K-Line

K-Line Electric Trains produced O gauge and S gauge model railway equipment, including locomotives, rolling stock, and buildings. The brand originally belonged to MDK Inc., based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Later, Sanda Kan, a Chinese toy manufacturer that had been MDK's subcontractor, acquired K-Line and licensed the brand and intellectual property to Lionel. After that license expired, Sanda Kan sold the tooling dies to Atlas, Bachmann, Lionel, and RMT.

MDK was founded in 1975 by Maury D. Klein. Like competitor MTH Electric Trains, it operated as a large Lionel dealer, running mail-order ads in magazines such as Model Railroader in the late 1970s. The K-Line name first appeared on aftermarket Lionel-compatible tubular track and on a copy of A.C. Gilbert American Flyer two-rail S-gauge track, which Klein acquired when Gilbert went under. After Louis Marx and Company folded in 1978, MDK expanded the K-Line product line.

In 1980, it bought the tooling for Marx's Plasticville-like Marxville buildings and accessories from bankruptcy. Additional Marx tooling was recovered by scavenging old factories and warehouses. In a well-known incident, Klein and plant manager Brent Chambers found the molds for Marx's model 333 and 1829 4-6-2 locomotives in a dilapidated, unlit, unheated Fisher-Price warehouse near Buffalo, New York, in 1984—a building missing part of its roof.

By 1985, K-Line was making O27 locomotives, cars, and figures from former Marx and Kusan tooling. With minor changes, these were sold under the K-Line brand, competing with Lionel at the low end. The dies stayed mostly the same; only the branding changed—for instance, "Marxville" plastic buildings became "K-Lineville." Couplers were swapped to make cars compatible with Lionel, and graphics were eventually upgraded. Throughout the 1980s, K-Line filled a role similar to Marx's, offering cheaper trains than Lionel with less prestige.

Rise to power

In the 1990s, K-Line bought more disused tooling from other manufacturers, allowing it to offer full-size O gauge for the first time, supplemented by pricier locomotives and rolling stock of its own design. The company shifted away from budget offerings and produced some of the best mass-produced O scale trains, with detailed models in its later years.