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Lionel America’s Favorite Toy Trains by Gerry and Janet Souter w/ dust jacket
Lionel Americas Favorite Toy Trains by Gerry & Janet Souter
Hard Cover w/dust jacket
156 pages
Copyright 2000
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments Page 6
Preface Page 7
Chapter 1 An Electric Cheese Box
Lionel's Primordial Years: I 900-1919 Page 11
Chapter 2 Struggle to Triumph
Lionel Climbs to the Top: 1920-1940 Page 35
Chapter 3 War and Postwar
The Enemy is Joined: 1941-1957 Page 67
Chapter 4 The Fox in the Poultry Car An Empire Derails: 1957-1969 Page 103
Chapter 5 The Fundimensions Era
The "Grain Grinders" Give it Their Best: 1969-1986 Page 113
Chapter 6 "Train Guy" at the Throttle
The Kughn Years: 1987-1996 Page 127
Chapter 7 And Now, Lionel L.L.C.
Thriving Market,Tough Competition: 1996-1999 Page 141
Index Page 156
DUST JACKET INTRODUCTION
A young lad of 12 wearing knickers and a necktie kneels on the playroom carpet next to a loop of three-rail track. Next to him, tail wagging, is his feisty pet terrier. In the doorway, his younger sister watches with admiration. Behind her, Dad, in vest and tie, looks on with approval. A blur of shiny blue tin locomotive and passenger cars with gleaming lights blasts past on steel wheels, hurtling around an impossibly sharp curve. This was Lionel's world in the "golden age" of toy trains.
To America, Lionel means "electric train:' Now 100 years old, Lionel trains circle tracks in millions of homes. From the big beautiful Standard Gauge trains to a brief incursion into HO scale miniatures, Lionel's designers have set a brisk pace to keep the company in front of its competitors..
Joshua Lionel Cowen set up business in the early 1900s and set the pace for vigorous marketing, searching for the next hot toy train design. He steered Lionel through World War 1, the Great Depression and World War Il, but in the I960s Lionel foundered and nearly sank. The name was rescued by General Mills during the conglomerate binge of the early 1970s, and its reputation was reconstructed and polished by businessman/train collector, Richard Kughn.
Lionel: America's Favorite Toy Trains, features over 200 illustrations complementing an entertaining text that illuminates Lionel's history and brings the story forward to the new millennium. The highlights of those 100 years of toy train history are here with contributions from great collections and archives. Lionel's story is an eccentric one filled with brilliant entrepreneurs, geniuses, flagrant nepotism, crackpots, Wall Street sharks, millionaires, and cutthroat business practices. In short, it's an American tale. And for Lionel fans, who will always be kids at heart, it is a tale worth telling.
ON THE BACK COVER:
Throughout its 100 years, Lionel has been a fixture in the toy train marketplace; its supremacy continually challenged by makers such as American Flyer, Ives, and Marx. The Great Depression swallowed most of the competition and almost broke Lionel, but the company-then under the command of founder Joshua Lionel Cowen-was a survivor.
Lionel's pre- and post-World War II lifetime was highlighted with memorable feats of design brilliance: the Blue Comet, the M- I 0000 streamliner, the New York Central Hudson, the Pennsylvania Railroad GG I , and a vast collection of clever accessories that buzzed, zapped, tooted, and percolated along the three-rail track. But in the 1950s and I 960s, Lionel hit a wall as America's railroads crumbled and the Space Race and Cold War became the focus for new toys. Through this tumultuous era, Lionel changed hands several times-including a period under cereal-maker General Mills-until today's Lionel L.L.C. became keeper of the flame in a market driven by baby boomers who had grown up with Lionel.
Lionel: America's Favorite Toy Trains looks at the manufacturer's history from a historian's point of view. Authors Gerry and Janet Souter have interviewed Lionel experts and collectors as well as studied the vast body of collector-oriented literature to produce this book. Over 200 illustrations of Lionel products, as well as competing products, complement the entertaining text. For all of us who think of the word, "electric train;' and a nanosecond later think, "Lionel,' this book is a must.
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