Lionel trains store model trains sets model railroads and train accessories Auction info
Lionel trains store Hornby For Sale Used Hornby Cheap Hornby

Hornby

Hornby Skaledale HO R8682 Greenhouse building

Hornby Skaledale HO R8682 Greenhouse building

2 $12.49 9h 39m
Hornby Skaledale HO R8727 Petrol gas station

Hornby Skaledale HO R8727 Petrol gas station

1 $9.99 9h 40m
Hornby Skaledale HO R8772 Bellamys Factory building

Hornby Skaledale HO R8772 Bellamys Factory building

- $9.99 9h 41m
HORNBY 8509 ENGINE & TENDER LNER LINES APPLE GREEN

HORNBY 8509 ENGINE & TENDER LNER LINES APPLE GREEN

4 $18.38 1d 15h 3m
HORNBY LNER 4-6-2 A4 MALLARD+3 PULLMAN CARS-OBs NR!

HORNBY LNER 4-6-2 A4 MALLARD+3 PULLMAN CARS-OBs NR!

4 $85.99 1d 15h 33m
HORNBY RAILWAYS LNER 4-6-2 A4 SILVER LINK+3 CARS-OBsNR!

HORNBY RAILWAYS LNER 4-6-2 A4 SILVER LINK+3 CARS-OBsNR!

4 $58.00 1d 15h 37m
80s HORNBY STREAMLINED CORONATION LOCO+CARS-OB-NO RESER

80s HORNBY STREAMLINED CORONATION LOCO+CARS-OB-NO RESER

2 $51.00 1d 15h 41m
HORNBY 69567 BR RAILWAYS TANK LOCOMOTIVE 0-6-2

HORNBY 69567 BR RAILWAYS TANK LOCOMOTIVE 0-6-2

- $9.99 1d 16h 55m
TRI-ANG BRITANNIA ENGINE AND COAL CAR HO SCALE.

TRI-ANG BRITANNIA ENGINE AND COAL CAR HO SCALE.

- $24.99 1d 17h 33m
Set of 5 Triang Hornby passenger cars

Set of 5 Triang Hornby passenger cars

- $125.00 1d 17h 34m
TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN 15865

TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN 15865

- $6.99 1d 17h 36m
TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN 35116.

TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN 35116.

- $6.99 1d 17h 37m
TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN 80531.

TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN 80531.

- $6.99 1d 17h 40m
TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN 15865

TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN 15865

- $6.99 1d 17h 43m
TRI-ANG BUFFET CAR # 1807 HO SCALE MADE IN G BRITAIN.

TRI-ANG BUFFET CAR # 1807 HO SCALE MADE IN G BRITAIN.

- $6.99 1d 17h 45m
TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR # 15865 HO SCALE  GREAT- BRITAIN.

TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR # 15865 HO SCALE GREAT- BRITAIN.

- $6.99 1d 17h 47m
TRI-ANG BUFFET CAR # 1807 HO SCALE  GREAT- BRITAIN.

TRI-ANG BUFFET CAR # 1807 HO SCALE GREAT- BRITAIN.

- $6.99 1d 17h 49m
TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR #15865 HO SCALE  GREAT- BRITAIN.

TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR #15865 HO SCALE GREAT- BRITAIN.

- $6.99 1d 17h 52m
TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR #35116  HO SCALE  GREAT- BRITAIN.

TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR #35116 HO SCALE GREAT- BRITAIN.

- $6.99 1d 17h 53m
TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR #15865  HO SCALE  GREAT- BRITAIN.

TRI-ANG PASSENGER CAR #15865 HO SCALE GREAT- BRITAIN.

- $6.99 1d 17h 55m

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.