Hey, guys, I’m curious about the K-Line passenger cars, as someone on O Scale Yard Sale is offering the car bodies, less trucks and couplers at an affordable price and I’m wondering just how close to scale they are. Some years ago, wanting to avoid having to assemble them myself, I found some Lionel clerestory roof castings. Great plan, but I’d forgotten Lionel is “O gauge,” not “O scale,” so they were considerably narrower than they scale.
Maybe this will get moved to the toy train forum, but does anyone happen to have access to measure the width of the K-Line roof? (Length doesn’t matter.) Thanks.
How wide do you want them to be? Please realize that, when you ask if a piece is “scale,” you have to have a prototype to compare it to. The K-Line Heavyweights are close to or dead-on for width and height with respect to an average, and the are either dead-on or compressed in length, depending on the real car you want. They are about 72 scale feet long, which some cars were and other cars were not. In any case, they are beautifully made cars, and they will run on relatively tight curves (I run mine on 054). I don’t know about buying them without trucks, however, unless you can get them for just a few bucks (i.e. less than $10) because you will spend quite a bit on putting trucks on them. You can get whole cars on eBay for about $40.
You’re right, I model O scale early 20th Century stuff, some of which was built in the 1890s. I was building for my Dream Layout when forced into early retirement by a car accident. I bought some Lionel passenger roofs, only to find they’re 1/2" too narrow, hard to extend, considering the curved surfaces. Yes, K-Line’s passenger car roofs are 2-1/2", 10 scale feet, wide, and I just emailed the seller to see if he still has one. PS They’re very reasonable, considering what a chore it would be to scratchbuild a clerestory roof.