Historical facts about Lionel trains

When manufacturers first started making toy trains over 100 years ago, they could not have known how popular these toys would become or how they would become a long-running hobby and obsession for so many people. Joshua Lionel Cowen certainly didn’t know when he first put a small engine on a model flatbed car in 1901 that his name would soon become and remain a household word to millions of people, generation after generation. Little did he know that Lionel’s model trains would become one of the greatest names in miniature railways in the world.

Ironically, Lionel’s first train, which was known simply as the “Electronic Express,” was not designed as a toy but merely as an animated display to attract people’s attention. It certainly did and inquiries started pouring in from people who wanted to buy this adorable little railway as gifts for their children.

Over the years, the popularity of Lionel’s model trains would grow and wane, and the company would swap hands many times, but the toy would never completely disappear from American culture. Today, more than 50 million railway sets have been sold and more than 300 miles of rail are produced annually.

Lionel trains boarding

The popularity of model train building in general and Lionel trains in particular has its basis in American cultural romanticism. Railroads were the first symbol of modern transportation, and people would watch real locomotives driving down the track with a long line of cars and imagine what it would be like to jump on board and take them to a new and different place. Later, when the real railways began to fade from the miniature railroads, they became as much a part of the romantic history of America as the Old West and the old mountain men.

One of the things that kept Lionel’s model trains in such high demand was the quality of their construction and the meticulous attention to detail that went into every locomotive, every car, every building, person, and piece of track. They all seemed so real that people began to see themselves as delivery drivers, owners and tycoons of their own railroads. It becomes a lifelong hobby that often begins when a child discovers the first little Lionel train to run under the tree on Christmas morning. A cherished game that over the years has evolved into a hobby that is shared and passed on from generation to generation.

Clubs will be formed and as more and more people start to share interest in model railroad construction, live competitions will arise to see who can build the most authentic and realistic railroad gaming empire. In the 1950s and 1960s it was not unusual to see fathers and sons in the hobby shops every Saturday looking for the newest locomotive, or other building, tree, or lamppost to add to their growing railroads.

Today, the big guys are major buyers of miniature railroad tracks, cars and accessories as they rediscover the joys of building the model railroad that their great-grandfathers and great-grandfathers enjoyed. Model trains have become part of our heritage and Lionel model trains continue to lead the way in high quality locomotives, rolling stock and track.