602) as a pseudo-traction tire to enable it to start when pulling more than 5 or so cars.  When that was off the steamer--as it fell off frequently--I stored it around my S-2's smokestack, like Henry's scarf .  My dad thought it was weird, but I was a kid.

I also love that the cab light is wonderfully bright and shines in all directions.  Unlike modern directional lighting LEDs that are minuscule and only illuminate the headlight--but not the side of your couch as the train goes by--this lit up the area nicely, including the upcoming track.