This 1951 Castle Films sound short shows a boy playing with a model railroad and his dreams of operating a fast locomotive on the Pennsylvania main line. There are wonderful scenes of real trains, and about three and one half minutes show toy trains. Much of this footage was shot in the actual Lionel Showroom with salesman Myles Walsh demonstrating the layout to a young boy. The film ends with the boy dreaming that he is a locomotive engineer — so charming and wonderful didn’t we all?

Lionel Corporation was an American toy manufacturer and retailer that was in business from 1900-1993. Founded as an electrical novelties company, Lionel specialized in various products throughout its existence, but toy trains and model railroads were its main claim to fame. Lionel trains, produced from 1900 to 1969, drew admiration from model railroaders around the world for the solidity of their construction and the authenticity of their detail. During its peak years, in the 1950s, the company sold $25 million worth of trains per year. Lionel resumed producing toy trains in late 1945, replacing their original product line with less-colorful, but more realistic trains and concentrating exclusively on O-gauge trains. Many of Lionel’s steam locomotives had a new feature: smoke—produced by dropping a small tablet or a special oil into the locomotive’s smokestack, which contained an electric heating element. Their most popular toy train ever mass-produced was the Santa Fe F3 released in 1948. It was manufactured for 19 years before being discontinued in 1966.

By 1953 Lionel profits reached its highest peak in the postwar era at over $32 million, but as the 1950s progressed Lionel sales began to decline in the growing prevalence of space and military toys and slot car racing sets — all coinciding with the decline in rail travel and the launching of Sputnik, which began the space-race between the United States and Soviet Union, along with the associated military build-up as the Cold War progressed after World War II. What remaining interest in toy and model trains that existed was geared towards HO scale which gradually overtook O gauge in popularity due to its more realistic detailing and smaller size that enabled the enthusiast to do more modelling within the same amount of space. Lionel attempted to keep pace with the changing trends by offering space and military-themed train sets and coming out with their own HO line of trains. Unfortunately, they were never able to reclaim the market share they once held in the toy industry and by 1958 reported a net loss of $469,057.

In 2006, Lionel’s electric train, along with the Easy-Bake Oven, became the first two electric toys inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame. They published a television advertisement in the mid-1980s with a very well known and remembered jingle, “Lionel Kiddy City, turn that frown [clap, clap] upside down.”