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Lionel trains store O Scale For Sale Used O Scale Cheap O Scale

O Scale

1995 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL BOX CAR O O27

1995 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL BOX CAR O O27

 $25.00 15m
1984 TTOS CONVENTION FREIGHT CARRIER CAR O O27

1984 TTOS CONVENTION FREIGHT CARRIER CAR O O27

 $60.00 15m
1994 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL FORD 3 CAR SERIES O O27

1994 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL FORD 3 CAR SERIES O O27

 $75.00 15m
1983 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

1983 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

 $35.00 15m
1985 TTOS CONVENTION ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

1985 TTOS CONVENTION ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

 $35.00 15m
1991 TTOS CONVENTION K-LINE ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

1991 TTOS CONVENTION K-LINE ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

 $25.00 15m
1988 TTOS CONVENTION K-LINE TANK CAR O O27

1988 TTOS CONVENTION K-LINE TANK CAR O O27

 $25.00 15m
1971 TTOS KRIS(KMT) BOX CAR CONVENTION CAR O O27

1971 TTOS KRIS(KMT) BOX CAR CONVENTION CAR O O27

$25.00 15m
1978 TTOS LIONEL ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

1978 TTOS LIONEL ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

$25.00 15m
1982 TCA CONVENTION DENVER COMBINATION CAR 6-7205

1982 TCA CONVENTION DENVER COMBINATION CAR 6-7205

 $30.00 15m
1983 TCA CONVENTION LOUISVILLE PASSENGER CAR 6-7206

1983 TCA CONVENTION LOUISVILLE PASSENGER CAR 6-7206

 $30.00 15m
1980 TCA CONVENTION CHICAGO OBSERVATION CAR 6-9544

1980 TCA CONVENTION CHICAGO OBSERVATION CAR 6-9544

 $30.00 15m
1985 TCA CONVENTION REA REEFER 6-5734

1985 TCA CONVENTION REA REEFER 6-5734

 $30.00 15m
1975 TCA ORLANDO "SOUTHERN BELLE" BOXCAR 6-9774

1975 TCA ORLANDO "SOUTHERN BELLE" BOXCAR 6-9774

 $25.00 15m
1992 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL CAR 6-19963 O O27

1992 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL CAR 6-19963 O O27

 $25.00 15m
1977 TCA PHILADELPHIA BOXCAR "9700-1976" 6-9779

1977 TCA PHILADELPHIA BOXCAR "9700-1976" 6-9779

 $20.00 15m
1988 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

1988 TTOS CONVENTION LIONEL ROLLING STOCK CAR O O27

 $50.00 15m
1989 TCA CONVENTION VALLEY FORGE DINING CAR

1989 TCA CONVENTION VALLEY FORGE DINING CAR

 $35.00 15m
1982 TCA CONVENTION BOSTON HI-CUBE CAR 6-9611

1982 TCA CONVENTION BOSTON HI-CUBE CAR 6-9611

 $15.00 15m
1976 TCA BICENTENNIAL SPECIAL SET

1976 TCA BICENTENNIAL SPECIAL SET

 $300.00 15m

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.