Lionel, LLC is an American designer and importer of toy trains and model railroad headquartered in Concord, North Carolina.  The Lionel name has always been synonymous with Christmas and a train set under every Christmas tree.  A Lionel train set was under my husband's Christmas tree as a little boy and he still has it to this day!  On the other hand, I still have my American Flyer Circus Train .. with the boxes!  

In May 1967, Lionel Corporation announced it had purchased the American Flyer name and tooling even though it was teetering on the brink of financial failure itself.  Lionel model trains continues to bring reliable performance, rugged details and realistic graphics, but now are painted, decorated and assembled in Lionel's own North Carolina facility from parts make in the USA and imported.  

 

American Flyer #643 Circus Flat Car

by

Alfred Carlton Gilbert Company

Chicago, Illinois

and later New Haven, Connecticut

3/16 Scale

Youthful inventor, Joshua Lionel Cowen (1877-1965) at age seven wasn't the first to manufacture toy trains, but his talents as an engineer and salesman soon put Lionel ahead of its competitors.  Cowen designed his first train, the Electric Express, not as a toy, but as an eye-catching display for toy stores. He attached a small steam engine to a wooden locomotive he had carved.  The engine exploded, damaging his parent's kitchen!  Despite his trial and error, Cowen went on to study at Columbia University and the City College of New York. 

During Lionel's early days, Americans were captivated by the railroads and awed by electricity.  Lionel's first trains were powered by wet-cel (acid-filled) batteries which were soon replaced by the 100-volt electric transformer.  By 1906, with the introduction of preassembled track and a selection of engines and cars, the Lionel we know today was already taking shape.  

When Lionel founder, Joshua Cowen's Jewish immigrant family arrived in New York City from Germany after the Civil War, the railroads were literally America's engines of progress.  The "Golden Spike" meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines in 1869 unified the continent and signaled the birth of a world power.  Cowen was born in 1877, just before Edison's first electic light.  He grew up with real trains, amid dizzying change.  Around the time he founded Lionel in 1900, passenger lines like the Peerless Twenteith Century Limited symbolized American technology and sophistication.  

Cowen was already a successful inventor when he created his first toy train and would spend a lifetime stoking America's imagination with the romance of the rails.  With growing prosperity, Lionel's layouts cropped up in more living rooms especially during the Christmas season.  During WWII, many companies had to shut down manufacturing operations of their own products to help the war effort.  Lionel Trains was one such company.  Among other items in production, they were commissioned to produce binnacles for the United States Navy.  

As Lionel looks to the future, it strives to ignite the imaginations and hearts of today's children and adults through continued success with branded and licensed products recapturing its rightful place "under the tree".  Lionel's early trains used two metal rail tracks like most real trains. However, manufacturers quickly found that using three rails (a center rail for electric power and the other two rails for common or ground) made electrical contact much more reliable and less prone to short circuits.  

The 2343 Lionel Santa Fe F3 AA is the very image of postwar Lionel.  It ranks up there with Mickey Mouse and "I Like Ike" as a symbol of America in the 1950s.  Lionel believes it is the best of the best, the most important and most memorable locomotive of Lionel's golden era.

Interesting sidenotes .. Frank Sinatra collected Lionel and tinplate model trains.  Sinatra even had an entire cottage dedicated to his hobby.  Walt Disney loved model trains and often included railroads in his cartoons, films and theme parks.  In the 1970s, Johnny Cash appeared in TV commericals for Lionel Trains.  Tom Hanks' love of model trains reportedly made him eager to sign on as a voice actor in the 2004 film, The Polar Express.