Lionel Trains

Lionel Corporation

Lionel Corporation logo on a box from the 1950's
Type	Publicly traded
Industry	Toys and hobbies, Retail
Fate	Liquidation,1995
Successor	Lionel, LLC
Founded	1900
Headquarters	New York, New York, [United States
Key people	Joshua Lionel Cowen (Co-founder and owner) Roy Cohn (owner)
Products	Electric trains and accessories

Lionel Corporation was an American toy manufacturer and retailer that was in business from 1900 to 1995. Founded as an electrical novelties company, Lionel specialized in various products throughout its existence, but toy trains and model railroads were its main claim to fame. Lionel trains, produced from 1900 to 1969, drew admiration from model railroaders around the world for the solidity of their construction and the authenticity of their detail. During its peak years in the 1950s, the company sold $25 million worth of trains per year. In 2006, Lionel's electric train, along with the Easy-Bake Oven, became the first electric toy inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.

The original Lionel Corporation was founded in 1900 by Joshua Lionel Cowen and Harry C. Grant in New York City. The company's devotees disagree over the date of incorporation, as the official paperwork gives a date of September 5, but the paperwork was not filed until September 22, more than two weeks later. Initially, the company specialized in electrical novelties, such as fans and lighting devices.

Lionel's first train, the Electric Express, was not intended for sale to consumers, but rather, as a storefront display. Delivered in December 1900, it operated on a brass track and was powered by a battery and a motor Cowen originally intended to use in an electric fan. Cowen hoped to use the public's fascination with railroads and electricity to capture the public's attention and direct it to the goods for sale. Members of the public started approaching store owners about buying the trains instead, prompting Lionel to begin making toy trains for the general public. Lionel ended up selling 12 examples of the Electric Express.

Lionel's earliest trains were larger than the sizes commonly available today, running on two-rail tracks with the rails 2 ⁷⁄₈ inches apart. In 1906, Lionel began offering a three-rail track that simplified wiring of reverse loops and accessories. Its outer rails were 2 ¹⁄₈ inches apart, which did not match any of the existing standards that other manufacturers had been using since 1891. Whether this was an accidental misreading of Märklin's 2 gauge specifications or an intentional incompatibility is unclear, but Lionel marketed this non-standard track as "The Standard of the World," and soon adopted the name in its catalogs as Standard Gauge and trademarked the name. When other U.S. companies began using Lionel's standard, they usually called it wide gauge. Starting in 1915, Lionel followed most of its U.S. competitors and adopted the smaller O gauge standard for its budget-level trains.