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Each week, I will pick a random page from a back issue of Classic Toy Trains and talk a little about it. I’ll kick off this series with the very first cover. It was one of the few covers to feature a person, Richard Kughn, next to part of his collection. You’ll also notice the […]
I’ve been collecting Marx since the 1990s. Growing up with American Flyer S gauge and Lionel, I had largely not gotten to know Marx. Eventually I started to take interest, especially in the plastic locomotives and cars. Plastic molding is something I like to look at and study. I did have a Marx plastic set […]
There’s something magical about childhood memories, especially those centered on beloved toys. My grandparents had a Marx train set, once belonging to my uncles, hidden under a bed upstairs. My sisters and I discovered it and, of course, wanted to set it up and play. We’d wait until the evenings, when my grandparents were busy […]
Around the time that I got my driver’s license in the late 1960s I started to visit a local train store in High Point, N.C. Not having a lot to spend, I was looking for bargains. Two freight cars caught my eye, a nice brown Pennsylvania boxcar (No. 202) and a black Wabash coal hopper […]
The Lionel No. 773 4-6-4 Hudson steam engine and tender from 1950 did much to revive the passion dedicated O gauge modeler Walt Urban Jr. has for toy trains. He reminds us that hobbyists who grew up during the 1950s will remember the annual holiday shopping season as being particularly nostalgic. Like him, many of […]
What do I collect? I collect S gauge Gilbert American Flyer, as it’s the scale and brand with which I entered the model railroading hobby. I have always enjoyed S gauge, as the size is nice and Gilbert American Flyer enjoys a great history and loyal, albeit somewhat small, following. When did I start collecting? […]
Founded in 1830, the Philadelphia-based Baldwin Locomotive Works grew into the world’s largest steam locomotive builder. Baldwin locomotives ruled the rails of countries large and small in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Baldwin’s legendary boss, Samuel Valcain, was intrigued with the diesel by l920, and BLW produced its first demonstrator in l925. In […]
American Flyer’s No. 303 Reading Lines 4-4-2 Atlantic steam engine and tender helped to inspire a young boy growing up near Chicago back in the middle 1950s to first consider how he might make railroading the essence of his career. Kevin Keefe, who would grow up to serve as a distinguished editor for Trains Magazine […]
A quiet revolution changed the toy train industry in the 1930s. Firms aimed to introduce more realistic products. Advances in the die-casting of metals and the compression-molding of plastics shaped that trend. The A.C. Gilbert Co. began to develop scale and semi-scale engines and rolling stock while pushing for greater animation in its accessories. The […]
As the postwar era began for Lionel, concern for a more colorful, more highly decorative product was paramount, so Lionel examined different processes for decorating their trains. The tried and true methods (heat stamping and rubber stamping) were used to great success, but both had limitations. With heat stamping, a fairly flat surface was needed, […]
Metal railroad heralds in cereal boxes offered boys and girls during the 1950s one more way to show their fascination with trains, whether full-size or miniature replicas. Kids, eager to discover the premiums packed inside boxes of their favorite breakfast food, had no hesitation about begging their parents to buy box after box of Sugar […]
The year was 1933, and the Great Depression was in full swing. Lionel was touting the new “Chugger” sound mechanism in its locomotives and still cataloging the landmark Nos. 396E Blue Comet and 411E State passenger sets. On the back page of the consumer catalog, Lionel introduced something new and unlike anything it had offered […]
