Vintage Lionel Makes All Stops for Collectors

There are few places where art and technology come together so perfectly as in the design and function of railroads, and more collectors are realizing that model railroads are a very true reflection of the power and beauty of the real thing.
Of course, they are also called “toy trains,’ because they were originally meant for children to play with. But these days the big kids are finding a different kind of satisfaction in antique and vintage model trains, and the person they can be most thankful to for all their fun was the man who first played with electric trains, Joshua Lionel Cowen.
Cowen was born “Cohen” to eastern European immigrants in New York City. He was a kid who had ideas, and made things, and he would remain that person until he died in 1959 at the age of 88.
Cowen’s mind was too busy for school, so he went to work for the Acme Lamp Company, where he met a fellow worker, Harry C. Grant and together they started the Lionel Mfg. Co. In September 1901. Their initial problem was that they had nothing to manufacture. Cowen had fiddled with a dry cell battery at Acme, and one hot day he rigged together an electric fan, but nothing was catching on.
The story goes that he passed a toy store one day and, noticing a set of pull-toy trains, he wondered how he might get the trains to run on their own. The answer, he thought was his battery, so he rigged a pull-toy train car with a carefully concealed battery underneath and it worked – for a while.
Then he thought of his fan, and in 1901 the Lionel Mfg. Co. Produced the “Electric Express,” powered by Cowen’s electric fan. They followed that in 1902 with the “City Hall Park” trolley, and in 1903 with a Baltimore & Ohio engine. The age of electric model railroading had begun.
The Lionel company produced those first electric trains in what they called a standard gauge (2-1/2-inches between the rails) until 1915, when they switched to their current O gauge (1-1/4′) with three rails.
The company had its boom years in the 1920s, when investment money was available and consumers were spending. They made the most of that opportunity by massively improving the mechanical quality of their trains, and, just as importantly with the realism and precision of their design.
The next boom time would be the post-war period from 1945-1959, when Cowen ran the company with his son, Lawrence, who, as a child was often featured on the company’s packaging and advertisements.
The bible of Lionel collecting is any current edition of “Greenberg’s Lionel Trains,” which is available from Classic Toy Trains Books (www.cttbooks.com). They also publish other books on model railroading and nine issues a year of Classic Toy Trains Magazine.
The Internet is teeming with information on model railroading, and Lionel in particular. Some other on-line sites you can visit include: www.chochoauctions.com, www.spikesys.com, www.traincity.com, and www.lionel.com.
Appraisals: (No. 2552) Canadian Pacific Boxcar, $110; (No. 2553) Illuminated Passenger Car, $245; (No. 6418) Machinery Car, $48; (No. 18430) New York Central Crew Car, $30; (No. 2554)
Illuminated Passenger Car, $215; (No. 2383) Santa Fe Engine, $260; (No. 6410) Amtrak Passenger Car, $28; (No. 16719) Exploding Boxcar (Danger Explosives), $38.
Arthur Schwerdt, a certified appraiser, is the author of “The Antique Story Book: Finding the Real Value of Old Things,” and co-owner of The August Farmhouse Antiques on Route 9 in Swainton. Send comments, questions and requests to aschwerdt@ cmcherald.com.