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K-Line

K-Line K641203 Nabisco Oreo Boxcar LN Box

K-Line K641203 Nabisco Oreo Boxcar LN Box

 4 $20.05 17m
K-Line K-6852 Western Maryland WM Crane Tender Boom Car

K-Line K-6852 Western Maryland WM Crane Tender Boom Car

 3 $10.50 18m
0 027 K-LINE PENN CENTRAL FLEXI-FLO 90008 MIB

0 027 K-LINE PENN CENTRAL FLEXI-FLO 90008 MIB

 1 $9.99 20m
K-Line K-6803 Western Maryland WM Operating Crane Car

K-Line K-6803 Western Maryland WM Operating Crane Car

 5 $26.00 20m
0 027 K-LINE 1994 COLLECTORS CLUB 90005 MIB

0 027 K-LINE 1994 COLLECTORS CLUB 90005 MIB

 - $9.99 20m
K-Line K810 Ringling Bros Circus Operating Crane Car

K-Line K810 Ringling Bros Circus Operating Crane Car

 12 $35.65 20m
0 027 K-LINE X-MAS BOX CAR 90004 MIB

0 027 K-LINE X-MAS BOX CAR 90004 MIB

 4 $16.50 21m
K-Line K6487 Ringling Bros Circus Crane Tender Boom Car

K-Line K6487 Ringling Bros Circus Crane Tender Boom Car

 4 $22.09 22m
0 027 SCALE K-LINE KCC COLLECTORS CLUB K90002 MIB

0 027 SCALE K-LINE KCC COLLECTORS CLUB K90002 MIB

 - $9.99 22m
K-Line K-7208 Ringling Bros Circus Searchlight Car

K-Line K-7208 Ringling Bros Circus Searchlight Car

 14 $22.06 22m
K-Lineville Automobiles #K-4160 O B

K-Lineville Automobiles #K-4160 O B

 1 $9.99 23m
K-Line K6861 Ringling Bros Barnum Circus Boxcar

K-Line K6861 Ringling Bros Barnum Circus Boxcar

 6 $36.00 24m
0 027 SCALE K-LINE KCC COLLECTORS CLUB K90001 MIB

0 027 SCALE K-LINE KCC COLLECTORS CLUB K90001 MIB

 - $9.99 24m
K-Line K-69002 Circus Transport CTRX Flat Car w Wagons

K-Line K-69002 Circus Transport CTRX Flat Car w Wagons

 10 $12.40 25m
K-Line K-69009 Circus Transport CTRX Flat Car w Wagons

K-Line K-69009 Circus Transport CTRX Flat Car w Wagons

 4 $10.50 25m
0 027 SCALE K-LINE SFRD CLASSIC REEFER #2 K75032 MIB

0 027 SCALE K-LINE SFRD CLASSIC REEFER #2 K75032 MIB

 - $9.99 25m
K-Line K642-5301 Circus Transport CTRX Reefer Car

K-Line K642-5301 Circus Transport CTRX Reefer Car

 5 $16.51 26m
K-Line K-6319 MKT The Katy Tank Car

K-Line K-6319 MKT The Katy Tank Car

 1 $9.99 27m
K-Line K-69003 Circus Transport CTRX Flat Car w Wagons

K-Line K-69003 Circus Transport CTRX Flat Car w Wagons

 5 $12.50 27m
K-Line K-6389 Ewing Oil Dallas Tank Car

K-Line K-6389 Ewing Oil Dallas Tank Car

 1 $9.99 27m

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.