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Mantua

NEW B&O ROYAL BLUE 4-6-2 LOCOMOTIVE W TENDER MANTUA COA

NEW B&O ROYAL BLUE 4-6-2 LOCOMOTIVE W TENDER MANTUA COA

- $99.99 35m
Mantua 75th anniversary steam train set

Mantua 75th anniversary steam train set

- $99.99 39m
Mantua 40' Woodside Reefer-Great Northern

Mantua 40' Woodside Reefer-Great Northern

- $2.95 48m
two box cars

two box cars

- $0.99 1h 2m
5512 MANTUA SNAP ON FREIGHT CAR TRUCKS 10 PCS NEW LOOK

5512 MANTUA SNAP ON FREIGHT CAR TRUCKS 10 PCS NEW LOOK

- $5.99 1h 16m
5520 MANTUA & TYCO LOCO & PASSENGER LIGHT BULBS 4 PCS

5520 MANTUA & TYCO LOCO & PASSENGER LIGHT BULBS 4 PCS

1 $3.99 1h 41m
Mantua HO Service Manual Instructions Parts & more nr

Mantua HO Service Manual Instructions Parts & more nr

-
$29.95
$49.95
2h 7m
OLDER MANTUA HO D & RGW 4-6-0 STEAM LOCOMOTIVE W TENDER

OLDER MANTUA HO D & RGW 4-6-0 STEAM LOCOMOTIVE W TENDER

2 $5.24 2h 17m
#101 Diecast Engineers for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#101 Diecast Engineers for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $4.95 2h 23m
#102 Diecast Engineers for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#102 Diecast Engineers for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $4.95 2h 23m
#107 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#107 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $3.50 2h 23m
#110 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#110 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $3.50 2h 23m
#117 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#117 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $3.50 2h 23m
#122 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#122 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $3.50 2h 23m
#129 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#129 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $3.50 2h 24m
#131 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#131 Diecast Crewmen for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $3.50 2h 24m
#140 Cast 4 Man Crew for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Loco

#140 Cast 4 Man Crew for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Loco

- $7.95 2h 24m
#141 Cast 4 man Crew for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Locos

#141 Cast 4 man Crew for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Locos

- $6.95 2h 24m
#146 Engineers firemen for Mantua,  Varney,  Bowser Locos

#146 Engineers firemen for Mantua, Varney, Bowser Locos

- $7.95 2h 24m
Tyco HO Gen.l Engine Mantua Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe

Tyco HO Gen.l Engine Mantua Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe

-
$49.99
$139.99
2h 24m

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.