Kusan-Auburn was a subsidiary of Kusan, an established plastics manufacturer who, under the guidance
of president Bill McLain, purchased AMT's tooling in 1954 and used it as a base
for their own line of trains. They were unique in being able to run on either two or three rail track.
The Kusan KF-110 Atomic Train in '0' gauge was the first toy train to have an
"atomic theme." This was Kusan's first toy train and its introduction was the
subject of an article in the June 29, 1957 issue of Business Week. It was produced between 1957 and 1960.
The company described it as "An exciting new train with extra play value in each
unit."
Kusan also continued to manufacture and kept the highly detailed line of AMT created aluminum
extruded passenger cars alive, using the dies it had purchased. These 'O' gauge cars, originally
issued in 4 styles - a Baggage, Combine, Coach and Observation, became a full range of eight car sets,
each offered in a choice of seven different Famous American Railroad names.
Kusan created many "space train" items in the late 1960's prompting Lionel
to do the same, just as they had done with creation of their aluminum extruded passenger cars to compete with AMT's. Due to increased competition from Lionel, and the decline in the train market, Kusan was
financially forced to phase the line out beginning in 1958. In 1961 the line ended production.
Andy Kriswalus purchased much of the tooling from Kusan in 1967 and, shortly thereafter, began producing
a line of rolling stock under the Kris Model Trains name. Kris Model Trains, or KMT, only produced the box,
stock, and refrigerator cars from the Kusan dies, and on some of these cars they mounted die-cast trucks
from the Kusan tooling. In the early 1980's, after Kriswalus' death, the tooling was sold to
K-Line and Williams Electric Trains, who continued
to use it to produce parts of their budget lines.
