Lionel Pre-War Trains - By: karl donald

Lionel trains have a long history in the United States and beyond and have been enjoyed by children and adults alike for more than a century. Lionel began to build these trains over 100 years ago, but it should be noted that they weren't originally meant to be toys. Instead, they began to build them for the specific purpose of store display use, especially during the Christmas holidays. This first train was operated with electric batteries and the trains ran on a tack made of brass. It didn't take long before many store customers started to ask about these trains and Lionel built just 12 to sell to the public.

Collecting Pre-War Lionel trains has become very popular today as they have become coveted collectors items, rather than simply a child's toy. When we speak about Pre-War model trains we're referring to those built by Lionel between 1901 and 1942.

Prewar model trains built early in this period, just after 1900, were much smaller in size than the trains that are typically seen today. These ran on a two-rail track that was 2 7/8 inches apart. Lionel moved to a three-rail track system just after, thus differentiating from the commonly used two-rail track most manufacturers had favored since the late 1800s. This new track system wasn't that much different from previous track systems, but it was still enough of a difference that other manufacturers' earlier-made train sets could not run on these tracks. It's not known why Lionel decided to change the size of the track and make it different from those of competitors, but there are a couple of theories. Either they intentionally made their track size different from a chief competitor, Marklin, or it was simply a mistake and they got the size wrong because of inaccurate drawings. For whatever reason it would appear that the company was trying to differentiate itself from other train manufacturers and they named their new track size, Standard Gauge. Lionel's tactic worked, because soon after, other toy train makers in the US began to use Standard Gauge as well.

As the First World War was approaching, Lionel started to look for ways to build less expensive trains and in 1915 they began building O Gauge trains. These were smaller train sets and were therefore less expensive to make and could be sold for lower prices. After just 15 years as a train maker, Lionel had become a solid name in the industry, thus becoming one of the largest manufacturers of toy trains in the US. The company believed strongly in using marketing to their advantage and this allow the company to become well known to the public. For example, one of the ways Lionel got its trains in front of consumers was to encourage stores to use these trains in Christmas display setups. These Lionel train setups always got a lot of attention from customers, which means the company itself, of course, also got a lot of attention.

A major difference between Lionel trains of the prewar period and other manufacturers' trains was that they used bright colors and larger cars. Lionel had not yet begun to build tin litho trains, which meant that they could build very true to life trains. These were very popular with children and also looked to be a better value for the money to parents. Lionel chose to go with bright colors for its prewar models, in that these would not have been used on real trains. That meant that the trains' shape and details were realistic, but the colors themselves were not. Other train manufacturers targeted Lionel for this, but in fact, Lionel's use of bright colors was deliberate.

Lionel trains have a long history in the United States and beyond and have been enjoyed by children and adults alike for more than a century. Lionel began to build these trains over 100 years ago, but it should be noted that they weren't originally meant to be toys. Instead, they began to build them for the specific purpose of store display use, especially during the Christmas holidays. This first train was operated with electric batteries and the trains ran on a tack made of brass.

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