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Key people(co-founder and owner)(owner)ProductsElectric trains and accessoriesLionel 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 and 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, became the first electric toy inducted into the. Lionel Corporation productsThe original Lionel Corporation was founded in 1900 by and Harry C. 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. Pre-war era (1900–1942) It was historically thought that 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.Recently however, the 2014 edition of Greenbergs Guide to Lionel trains standard and 2 7/8' gauges has concluded that the first Lionel product was the motorized Converse Trolley, with the electric express being made to diversify the motor's use.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 's 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 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 standard for its budget-level trains.By the end of, Lionel was one of three major U.S. Toy train manufacturers, and it grew rapidly due to shrewd. Cowen began getting department stores to incorporate his toy trains into their displays, linking toy trains to and making them popular Christmas presents. Lionel made its trains larger than its competitors', making them appear a better value.Competitors criticised the realism of Lionel's trains - Cowen had been unwilling to invest in the equipment necessary for, so its early offerings were simply painted in solid colors of with detail parts. Lionel responded by targeting advertising at children, telling them its products were the most realistic toy trains. Additionally, Lionel criticised the durability of competitors' products in ads targeted at parents.By 1922, Lionel was competing mainly against American Flyer and Ives.
Also in 1922, Boucher bought out VoltAmp and started making what was known as the 'Rolls Royce' of standard gauge trains. In 1925, American Flyer jumped into the standard gauge market; and by 1926, Dorfan started making their own standard gauge trains as well., a large seller of model railroads, asked Cowen in 1929 why Lionel painted its trains in bright and unrealistic colors. Cowen said that the majority of trains were purchased by mothers for their children, and the bright colors attracted women buyers. In 1929, Lionel opened a factory in where it produced trains until 1974.By the 1920s, Lionel had overcome to become the market leader, selling metal trains with colourful paint schemes. Lionel's fierce ad campaigning took a toll on Ives, which filed bankruptcy in 1928. Lionel and bought Ives and operated it jointly until 1930, when Lionel bought Flyer's share, outright, causing Lionel to operate Ives as a subsidiary until 1932.The badly hurt Lionel. In 1930, Lionel's operating profit dropped to $82,000 - its operating profit in 1927 had been more than $500,000 - and in 1931, it lost $207,000.
The trains were considered a luxury item, and at the height of the Depression, one of Lionel's more extravagant locomotives cost as much as a used. In an effort to compete with companies which were willing to undercut Lionel's prices without diluting its premium Lionel and Ives brands, Lionel introduced a line of inexpensive electric toy trains under the Winner Toys' or Winner Toy Corp. Brand name, which were sold from 1930 to 1932.The starting price for a set, which included a transformer, was $3.25. These and other efforts to improve its financial standing were unable to keep Lionel from going into receivership in May 1934.The product widely credited with saving the company was a wind-up handcar featuring which operated on O gauge track, and sold for $1.
Lionel manufactured 250,000 units, but was still unable to keep up with demand. Post-war Lionel trains and accessoriesLionel resumed producing toy trains in late 1945, replacing their original product line with less-colourful, but more realistic, trains and concentrating exclusively on O-gauge trains.Many of Lionel's steam locomotives of this period, had a new feature: smoke, produced by dropping a small tablet or a special oil into the locomotive's smokestack, which contained an electric heating element.
Main article:Lionel, LLC currently owns all trademarks and most of the rights associated with the Lionel Corporation.Construction set During the post-war period, Lionel produced a, utilizing a unique component set. While competitive sets used nut and bolt fasteners, the Lionel set employed round-head aircraft rivets retained with rubber grommets, eliminating the need for tools.
The structural elements were hollow beams of square cross section made from folded and quite thin sheet aluminum, as a consequence subject to destruction if stepped upon. A more substantial folded aluminum base plate was used to form the foundation of most constructions, and additional circular plates could be used to construct larger wheels or pivots. Pulleys, gussets, and splices were also included. The deluxe kits included an electric AC motor with a worm drive and reduction gearset that was powered from household power.
