Auburn Model Trains (AMT)

(Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA)

Toolmaker Jack Ferris began his career in model railroading with Scale Model Railways a company producing 1/4 inch scale models, in 1929. That company changed hands in 1940, and Jack Ferris joined the rubber/plastics business until 1948 when he founded American Model Toys which reorganised as Auburn Model Trains, in 1954.

Business was not good, and later that same year, Auburn Model Trains was sold to Bill McLain of Kusan a plastics and toy company in Nashville, Tennessee. Kusan produced model trains using the former AMT tools as well as new tooling of their own, but, with a declining market, Kusan ceased US production of trains in 1961. Kusan were located at 2716 Franklin Road, and all Kusan diesel locomotive number boards display 2716.

Following the termination of toy trains by Kusan in the USA, the tooling was shipped to Monterey, Mexico, where Plasticos Leon S.A. produced a range of ex Kusan models in Mexican liveries. Mexican production ceased after four years, most of the dormant tooling being purchased by Andy Kriswalus of Endicott New York in 1967, to produce Kris Model Trains. Andy Kriswalus produced rolling stock only, trading as Kris Model Trains (KMT), but production ceased on the death of Andy in September 1990, and most of the tooling went to Jerry Williams of Williams Electric Trains, a Maryland maker of reproduction tinplate trains, and employer of Mike Wolf. Williams decided to concentrate on plastic, using the earlier tooling, and sold the tinplate tooling to a then young Mike Wolf, who subsequently formed Mike's Train House or MTH.

The original AMT/Kusan/KMT tooling was subsequently sold by Jerry Williams to Maury Kline of K-Line, in North Carolina, who also owned and used ex Marx tooling.

Frank Rash of Frank's Roundhouse issued a series of models using ex Williams products.

Part of the original tooling went to Ready Made Toys who sub contracted for Taylor Made Trucks, who issued a small diesel switcher on a flatbed truck. The switcher was subsequently issued by Ready Made Toys as the RMT Beep, still available today.