KUSAN INDEX

GENERAL INFORMATION

Soon after taking over the large O gauge line from AMT, Kusan, which was already familiar with plastics, added a 2-Rail DC O gauge line which was introduced in 1956 to compete with Lionel’s O-27 trains. They utilized simple castings and several versions of motors, beginning with a semi-closed Wilson Electric motor which proved inadequate. It was replaced by an open Pittman motor and then about 1958 they introduced a ceramic covered permag motor. The tracks are tubular and use twelve curves to make a 42-inch diameter circle. Straight tracks measure 10 inches. They have plastic ties with a simulated wood grain. Hand thrown switches were included in the line. The lock-on was a very simple narrow unit that used fahnestock clips for the wires and clipped onto the outer sides of the two rails. Construction of the rolling stock was simplified and all plastic except for pick-up wheels on the locos and railings on the tank cars. Early production Cars were not painted. Rather the color is in the plastic used for the castings. Other than the tank car which had added details including the railings, a detailed platform and dome, and brake rigging, the other cars were very basic castings with few parts to minimize production costs. Trucks and couplers were cast together. Wheels and axles were cast as a unit. Early flat cars and gondolas were single castings. So a gondola or flat car required only seven cast parts and two screws to attach the trucks. Box cars needed only one more piece. They were molded as a single body casting with one door open and one closed, but had a separate floor. The hopper was offered both uncovered and covered, but the hatches were molded shut on the covered version. The uncovered version had ten parts, adding a bottom frame and two moveable bottom doors in addition to the basic seven. The covered hopper added one more for the cover. The caboose had ten parts, the basic seven plus base with molded in steps and end rails, the cupola roof, and a smokestack. Box cars and locomotives often included crewmen to glue in place. The original power units were FA diesels similar in appearance and size to Lionel’s later FA units. They were available powered and often with matching dummy units in many road names. Cars and FAs were offered both as kits and built up. Other than the tank car and FAs, they were very simple kits which could be assembled without glue if desired plus a screwdriver to attach the trucks. The FAs were later joined by what we now call BEEPs, sort of scaled down switchers based on a GM GP body style. Like their competitors, Kusan joined the space age with both an “atomic” train and a satellite train. These trains did add details and mechanized action in the form of a cannon which could fire, a radar car with a rotating dish antenna, blinking lights on a reactor car, a lit searchlight car, and a “satellite” suspended over a “Compressortron” car. The blinking lights in the atomic reactor car, the searchlight car, and the “Compressortron” did not have electrical pick-ups. They were powered by wires from the rear of the loco for the atomic reactor and for the larger satellite set, piggy-backed from the “Compressortron” to the searchlight car. Therefore, the atomic reactor car must follow the loco in the “atomic” set, and the Compressortron car must follow the loco and be followed by the searchlight car in the satellite set. The “atomic” set did offer a dummy FA, and it is equipped with pickups and the plugs for powering the reactor car. It would have to run elephant style (nose forward) to do so. The compressortron and searchlight cars were also offered in non-military versions. That simply required changing colors and lettering, which also meant that many cars were now being painted rather than using specifically colored plastic. The radar car also came in other colors. The radar dish does rotate, but it is not powered. Rotation is via a pair of gears, one on the inboard axle on the truck under the dish, the other on a shaft up to the dish. Despite these efforts at animation and play value, production ended in 1960.
Kusan marketed their trains as full freight sets, originally using an FA, later also the BEEP. Consist ranged from three to six cars and some sets included a dummy FA. Similar to Lionel, most sets came with an oval of track and a power pack, although they did catalog a few more elaborate sets. The usual power pack was a KF-5 whose input was 115 V 60 cycle AC, output 8 volt-amperes (watts) with up to 15 volts variable DC. There was no accessory output. They also offered a KS-6 with 16 volt variable DC output at 24 watts and posts for fixed 14 volt AC accessory output at 12 watts which came with some of the larger sets including the KF 119 Satellite set which included he two powered cars. Finally, there was a small KS-4 rated at 12 volts DC at 1.18 watts which was offered later with the BEEP and some FA sets. Unlike Lionel, Kusan sets had cabooses matching the locomotive. Their listings varied over the years, but they offered a mixed line of sets, separately available pieces, and kits. The numbering system sometimes includes a prefix “K”, sometimes there is no prefix. Variations generally got a new number, and this happened often as cars were redecorated to fit in different sets or for different railroads. Somewhat like Lionel and Kusan/AMT’s original big O gauge trains, there was a starting logic. FAs had single digit catalog numbers, box cars are in the 200 series, cabooses in the 500 series, etc., but this seems to have been lost later especially when the military trains came out and more numbers became necessary.
Sometime around 1958, Kusan shifted some non-seasonal production to a subsidiary plant in Mexico using some of the same dies that were used for American production. They were marketed in Mexico and added more road names to the line as well as a few cars never catalogued in the American market. Perhaps following Lionel’s lead, they made a flat car with two autos and a double deck auto loader with four cars. But they beat Lionel to the market with a boat on a flat car.

Courtesy of Ken Morgan

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