Who made these O gauge cars?

Early Atlas, early Atlas, dunno, dunno.  Ask on 2- rail forum.

The caboose looks like an Atlas Roco piece from te early 70's. These were imported, I believe, by AHM in Philadelphia and mostly meant for the two rail crowd but the non-kadee couplers and wheels did not help. These were imported in large numbers and are pretty easy to find. For their time the molds were quite good and over the years quite a few fine models have been made out of these. They were even offered in kit form for a while.

All the best,

Miketg

Definitely Atlas/Roco on the caboose. The box car looks like it might be an early Lionel. Lionel did a scale-sized car set to go with the scale hudson. The cars were metal. Williams later did a reproduction of that set. Hard to tell from the photo.

Looks like a KMT car with Lionel trucks

Much of the 1960's Atlas tooling has reappeared as the Trainman line; of course the

trucks and couplers are different. I have early Atlas sitting next to Trainman and it's

obvious. Better graphics today, also.

Having said that, the 1960's O-Atlas (not Atlas-O) is sharp and rolls well; the Atlas

couplers mate with O-gauge couplers pretty reliably. Sometimes the couplers are -more- reliable than the regular O-gauge type, and aren't much uglier.

The cars are light, but that is why we have the phrase "add weight".

The trucks are very handsome, and the all-plastic construction is of no importance

to me. Will the plastic wheels wear our before metal ones? I'm sure that they will,

but they'll outlast me. I've actually bought some of these trucks at train shows; 

usually cheap, they are great for converting old 2-rail cars to 3-rail. Fiddle with 

the mounting setup, and off you go.

Much of the 1960's Atlas tooling has reappeared as the Trainman line; of course the

trucks and couplers are different. I have early Atlas sitting next to Trainman and it's

obvious.

IT's abit mroe than that. Atla sO's trainman is all new tooling- esp the frame. I believe Petersen Supply has the original tooling for the Atlas/Roco cars.

the big difference is in the frames:

Trainman uses die cast frame and the detail are less pronounced than the original Plastic frame of Atlas/Roco-Esp when it comes to the airbrake details and air reserviors underneath.

The caboose is definitely from the Roco tooling, probably re-released by Bev-Bel in the late 1970's-early 1980's. 

The original 1970's Atlas O line caboose only had four roadnames: Santa Fe, Union Pacific, Burlington Northern and Chesapeake & Ohio.

image: Atlas O Ad January 1971 Model Railroader Magazine c Kalmbach Publishing 2011

Rusty

Thanks to all that have responded. There is no indication that this is Lionel box car. Did Lionel ever produce anything that wasn't marked?

The boxcar looks just like a "Crown Model Products" car I used to have.

Jon 

The white metal underframe on the boxcar makes it definitely an AMT (American Model Toys) piece.  The trucks are also AMT with Lionel postwar coupler plates added (these plates just crimp to the axles).  The extensions on the trucks with the holes in them are where the original AMT couplers were mounted (the trucks were swiveled 180 degrees so that the Lionel coupler plates could be added.

The AMT molds were later used by KMT (Kris Model Trains) and then by Frank's Roundhouse.  Both the KMT and Frank's cars used sheet metal underframes like Lionel 6464 boxcars.

Adferraro and Bob have it.

Bob, you missed Kusan, which came after AMT and before Kris. At some point Kusan was also KMT (as was Kris).

Martin

Martin, right you are! 

Plus Williams also used the molds and now those molds have another owner, Bachmann, who is still using those molds producing the Williams by Bachmann line. 

Here’s a link to a website with a photo of that car and more background info on AMT and Kusan-Auburn: http://www.robertstrains.com/AMT1.htm

Plus there is a Yahoo group dedicated to AMT, Kusan and their corporate descendents.  Here’s the link:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/...ins/?yguid=293788742

HTH,

Bill