The Golden Age of Toy Trains. Featuring Lionel, Marx, and American Flyer of the Postwar Era (1945-69).
Lionel
Lionel was one of the largest manufacturers of toy trains in the 1950s. Most of their products were “O” Gauge. They released catalogs every year in time for the holidays and children poured through them dreaming of the trains they might get as presents.
In their 1957 catalog Lionel published an artist’s concept of a dream toy train layout for their latest products. They included a list of the tracks and accessories necessary to recreate the layout and proclaimed that a model railroad “never stops growing!” Tracks covered nearly the entire layout with loops to run two trains at the same time as well as sidings to load and unload items from trains using the Lionel activated accessories. You can be sure many children dreams of building this layout!
Marx
In 1934 Marx produced its first newly designed model train set, the streamlined Union Pacific M-10000. The streamlined Marx Commodore Vanderbilt was issued in 1935 with new 6 inch tinplate cars. The ever popular Marx Canadian Pacific 3000 appeared in 1936 in Canada, while the articulated Marx Mercury was introduced to America. The success of Marx “027” train line forced other manufacturers to follow suit in size and fashion. Marx continued to make tinplate train sets until 1972. Plastic sets began in 1952 and only plastic sets were made after 1973, until the end of the company in 1975.
All of the Marx trains you will see are original and more than 50 years old. Nearly all of the track, accessories, and power supplies were made, designed, or tooled by Louis Marx & Company between 1929 and 1974. Some of the pieces are post-1975 re-castings or reproductions created by the New Marx Trains/Ameritrains company.
American Flyer
This is S-scale, 3/16th to the foot or a proportion of 1:64 to reality.
A.C. Gilbert bought a line of O-gauge toy trains around 1937 called the “Chicago American Flyer Trains”. Gilbert marketed these as “American Flyer Trains” and made the die cast 1/64th tooling for their steam engines from 1938 to 1942 though they ran on O-gauge 3 rail track similar to Lionel trains.
In 1942, the National Model Railroad Association designated 1/64th scale models (1/2 of the old #1 gauge) as “S” scale. Following World War II, the AC Gilbert Co. introduced the American Flyer S-scale trains using 2-rail S-gauge track. Although more ‘scale-like’ they could never quite compete against Lionel. American Flyer was sold to Lionel in 1967. Lionel still makes American Flyer S-gauge today.
