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Post by david1 on Jan 4, 2024 19:44:22 GMT
I asked a question about a Mikado made by K-line and it got me thinking of the end of the K-line.
After the lawsuit was settled in 2005 in a very favorable way for K-line and they could have continued business because of Lionels not wanting to put K-line out of business but then K-line put out a press release stating they did nothing wrong and taking no responsibility for the whole thing forcing Lionel to go back to court and that's where K-lines business ended.
If not for that press release K-line may still be in business but they did and they are not in business. Some people just cannot shut up and Maury Kline was one of them. He had to Ok that press release and it was a huge mistake.
I still have some of their trains and they were very nice and still are and I am still picking up a piece here and there.
Dave
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Post by josef on Jan 4, 2024 19:49:05 GMT
To this day, many have said their Hudson is better detailed then Lionels and many have swapped out the K Line motor for better and longer life engine.
One thing for sure, their big engines could run smaller radius tracks also which was a big hit with many. I have several of their engines and very satisfied.
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Post by g3750 on Jan 4, 2024 21:27:03 GMT
The suit was about K-Line's pirating of Lionel technology and yes, it was a solution favorable to them if they admitted responsibility for their actions.
You must also remember that K-Line had a huge amount of debt. They were selling very high quality models (beating Lionel, MTH, Weaver, and Williams for detail level and authenticity) at extremely low prices. Their margins, when they actually made profits on these models, were razor thin.
At some point, it was going to be time to pay the piper.
Don't get me wrong, I loved their stuff. I wish they were still around. But I remember thinking they can't be making money at these prices. And it turns out they weren't.
George
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Post by Craignor on Jan 5, 2024 0:58:41 GMT
I was paying attention to this news on the forum that morning and was pleased with the first press release, and stunned by the next one.
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Post by Traindiesel! on Jan 5, 2024 1:51:17 GMT
From what I remember reading at the time, Maury Klein refused to give in to Lionel or the settlement. But I think even if he had K-Line's direction and business model wouldn't have lasted much longer. As George mentioned above they were selling high quality trains at very reasonable prices and were alredy deep in debt to their suppliers. Also at the time it was the height of the great O gauge blow out era where dealers were heavily reducing prices from all manufacturers. I acquired a lot of K-Line trains during this time, especially the 21" aluminum passenger car sets. They still get premium prices on eBay nearly 20 years after K-Line's demise. They were the best consumer market passenger cars made until Golden Gate Depot got into the mix.
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Post by dennym57 on Jan 5, 2024 2:18:45 GMT
I like my K-Line Golden State passenger set. I have all the passenger cars and the A-B-A locos. They run great.
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Post by healey36 on Jan 5, 2024 13:33:13 GMT
Those were such ugly times in this hobby.
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Post by g3750 on Jan 6, 2024 1:26:39 GMT
From what I remember reading at the time, Maury Klein refused to give in to Lionel or the settlement. But I think even if he had K-Line's direction and business model wouldn't have lasted much longer. As George mentioned above they were selling high quality trains at very reasonable prices and were alredy deep in debt to their suppliers. Also at the time it was the height of the great O gauge blow out era where dealers were heavily reducing prices from all manufacturers. I acquired a lot of K-Line trains during this time, especially the 21" aluminum passenger car sets. They still get premium prices on eBay nearly 20 years after K-Line's demise. They were the best consumer market passenger cars made until Golden Gate Depot got into the mix. I still think the K-Line passenger cars are the standard by which others are judged. I really love my 18" Spirit of St. Louis 4-car set. I don't know of anyone else who made those.
George
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Post by Traindiesel! on Jan 6, 2024 1:45:15 GMT
From what I remember reading at the time, Maury Klein refused to give in to Lionel or the settlement. But I think even if he had K-Line's direction and business model wouldn't have lasted much longer. As George mentioned above they were selling high quality trains at very reasonable prices and were alredy deep in debt to their suppliers. Also at the time it was the height of the great O gauge blow out era where dealers were heavily reducing prices from all manufacturers. I acquired a lot of K-Line trains during this time, especially the 21" aluminum passenger car sets. They still get premium prices on eBay nearly 20 years after K-Line's demise. They were the best consumer market passenger cars made until Golden Gate Depot got into the mix. I still think the K-Line passenger cars are the standard by which others are judged. I really love my 18" Spirit of St. Louis 4-car set. I don't know of anyone else who made those.
