Lionel trains store model trains sets model railroads and train accessories Auction info
Lionel trains store Plastic & Resin Kits For Sale Used Plastic & Resin Kits Cheap Plastic & Resin Kits

Plastic & Resin Kits

CON-COR MOXHAM SOAP WORKS BUILDING KIT HO SCALE

CON-COR MOXHAM SOAP WORKS BUILDING KIT HO SCALE

1 $8.00 5h 3m
CON-COR MOXHAM SOAP WORKS BUILDING KIT HO SCALE

CON-COR MOXHAM SOAP WORKS BUILDING KIT HO SCALE

1 $8.00 5h 5m
HO Faller Village Park Kit - NIB

HO Faller Village Park Kit - NIB

 6 $6.39 5h 44m
HO Vollmer Box Girder Bridge Kit - NIB

HO Vollmer Box Girder Bridge Kit - NIB

 7 $18.35 5h 44m
HO Walthers Cornerstone Overhead Traveling Crane Kit -N

HO Walthers Cornerstone Overhead Traveling Crane Kit -N

 7 $9.39 5h 44m
Delany Iron Works

Delany Iron Works

 - $45.99 5h 59m
Faller B-325 Viewing Tower "Rust" with Motor

Faller B-325 Viewing Tower "Rust" with Motor

 2 $178.25 6h 39m
PLASTICVILLE GRANDSTANDS SET OF 2 HO SCALE

PLASTICVILLE GRANDSTANDS SET OF 2 HO SCALE

 6 $16.03 7h 23m
Superb mill building. Excellent paint and weathering.

Superb mill building. Excellent paint and weathering.

$70.00 7h 50m
HO Scale: Brick Retail Building Set- Finished interior

HO Scale: Brick Retail Building Set- Finished interior

 14 $30.78 8h 13m
HO Freight Station & Lumber Yard

HO Freight Station & Lumber Yard

 1 $4.95 8h 36m
HO Train Yard Buildings, NICE!

HO Train Yard Buildings, NICE!

 5 $14.01 8h 36m
HO Buildings 7 Total

HO Buildings 7 Total

 11 $20.41 8h 36m
Ho Buildings 4 Total

Ho Buildings 4 Total

 1 $5.95 8h 36m
HO Church & Train Station

HO Church & Train Station

 - $4.95 8h 36m
HO Scale Houses, 4

HO Scale Houses, 4

 - $5.95 8h 37m
HO Scale Buildings (2)

HO Scale Buildings (2)

 2 $4.95 8h 37m
HO Buildings, Maint Repair Type (3)

HO Buildings, Maint Repair Type (3)

 5 $16.41 8h 37m
HO IHC & Matchbox Airport Starter Kit with 20 Aircraft

HO IHC & Matchbox Airport Starter Kit with 20 Aircraft

 1 $40.00 8h 46m
HO Faller B-310 Ferris Whl & 7 IHC Carnival Set Lot (+)

HO Faller B-310 Ferris Whl & 7 IHC Carnival Set Lot (+)

 1 $180.00 8h 48m

Lionel news

  • Fascinating facts about the invention of
    Lionel Trains     by Joshua Lionel Cowen in 1901.

    LIONEL TRAINS AT A GLANCE: Joshua Lionel Cowen was an inventive guy and had always been very interested in trains. In 1901, he fitted a small motor under a model of a railroad flatcar, powered by a battery on 30 inches of track and the Lionel electric train was born. The first Lionel train was designed to attract window-shopping New Yorkers using the power of animated display. Since its humble beginning Lionel has sold more than 50 million train sets and today produces more than 300 miles of track each year. Joshua Lionel Cowen was an inventive guy and had always been very interested in trains. When he was seven, he whittled a miniature locomotive from wood. It exploded, however, when he tried to fit it with a tiny steam engine. Joshua had never forgotten his childhood experiment. In 1901, he fitted a small motor under a model of a railroad flatcar, a battery and 30 inches of track and the Lionel electric train was born. Joshua  was born on Henry St. in Manhattan’s Lower East Side on August 25, 1877. He preferred playing ball, bicycling, hiking and tinkering with mechanical toys to formal education, and soon became fascinated with electricity, its transmission and its storage in batteries. Cowen did so well in school that in 1893 he entered the College of the City of New York. But, he could not adjust to the confines of a formal education. In short order he dropped out, returned, again dropped out, enrolled at Columbia University, and dropped out there to become an apprentice to Henner & Anderson, an early dry cell battery manufacturer. Then he took a job at the Acme Lamp Company in New York as a battery lamp assembler. During his spare time he liked experimenting, one of many mechanically inclined young men who liked to tinker with things. These jobs gave Cowen the experience he needed to launch Lionel. In 1899, he patented a device for igniting photographers’ flash powder by using dry cell batteries to heat a wire fuse. Cowen than parlayed this into a defense contract to equip 24,000 Navy mines with detonators. His ignorance of armament manufacture did not stop him. He used mercuric fulminate, a sensitive and powerful explosive (his supplier’s deliveryman told him, "The company said you should always keep a good deal around. It’s better to be dead than maimed"), and delivered the fuses to the Brooklyn Navy Yard on time by horse-drawn wagon at a gallop. In January 1900, he filed his second patent which improved on the his first design but again failed to give details. On September 5, 1900, Cowen and a colleague from Acme, Harry C. Grant, started a business in lower Manhattan called the Lionel Manufacturing Company, but they had nothing to manufacture. One hot day when Cowen was sitting in his office waiting for a cool breeze he got the idea of an electric fan. He quickly assembled and marketed the electric fan, but the weather soon cooled and so did public interest. Soon after, Cowen was walking through lower Manhattan when he stopped at a toy store window where he saw, among the toys, a push train. He then had the vision of it going around a circle of track without needing attention. This was the vision which started a legend.