While innovative, the lack of general purpose beam members with lots of holes limited the adaptability of the set to complex constructions. Finished assemblies also lacked the robust durability of its principal competition at the time, the. Outsells American Flyer During the 1950s, Lionel outsold its closest competitor, by nearly 2:1, peaking in 1953.
Some Lionel company histories say Lionel (more than just trains) was the largest toy company in the world by the early 1950s. Had that been the case, it was a short-lived greatness: Lionel's 1955 sales were some $23 million, while rival 's toy (more than just trains) sales were $50 million.The 1946–1956 decade was Lionel's Golden Age. The Lionel 2333 Diesel locomotive, an in the colorful 'Warbonnet' paint scheme that was introduced in 1948, became the Lionel company icon and the icon of the era, yet Lionel declined rapidly after 1956. Hobbyists preferred the smaller but more realistic trains, and children's interest shifted from toy trains to toy cars. The shift caught Lionel off guard, and in 1957, they hastily introduced a line of HO-scale trains licensed from and a line of racing sets. Neither product line was as popular as its O-gauge trains.
Efforts to increase train set profitability and/or sales by cheaper manufacture (largely by replacing castings and folded sheet metal with unpainted injected-molded colored plastic) were largely unsuccessful; 1957 was Lionel's last profitable post-war year.In 1959, Cowen and son sold their interest in the Lionel company and retired. The buyer was Cowen's grandnephew, (businessman and attorney to Senator ) who replaced most of Cowen's management. The business direction of the Lionel company changed: it added subsidiary companies unrelated to toy train sets — among them were Dale Electronics, Sterling Electric Motors, and Telerad Manufacturing.
Cohn's unsuccessful tenure of Lionel lost the company more than 13 million in his four years of running the company. Diversification As part of this diversification, Lionel formed a relationship with the, whose owner,Harold M. Porter, was a member of the Lionel Board of Directors. Lionel began making a variety of scientifically oriented, hands-on educational toys, designated 'Lionel-Porter.' The product line, cataloged from 1961 to 1968, included Chemcraft chemistry sets, Microcraft microscope sets, Biocraft biology sets, and sets teaching about mineralogy, physics, geology, mathematics, and industrial science, along with a junior line of tool sets. Decline and bankruptcy Lionel's efforts to diversify failed to compensate for the public's declining interest in its toy trains. By 1966, Lionel's revenue was $28 million, 40 percent from government contracts.
Meanwhile, Lionel's closest competitor also was fading: in January 1967, the parent company of rival American Flyer, the A. Gilbert Company, went bankrupt. Lionel bought the American Flyer brand name and product line in May of that year in a $150,000 deal; however, Lionel lacked the money to exploit them and filed bankruptcy less than four months later, on August 7, 1967. In 1969, Lionel's sales had declined to just over $1 million per year.
Lionel sold the product die tooling for its struggling train line and leased the rights to the Lionel brand name to the cereal company. The Lionel brand name continues today, owned by, yet many Lionel train enthusiasts consider 1969 the end of the 'true Lionel trains', due to the original Lionel Corporation divesting itself of toy train production and the changes in design and manufacture, sometimes for the worse, under Lionel trains' new owners. Lionel Morsan In the early 1970s Lionel bought Morsan Tents from founder Mort Jarashaw. It was a small chain of sporting goods stores based in New Jersey, which became Lionel Morsan.Bankruptcy and buyout After the sale of its train product lines in 1969, Lionel Corporation became a holding company that specialized in toy stores. By the early 1980s, Lionel operated some 150 stores, under the names Lionel Toy City, Lionel Play Town, Lionel Playworld, Lionel Toy Warehouse, and Lionel Toy Town. For a time it was the second-largest toy store chain in the United States. Lionel entered financial troubles during the and filed for in February 1982.
