Skip to main content

Replies sorted oldest to newest

Kusan made some stuff in 2 rail then.    They had a few cars, including a caboose I think like that, some track and a loco.   The stuff was all narrow like most toy train stuff, but they had 2 rail track.    I don't remember many details.    they did have an offset side hopper and tank car, possibly a boxcar and gondola.     I never saw a set like thhis however.    Williams later got some of the molds or inventory or something because they sold at least the tank cars as "kits".     

KMT.... Kusan Model trains......  made in Tennessee or Kentucky....  Marx, Williams and K Line all, at one time or another, acquired and made use of their molding dies.  And, please check this, I believe Kusan acquired some of their production molds from AMT, American Model Trains from the earlier 1950s.  More info can be found on internet, I am going from memory... a risky proposition!

I have a few pieces of KMT and a transformer.  A Kusan set was the first my brother and I shared in the mid 50s.  As late as 2003 I saw Kusan sets for sale at Puff-N-Stuff Trains in Lake County, Illinois.

Jesse    TCA   12-68275

 

I thought KMT was Kris Model Trains... They had nearly the same boxes.

Auburn, Kris, Kusan, AMT, KMT, etc....I know they all changed structure and became loosely and corporately intertwined trying to survive, and Ive seen lots of Auburn, AMT, Kris and KMT boxes, but I've never seen a single Kusan box wven my my Great Grandfather ran mostly Kusan (on DC if I recall right, a couple of battery op. wngines too.)

There is also a rocket lauching car, and maybe a rocket fuel tanker(?) that would go nice with that, though they pretty rare. I'm kinda surprised it isnt included. I think Kusan beat Marx and Lionel to the space race sets by years.

Adriatic posted:

Oh, I guess Kusan using KMT pre-dates Kris's using it.

The fact that there had been two different companies making O gauge trains with the initials KMT, although at different times, causes confusion to this day.

The Kusan Corporation was a maker of plastic toys in Nashville, Tennessee which had purchased the AMT train line in 1954.  Kusan made O gauge trains under the name Kusan Model Trains, often referred to as KMT, until 1961.  The Kusan Corporation continued making other toys but the Kusan Model Trains line and the tooling to make the trains remained dormant until 1967 when Andy Kriswalus purchased the first portion of the Kusan tooling (including the dies to make the O gauge freight cars originally produced by American Model Toys). 

When Kriswalus was naming his company, he wanted to keep the KMT initials in the marketplace so he used the first syllable of his last name as the “K” and called his company Kris Model Trains.  Kris made box cars, stock cars, refrigerator cars and gondola cars from that original AMT tooling until the early 1980’s.  Although he had also purchased the tooling for the F7 diesel locomotives and the aluminum passenger cars first produced by AMT and eventually the Kusan-developed near-scale tank cars and the K-series cars and locomotives, Kris Model Trains never produced any cars using those parts of tooling. 

Re boxes, Kris initially used the somewhat familiar red, black and white boxes which are still seen at larger train shows.  It had the words Kris Model Trains spelled out and also had large KMT initials.  BTW I bought some of those empty boxes from you a few years ago off this forum.  A later version of that box substituted blue for the black.  OTOH Kusan used several different style boxes for its individual cars.  Ebay auction ID #172984691209 shows an example of one of the Kusan boxes.  A different type box was used for freight cars sold as kits and there is an example of one in eBay auction id #182750029319.  They both have the KMT logo prominently displayed.

For more info on AMT, Kusan and Kris see this Forum member’s website:  

http://www.robertstrains.com/index.html

HTH,

Bill

Last edited by WftTrains

   I'm familiar with that site and most facts Bill, but it seems the facts are kinda scattered there.

  I definitely recall emptying some shelf space of those boxes. I was very glad to know they were kept for all those years till someone who wanted them came along.

I think your timeline explaination is excellent. Thank you, it tied things together very nicely.

Add Reply

Post

OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×