Kris Model Trains

Just a shot in the dark. If the car was a Marine Midland it may have been made for Marine Midland Banking in New York before it changed to HSBC. Possibly a very small run of them were made for them............Paul

Kris Model Trains? I am unfamiliar with the name...

Kris Model trains was out of Endicott New York The owner was Andy Kriswallus. I believe the molds were from the old AMT Kusan molds from the fifties. There was also a reefer car too.....................Paul

Wow, that does seem high. It might have been a Frank's Roundhouse paint job on a Kris body. They did lots of small runs for commemoratives, organizations and businesses.

While my collection is predominately the earlier AMT, KUSAN and KMT, some of the later Kris boxcars are very nice and I did manage to grab a dozen or so of them, NIB, on Ebay a few years ago at under $10 each. The seller didn't know what he had, apparently. I don't feel any remorse when I have them weathered at that price.

"Kris Model Trains? I am unfamiliar with the name..."

Check out the Yahoo group for AMT, KMT and Kusan and you will get familiar.

Frank's Roundhouse Hood's car.  Metal body, shiny paint, doors do not open. Very similar to a Kris car.  John

This was a Kris car as I looked it up in Grenbergs Guide to Kusan Trains. This guide also includes AMT, KUSAN, KRIS & FRANK'S ROUNDHOUSE

The only KMT car I have is the Stegmaier beer box car.  Took me forever to get it on the bay as they can be pricey, i.e. in the hundred dollar range.  Haven't seen one since.

The extent of my AMT, KMT, Kusan, KRIS & Frank's Roadhouse collection

For more information about products by Frank's Roundhouse, see here:  http://www.robertstrains.com/Frank.htm

Most of the Cars are collectors Items I believe I have 15-20 KMT Cars, they are worth a lot of money, so any I see that are cheap, I buy them.

Most of the Cars are collectors Items I believe I have 15-20 KMT Cars, they are worth a lot of money, so any I see that are cheap, I buy them.

I hope you are purchasing the Kris Model Train cars because you like them. Very few, if any, fetch a premium price. At one time I had quite a few cars, purchased from Andy Kriswalus when he was cleaning out his inventory. I needed the space and pared down my collection of Kris Model Train cars to about a dozen.

I even had some gondolas, which I have not otherwise seen. I should have held onto those.

C W Burfle posted:

Most of the Cars are collectors Items I believe I have 15-20 KMT Cars, they are worth a lot of money, so any I see that are cheap, I buy them.

I hope you are purchasing the Kris Model Train cars because you like them. Very few, if any, fetch a premium price. At one time I had quite a few cars, purchased from Andy Kriswalus when he was cleaning out his inventory. I needed the space and pared down my collection of Kris Model Train cars to about a dozen.

I even had some gondolas, which I have not otherwise seen. I should have held onto those.

The gondolas from the AMT Indiana factory and later Kusan/KMT Franklin, TN facility are somewhat harder to find than the reefers, stockcars and almost all of their boxcars they produced.  AMT and KMT/Kusan made available only one roadname for the gondola - L&N (they did come in shiny and flat black finishes, so you've got a tiny bit of variation) - an odd instance where gondolas are more scarce than the more expensive in the day boxcars, stockcars and reefers.  AMT and KMT/Kusan didn't make many sets, which probably accounts for the small number of gondolas (a favorite car to include in a set for the play value of being able to easily add a load, plus a lot less add-on parts during production).  

The 2nd KMT, Kris Model Trains from Andy Kriswallis (sp?) in New York are the same way - very few gondolas compared to boxcar, stockcar and reefer production.  Kris made lots of very short run cars which explains why some go for pretty good money.  It may be impossible at this point to document production numbers for the Kris cars, so if you run across something you like and it's cheap you might want to buy it - another one may not pop up for a long while.

Any of the KMT and its ancestors are nice pieces; the boxcars are a scale 40", I believe - bigger than the near-scale 6464's. They (not sure which generation - probably AMT) had some metal couplers that generally looked better than Lionel's, but would mate.

