K-Line Streamliners - and maybe other topics

[bob turner]

Being banished is actually good- it keeps me from adding worthless comments to topics I think I might know something about.

I suppose I have 2-railed maybe 20 K-Line streamliners. I started out boring the axle bearings and inserting NWSL wheelsets, but in the end found that good old bronze sand cast trucks looked way better. I think I wrote an article that was published on how to mount Kadees.

These cars are not as good as the 3rd Rail series, but they are quite good, and at $75 a pop, I really stocked up! Almost a childhood dream come true, with very little effort. They are worth double what I paid, which, I suppose, is always nice.

Speaking of price increases, you should see what happened to my $1200 Piper Cub, or my $188 1964 1/2 Mustang Convertible. Even the Ranger and 635csi are worth more than we paid. But then, bread is five bucks a loaf, I guess.

I do have photos to share- I have decided I would rather share them here than there anyway.

[bob turner]

Here is one. Don't know why the Kadee is sagging, but all the diaphragms are rapidly dying. They will be replaced with All Nation style paper diaphragms. Dennis cast these trucks for me; I think I may be the only person in the world with these kinds of sideframes. My dentist friend made the mold, and I bet Bob Stevenson has it. We used candle wax for the investment (not sure I have that term correct - the investment may be the plaster itself, or maybe the combination).

Forgot - I have to load these in Shuttleworth before posting. Back in a minute.

[steamaheadstephen59]

Ive posted this one before, but I do like the Rio Grand colours.

[gregj410]

Love my 84’ K-line streamliners. This is all 11 B&O’s that were made converted to LED lighting. I also have the 14 car SP stream liners. I’ve pondered converting to kadee but I have some 72” radii on my pike that maybe problematic

https://youtu.be/l14bIewYmRo

[bob turner]

That is a nice video. I have a penchant for the B&O paint scheme, and have four K-Line cars for the set. My next favorite is Empire Builder, and I have a combination of K-Line and scratch cars for that.

I suppose after that my desires extend to SP Daylight, Sunset Limited, UP, PRR, maybe Golden State . . .

but Carey and Maroon are currently intrigued with some older card stock models, so I shall post a few photos of those. Looking forward to more Greg photos or videos.

Herewith:

[bob turner]

I might have another photo in my file - I shall look. Meantime, this is for Greg:

[steamaheadstephen59]

This one just arrived a couple of days ago.That was a nice video, what a consist of B&O cars.

[bob turner]

This is a pair of my favorites. The one on the left is Mac Shops, cut here. On the right, the K-Line. Note the trucks - K-Line has those old one piece sand cast trucks, and Mac has Kemtron. Happy with both. No, I don't know who I gave the K-Line trucks to; they were a Chinese prototype. MTH now has accurate trucks.

In the end, I wound up with a wood center sill on my K-Lines, milled so that the bumps on the steel floor could remain. The wood was attached with machine screws, then the trucks with wood screws. That gave me insulation without worrying about wheel wipers, and lights.

The horrible plastic underframe detail casting was discarded, and someday of course I will put more realistic boxes and tanks in there. I usually use wood for that kind of detail, liberally coated with sanding sealer.

By the way, that is Scale Coat on the Mac - better colors than K-Line. Alas . . .

[gregj410]

Thank you Bob and thank you for starting this thread. I’ve always had a love for the K-line stream liners. I run all western big steam with the exception of these B&O streamliners pulled by an Em-1, which is probably not prototypical, but it allowed me to buy one more big steam engine. It is more sentimental for me as my grandfather was an engineer for the B&O RR. I have a pic in the living room of him and his crew posing in front of an 0-8-0 switcher. I don’t know the extent of what he operated on the B&O.

Moving along. Hopefully you don’t mind I did a screen grab of your streamliner for comparison purposes to my 3 rail version regarding the trucks. The kadees make all the difference between the two. I do see quite a difference in the truck configuration. I do like that your model has a more toned down look than my version regarding the trucks. As much as I appreciate one’s love for accuracy, I don’t however see me ever changing them out. That being said I didn’t think I’d swap out the light boards either. I guess you never say never

[bob turner]

My photos can be reproduced by anyone willing to credit me for them. You did, so I am happy. I got thrown off OGR for asking for that simple thing.

Me too on the western roads, but man, does that blue and grey jump out at you with a few yellow stripes. I have an FT set and a PA in matching colors - and an unpowered Adams E7 that is close, but may get Central of Ga (thanks, Pete) decals. Just stunning.

This one is pretty rough - I think it has since been re-done and repainted:

[bob turner]

Here are the FTs - Henry sent me some castings. They will go back to DRGW or maybe WP Pumpkin as soon as I paint some FAs in B&O.
Dave will tell you most of my train photos show a wheel off the track. I have since re-gauged the display track and am having better luck.

[gregj410]

Ok now your making me think about things. I just remembered I have the K-line A-B-A E7’s that go with this 11 car set. The only diesels I own.

Funny back story on collecting my B&O stream liners. The K-line catalogs are still available on line and showed two baggage cars with different road numbers. I was missing one of those and another car that I had searched for a number of years. I had them saved in my search on eBay and they came up one day. The guy that owned them lived in the next town over. I emailed him and closed the deal. All that looking and they were right under my nose the whole time.

[gregj410]

This one just arrived a couple of days ago.That was a nice video, what a consist of B&O cars.

Stephen,
The K-line cat shows there are 16 of those SP streamliners. I have 14 and I’ve contemplated the other two. The problem is one of the 2 are observation cars with the round end so having two in the same consist just wouldn’t look right. The other is a dome car I believe. Still undecided on whether I will eventually get the other two to complete the collection. I had to buy a powered B unit to assist in the pull. My Lionel SP Northern couldn’t cut it alone.

That’s a beautiful shot of the Rio Grande streamliner. Are you collecting those?

I found the SP coffee car was the more difficult one to find.

[steamaheadstephen59]

Id like to have some more Rio Grand cars Greg , doing O scale from Australia is challenging. The SP car was purchased here in Australia, the Rio Grand was shipped when shipping was a little less expensive, we will see. I do have " American Lightweight " SP cars that need a little bit of work too. I think Bobs points on trucks are interesting. I have a similar bronze set or two, like those on the B&O car Bob showed above, but with no brake shoes and the nice wholes between the springs, did you work them a little Bob???

[bob turner]

I have several kinds - All Nation bronze, and a couple varieties that were done better. All I do is drill and tap them, then insert wheelsets and paint.

When I was a kid I was freaky for coil spring sprung trucks. I got over that - cast trucks look better to me (except for Lionel and Auel trucks, which had pretty hefty coil springs).