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Micro-Trains Line (MTL)

MTL N Scale 50? Steel Side,  14 Panel Fixed End Gondola w Scrap Load,  CSXT

MTL N Scale 50? Steel Side, 14 Panel Fixed End Gondola w Scrap Load, CSXT

- $8.99 31m
Kadee  22180 The Milwaukee Road RD # 29902 NR Door BL

Kadee 22180 The Milwaukee Road RD # 29902 NR Door BL

- $149.95 58m
Kadee  22180 The Milwaukee Road RD # 29950 NR Door

Kadee 22180 The Milwaukee Road RD # 29950 NR Door

- $19.00 1h 1m
MTL Micro-Trains 39110 NYC 94283

MTL Micro-Trains 39110 NYC 94283

- $20.00 1h 5m
N scale Micro-Trains 50' Standard Boxcar single door w o roofwalk US NAVY

N scale Micro-Trains 50' Standard Boxcar single door w o roofwalk US NAVY

- $20.00 1h 5m
MTL 22180 The Milwaukee Road RD # 29900 NR Door

MTL 22180 The Milwaukee Road RD # 29900 NR Door

- $18.00 1h 5m
N scale Micro-Trains US Navy B unit powered

N scale Micro-Trains US Navy B unit powered

- $68.00 1h 5m
N scale Micro-Trains 40' Boxcar Potlatch Forests

N scale Micro-Trains 40' Boxcar Potlatch Forests

- $8.00 1h 6m
Micro-Trains N 69112 Snomaid 2 Pack of 51' Reefers

Micro-Trains N 69112 Snomaid 2 Pack of 51' Reefers

- $37.00 1h 6m
Micro-Trains N 94102 BNSF Merger 2-Pack BN & Santa Fe

Micro-Trains N 94102 BNSF Merger 2-Pack BN & Santa Fe

- $37.00 1h 6m
MTL 22180 The Milwaukee Road RD # 29960 NR Door

MTL 22180 The Milwaukee Road RD # 29960 NR Door

- $15.95 1h 7m
MTL 22090 Northern Pacific RD # 8135

MTL 22090 Northern Pacific RD # 8135

- $15.95 1h 13m
MTL77010B Northern Pacific W S.I F Label W Mech Rfr 51'

MTL77010B Northern Pacific W S.I F Label W Mech Rfr 51'

- $32.95 1h 15m
Micro-Trains N ACF Covered Hopper 09200260

Micro-Trains N ACF Covered Hopper 09200260

- $25.99 1h 20m
MTL77010C Northern PacificWO S.I F Label W Mech Rfr 51'

MTL77010C Northern PacificWO S.I F Label W Mech Rfr 51'

- $57.95 1h 20m
Micro-Trains N Box Car Montana Rail 02500620

Micro-Trains N Box Car Montana Rail 02500620

- $20.99 1h 23m
MTL Micro-Trains 53020 TTZX 86097

MTL Micro-Trains 53020 TTZX 86097

- $24.00 1h 27m
MTL Micro-Trains 53040 Centex 700038

MTL Micro-Trains 53040 Centex 700038

- $20.00 1h 28m
MTL Micro-Trains 54130 IHB 17021

MTL Micro-Trains 54130 IHB 17021

- $24.00 1h 28m
MTL Micro-Trains 54151 UP 262148

MTL Micro-Trains 54151 UP 262148

- $26.00 1h 28m

Lionel news

  • Fascinating facts about the invention of
    Lionel Trains
    by Joshua Lionel Cowen in 1901.

    LIONEL TRAINS AT A GLANCE: Joshua Lionel Cowen was an inventive guy and had always been very interested in trains. In 1901, he fitted a small motor under a model of a railroad flatcar, powered by a battery on 30 inches of track and the Lionel electric train was born. The first Lionel train was designed to attract window-shopping New Yorkers using the power of animated display. Since its humble beginning Lionel has sold more than 50 million train sets and today produces more than 300 miles of track each year. Joshua Lionel Cowen was an inventive guy and had always been very interested in trains. When he was seven, he whittled a miniature locomotive from wood. It exploded, however, when he tried to fit it with a tiny steam engine. Joshua had never forgotten his childhood experiment. In 1901, he fitted a small motor under a model of a railroad flatcar, a battery and 30 inches of track and the Lionel electric train was born. Joshua  was born on Henry St. in Manhattan’s Lower East Side on August 25, 1877. He preferred playing ball, bicycling, hiking and tinkering with mechanical toys to formal education, and soon became fascinated with electricity, its transmission and its storage in batteries. Cowen did so well in school that in 1893 he entered the College of the City of New York. But, he could not adjust to the confines of a formal education. In short order he dropped out, returned, again dropped out, enrolled at Columbia University, and dropped out there to become an apprentice to Henner & Anderson, an early dry cell battery manufacturer. Then he took a job at the Acme Lamp Company in New York as a battery lamp assembler. During his spare time he liked experimenting, one of many mechanically inclined young men who liked to tinker with things. These jobs gave Cowen the experience he needed to launch Lionel. In 1899, he patented a device for igniting photographers’ flash powder by using dry cell batteries to heat a wire fuse. Cowen than parlayed this into a defense contract to equip 24,000 Navy mines with detonators. His ignorance of armament manufacture did not stop him. He used mercuric fulminate, a sensitive and powerful explosive (his supplier’s deliveryman told him, "The company said you should always keep a good deal around. It’s better to be dead than maimed"), and delivered the fuses to the Brooklyn Navy Yard on time by horse-drawn wagon at a gallop. In January 1900, he filed his second patent which improved on the his first design but again failed to give details. On September 5, 1900, Cowen and a colleague from Acme, Harry C. Grant, started a business in lower Manhattan called the Lionel Manufacturing Company, but they had nothing to manufacture. One hot day when Cowen was sitting in his office waiting for a cool breeze he got the idea of an electric fan. He quickly assembled and marketed the electric fan, but the weather soon cooled and so did public interest. Soon after, Cowen was walking through lower Manhattan when he stopped at a toy store window where he saw, among the toys, a push train. He then had the vision of it going around a circle of track without needing attention. This was the vision which started a legend.