Suite Ii Fum
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From their modest beginnings around the turn of the 20th century Lionel trains rose to become one of the premier manufacturers of trains in the world and specially in the United States. There are two types of Lionel trains that tend to get the most attention; Prewar Lionel trains and Post-war Lionel Trains. Post War trains refer to those built from 1945 to 1969, which was a turning point for the company which had ceased production of trains for the duration of WWII. During the war, Lionel, like a lot of other companies was asked to shut down production and shift production to instrumentation employed in the war. With Pre-War Lionel trains, the distinguishing feature was their bright colors which were frequent amidst women buyers as well as their children. Post war Lionel trains reflected a new era which did not include the same bright, unrealistic colors as the pre-war trains, but they did notwithstanding have galore new features which made them unique. Post war Lionel trains added new and stimulating features like the capacity to add oil or little tablets which invented smoke, just like a real train. During this time it was O-Gauge trains that played the greatest portion in the companies return to normal operations and children were rather pleased with these new features. During the post war era, Lionel trains were marketing fast and the only other company that came close to rivaling Lionel was American Flyer, yet Lionel still outsold American Flyer by at least 100%. The company was not without contest though, and their main contest came from Marx toys which had a sales volume more than Lionel. Lionel train sets were the foundation of a train set and then other pieces were added over time. These train sets were boxed sets that came with all pieces necessitated to setup a basic layout. Today a full Lionel boxed set has become a hot commodity amidst accumulators as they are somewhat rare. Once a train set was purchased, then came the real fun of adding person pieces to build a big train empire and a new Lionel locomotive was the next piece that was ofttimes purchased. Lionel introduced diesel locomotives in 1948, which included the now very widely known and esteemed Santa Fe F-3 as well as the New York Central F-3. These two locomotives would become a turning point for the company, which up until that time was overshadowed by steam locomotives as this was what was being used by train companies at the time. Diesel nonetheless became popular in the 1950′s as well as electric power and the days of steam powered locomotives was coming to an end. Since the design of the real diesel powered locomotives were different, they permitted for graphics to be added to the sides of these locomotives and Lionel followed suit by adding these colorful graphics as well. From sets and locomotives there came a need to keep adding and growing the train set and this included a great deal of other post war items including crane cars, boxcars, flat cars, coal dumps, barrel cars, passenger cars and of course cabooses. Today gathering post war Lionel trains is more general than ever. These pretty and distinguishable trains take us back to another era when life was more elementary and toys seemed to have much more character. |
