Lionel: America's Favorite Toy Trains

by Gerry Souter and Janet Souter

Book Overview

Since 1901, when Joshua Lionel Cowen launched his company by creating a small number of electrified toy trolleys for department store window displays, Lionel has been the leader in toy electric trains. Lionel's success is based on excellent engineering, durable construction, numerous accessories, and great play value. This colorful volume illustrates the history of Lionel electric toy trains. See how Lionel stayed alive during the Depression when...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0760319308
• ISBN13: 9780760319307
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Voyageur Press (MN)
• Length: 156 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 10.1" x 10.1"

Customer Reviews

Favorite Book about "America's Favorite Toy Trains"?

The fresh, exuberant expression of the Souters' writing continues throughout the book as a look at a paragraph from Chapter 7 attests: "Lionel has survived competition, inflation, two world wars, the Great Depression, financial scandal, receivership, rampant nepotism, material shortages, off-shore production experiments, dubious corporate acquisitions, management blunders, marketing blunders, the decline of the railroads, Roy Cohn as CEO, loss of its distribution network, loss of its primary customer base, Sputnik, acquisition by a cereal company, spin-off to a toy company, purchase by a millionaire hobbyist, and the computer chip revolution. Today, the name Lionel still means `electric train'." Spicing the book further are enticing glimpses at the competition that Lionel often felt nipping at its heels. Here and there throughout the book, sidebars pop up to give views of Carlisle & Finch, Ives, Hafner, American Flyer, Dorfan, Marx, and today's competing brands. Each of these peeks at the "other brand" relates that manufacturer's production to the fortunes of Lionel and helps the reader understand Lionel's response to the threat. The book does have some shortcomings. It really could have been proofread more closely. A photo caption describing the introduction of the operating cattle car states that it arrived in 1948 but goes on to say that it was pricey for 1947. If this weren't confusing enough, the typesetter mistook the year for the price, and the caption actually states that the car "was pricey for $1,947 but sold well." And we thought that today's prices were high! Another gaffe comes when OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, is twice misnamed the Occupational Safety Hazard Administration. Sharp-eyed readers will also catch other errors such as an occasional misspelled or repeated word. These are not often frequent or blatant enough to detract greatly from the enjoyment that the book offers, but they do suggest an inferior proofreading effort. Perhaps some readers will be willing to overlook the affronts upon the language from uncorrected typographical errors; however, they may be less willing to overlook factual errors in the history and description of Lionel's products. During the discussion of Lionel's brief post-war venture into HO scale trains, the Souters state that "Lionel came out with a strange three-rail HO gauge track that was anathema to its primary hobbyist market." The fact is that Lionel never "came out with" any such track during the Post War or any other era. In the late Pre War Period, the company did catalog and sell both two and three-rail track in OO gauge for a brief time. American OO gauge track is wider than HO and is not compatible with it. The book is confusing not only two different track gauges but also two different time periods. Discussion of Lionel's fortunes in 1959 includes a description of the No. 3435 Aquarium Car, part of which reads, "Inside, a str