George
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Post by g3750 on Jan 6, 2024 2:17:17 GMT
Thanks Brian! Where are you in your layout construction process? Are you close to running those?
George
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Post by Traindiesel! on Jan 7, 2024 8:26:31 GMT
Thanks Brian! Where are you in your layout construction process? Are you close to running those?
George
When we moved to California we had big plans for a layout. We planned to have a building constructed on our lot. Space we had I could have had a 100’X30’ building for the layout. Then life intervened. One reason for the move was to be closer to our aging parents. Traveling to and from the Bay Area and Phoenix occasionally took away a lot of time. My father passed away the day after we landed in California. I stayed with Mom in Phoenix while our belongings arrived to our home that my wife had to stay behind to deal with. After coming back to our house it took forever for us to unpack. The movers put boxes anywhere they found a place, in spite of my wife’s directions. Trains were in every room throughout the house among the rest of our belongings.
Then the others started passing away, including having my mother in law living with us for most of the year after my father in law passed away. After his passing we along with my wife’s family spent a month at their house securing it and convincing their Mom to live with us.
Then Covid hit. During this time it was difficult to find a contractor willing to come out. Now that my Mom is the only parent left our reasons for being here, other than the fantastic weather and great neighbors, have diminished. Although not imminent if we don’t stay here it didn’t make sense to construct a building and end up planning to move in the middle of layout building. Then my wife came to the rescue. She offered me the living room to build a temporary layout.
I purchased some Mianne Benchwork and after finding places for the furniture I began building a 17’x14’ around the room layout. My original focus for the layout was to just have two loops of track and use it to test and run some trains after servicing them. They’ve been imprisoned in their boxes for almost seven years now so I planned to open them up one by one, service what I can and test them to see if any of them needed more care beyond my capabilities. That way if we move again they’ll be ready and serviced for the next layout.
But then procrastination set in. I was conflicted on what I wanted to do and handcuffed by the realization that this layout would be much smaller than what I had in Pennsylvania and what I had planned for the proposed building. I was thinking big and couldn’t adjust to a smaller space, I wasn’t allowing myself to have fun. So the layout just sat there as a playground for our cats. Time was going by and nothing was getting done. I was feeding my love for the hobby by buying more trains.
Although I’m still figuring out what I want the layout to be, with renewed energy in the new year I’m going to focus on getting the trains running on some nickel silver rails and just have fun! 🚂 🎉 I may build something basic or something very detailed or something in between. I’ll document my progress on the pages of this forum! I know I’ll get some great ideas along the way from the OGF Universe!
So the short answer is “soon”! 😎. Stay tuned.
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Post by runamuckchuck on Jan 7, 2024 18:16:39 GMT
Brian, if I may be so bold, your well deserved indecision is feeding upon itself and putting you in a funk. The best way to rid yourself of this stagnation is to make do with the possible and just do it. I can guarantee you that even if it is not what you planned it will be what you need right now in order to get some fun back into your love of model trains.
Soon can't be soon enough!
Ground Hog day is just around the corner.
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Post by g3750 on Jan 7, 2024 20:52:00 GMT
Brian, I am very sorry to hear that. Life does play rough sometimes. Kudos to you for trying to look after your parents and in-laws. 
George
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Post by dlagrua on Jan 8, 2024 0:16:21 GMT
It took me about 20 years to build my dream layout mostly working in the evening when my wife left for work at the hospital (shes a nurse). Over those 20 years my family has greatly thinned and we encountered many losses as Brian has, but still I pushed on. Today I am at a point where retirement has set in but the layout is near complete. If I were to do it all over again I would just call in a layout pro to build to my plans.
Getting back to the subject matter K-Line may have entered the market at too late a time and tried to buy its way in. They made some great stuff. it was affordable , ran well but it was not sustainable for a one man operation after the large legal expenses kicked in. Maury was going head to head with a multinational Wall Street Corporation and they put him under. The tooling is still out there in China somewhere same as is Right of Way Industries tooling probably is They were another company that made O scale quality trains.
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Post by dennym57 on Jan 8, 2024 1:35:51 GMT
Brian, I'm sorry all that happened to you. I'm sure you'll eventually be able to get things together and you guys will get your home in order and you can run trains.
You've been through enough.
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