After reducing to 55 stores, it emerged from bankruptcy in September 1985.By 1991, the chain had regrown to 100 stores and was the fourth-largest toy retailer in the country, but it once again ran into trouble due to a combination of factors. In 1989, Robert I. Toussie L.P., a partnership of several retail executives, attempted to buy the company. Lionel resisted and the fight drained the company of cash. Meanwhile, non-specialty discount stores expanded their toy sections and undercut the prices of specialty toy chains.
Additionally, Lionel found it difficult to compete on price with the larger, and it attempted to expand too rapidly in a weakened economy. After a string of unprofitable quarters, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 14, 1991. In 1992, Lionel again tried to reverse its fortunes by merging with the bankrupt, the United States' #3 toy retailer, but was unable to secure financing.
By February 1993, Lionel had closed all but 29 stores in six states, concentrating on the markets of, central, and south. Unable to reach an agreement for reorganization with its creditors, on June 2, 1993, Lionel announced its intention to liquidate all of its stores and go out of business. A Lionel O gauge layout in New York CityThe Lionel trademarks were purchased by, a magnate who had bought the Lionel product line from General Mills in 1986. See.On April 15, 2004, a fire destroyed the former Lionel train factory located in. According to a report from the local fire department, it took 100 firefighters to extinguish the blaze. The building had been vacant for ten years and was in a state of disrepair, according to Fire Chief Don Huber.The old Lionel factory in, where Lionel Corporation manufactured trains from the early 1920s up to 1969 still stands. Photos of the factory can be seen at the ihorse.com Web site.As of 2015 building no longer stands having been torn downThe former Lionel factory at 28 Sager Place, Irvington, New Jersey, and the Hillside, New Jersey factory are the front and back doors of the same building.
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The building that housed the last Lionel office is located at 26750 23 Mile Road, Chesterfield, Michigan; as of March 31, 2017, the building was available for lease. The former Lionel assembly factory was located at 50625 Richard W. Blvd, Chesterfield — a short drive from the office building.Games licensed by Lionel Corporation.: Nintendo DS game. (and its sequel, Deluxe): Windows gameReferences. 2010-02-18 at the 'Lionel' American Heritage, Nov./Dec. 2006. ^ Osterhoff, Robert J.
'When the Lights Went out at Lionel, Classic Toy Trains, May 1999. Page 76. 2009-06-09 at the. ^ Stephan, Elizabeth A. O'Brien's Collecting Toy Trains, 5th Ed., Krause Publications. Page 181. ^.
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Grams, John A. 'Realism Comes to Lionel, Classic Toy Trains, March 1997. Page 72. ^ All Aboard!
The Story of Joshua Lionel Cowen & His Lionel Train Company by Ron Hollander. Coopee, Todd. ToyTales.ca. Turner Publishing (2004). Lionel Trains: A Pictorial History of Trains and Their Collectors. Turner Publishing Company. P. 19.
Stephan, Elizabeth A. O'Brien's Collecting Toy Trains, 5th Ed., Krause Publications. Page 182. Osterhoff, Robert J. 'When the Lights Went out at Lionel', Classic Toy Trains, May 1999. Page 76.
Liebeck, Laura: 'Deja vu all over again: Lionel re-visits Chapter 11', Discount Store News July 8, 1991. 'Liquidations leave Toy's R US, Kay-Bee toying alone', Discount Store News, July 5, 1993. 'Lionel Leisure 'branches out': toy retailer acquires part ownership of closeouter', Discount Store News, September 17, 1990. Liebeck, Laura: 'Child World is grounded: rescue by Lionel falters', Discount Store News, August 3, 1992.
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'Lionel closing 27 stores in struggle for survival', Discount Store News, February 1, 1993. 2004-12-10 at the. Century21 Commercial. Century 21 Real Estate LLC. Archived from on 1 April 2017. Retrieved 31 March 2017.External links.
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