If memory serves...the AMT/KMT/etc boxcar molds wound up with Williams (and WBB)...I'm looking at a Williams pre-WBB boxcar right now, and it (the body) sure looks like my KMT/etc pieces. Very nice shells, and sturdy. If it had stirrups (metal, of course) at the corners it would be all I ask of rolling stock - basic, accurate, scale, tough. (Except for that Williams "brake cylinder" - wrong.)

Do you have any of the Crown Metal Products boxcar from KMT?

D500 posted:

Any of the KMT and its ancestors are nice pieces; the boxcars are a scale 40", I believe - bigger than the near-scale 6464's. They (not sure which generation - probably AMT) had some metal couplers that generally looked better than Lionel's, but would mate.

If memory serves...the AMT/KMT/etc boxcar molds wound up with Williams (and WBB)...I'm looking at a Williams pre-WBB boxcar right now, and it (the body) sure looks like my KMT/etc pieces. Very nice shells, and sturdy. If it had stirrups (metal, of course) at the corners it would be all I ask of rolling stock - basic, accurate, scale, tough. (Except for that Williams "brake cylinder" - wrong.)

Here's the sequence of moves for the dies that were originally cut for Jack Ferris' American Model Train train line based in Auburn, Indiana:

AMT/Auburn (Indiana) to Kusan/KMT (Tennessee) to Kris Model Trains/KMT#2 (New York) to Williams (Maryland) to Williams by Bachmann (China).

AMT boxcars, stockcars, and reefers had diecast frames, trucks and metal operating couplers with a simulated airhose that could be opened with an uncoupling track section that had a mechanism that lifted and pushed the airhose up and uncoupled the car.

Kusan/KMT (Tennessee) continued with the same features as the AMT cars.  Kris/KMT#2 (New York) came with a sheet metal frame like the Lionel 6464 series cars used.  Early examples have Lionel diecast trucks, many have MPC plastic trucks, some turn up with the AMT diecast truck with airhose.  I'll let someone familiar with Frank's Roundhouse and Bachmann/Williams by Bachmann fill in the details on what trucks were used with those cars as I collect AMT/Auburn and Kusan/KMT cars witha few Kris cars added to the mix.

There were actually three different "scales" of boxcars from this family tree. There were small ones that matched, roughly, the Lionel 027 el cheapo cars.

There were the ones with a fixed closed door / fixed open door that were exactly the same size as Lionel's 34xx/6464 series. This batch came as kits, which included the body, the floor, and two plastic .trucks with integral plastic couplers. They could be assembled in 5 minutes with a screwdriver

And then there were the largest series, that everyone covets.

In that largest series, there were the really heavy ones with great graphics, such as the B&O, the NYCRR Pacemaker, and the "Better for Baby" cars, followed by a series of rather bland ones that were painted in a variety of boxcar red paint schemes, and finally the last batch of this size, that transitioned to the huge variety put out by Frank's Roundhouse.  

It's possible for a modeler to have a long train of dark red boxcars, in many different railroad names, or a freight yard thickly populated with them. 

Good to know. Always liked the scale-er pieces - and I had the fixed-door 6464-sized boxcar at one time; traded it. Unfortunately, I became aware of KMT, etc, a little too late, and they are no longer cheapies, I guess (I'd better go do some Bay-lurking). But, I can enjoy a modern product of old dies - or copies of old dies - in a way that appreciates the DNA - that Wms boxcar shell, for example. 

Gordon Z posted:

For more information about products by Frank's Roundhouse, see here:  http://www.robertstrains.com/Frank.htm

 

Robert is a long-time Forum member and in addition to the Frank’s Roundhouse page link posted by Gordon, Robert also has pages for AMT, Kusan and Kris, all with many photos.  Just click on the “Other Makers” link at the bottom of his FRH page

HTH,

Bill