K-line rolling stock

The boxcars used the same molds as Marx O gauge line in the 50's.

Probably the good thing about the K-Line S gauge rolling stock is the trucks. May be a tad small but better than Lionel’s effort which is too large. I will let you decide from the picture below, just my view btw.

The Lionel truck is on the left.

Many in our club (North Penn S Gaugers) jump on the whenever they can be found.  Their trucks roll unbelievably well.  We did tests on our layout:

Old Flyer: about 4 to 6 feet

New Flyonel  about 6 to 8 feet

S Helper about 8 to 12 feet

K-line about 20 feet

Test was repeated  several times with different cars  for each manufacturer.

Francine

The hopper car - from Marx tooling - is the width of a 6464 O gauge boxcar and is too wide for S.

Thanks guys. I really like the S-Helper cars and the way they roll as well as their quality so I was hoping the K-Line would compare similarly. Appreciate the comments.

RBG

They are the best trucks period ! Also the best coupler if you wish to do switching, uncouple & couple the best

Bob G.

Great trucks, but oversized, look their best with a L/AF Big Boy (which is similarly "chubby" and tall for S).    

Here a some pictures for comparison. The yellow and green boxcar is from American Models. it is a 40’ car like Gilbert, but is a model of a taller prototype. The K-Line car is wider, longer and taller, with a more peaked roof. Overall it is about 1/60th scale. The painting quality is excellent. The next is a K-Line car coupled to a Lionel AF car, these are the same as a Gilbert car.

The two tenders show the difference between the 1/64th scale Challenger tender on the right and the Big Boy tender on the left. The K-Line boxcars work perfect behind the S gauge Big Boy and also more modern, larger diesels such as the SD70ACe and the ES44Ac.

Some very early K-Line cars were sold as S scale cars without trucks or couplers for Fall S Fest between 1987 and 1989.  There's a boxcar; don't have a picture.

Got a picture of the early K-Line boxcar sold as S scale, from 1990.  No trucks or couplers; I added O scale trucks.