LIONEL, AMERICAN FLYER or MARX as a kid?

Most of the kids in my neighborhood had small Lionel sets. One of my friend's older brothers had a Super "O" general set. Another friend had a diesel set with military cars. It was in a suitcase box.
My best buddy had his father's Flyer.
I had a scout set with a headlight, no smoke. We added a few cars and some track (no switches). Eventually we broke something. My uncle cobbed up a fix, but it didn't last, so the whole set was discarded. Knowing what I now do, it could have easily been repaired.

But trains were not the "IT" toy. Slotcars ruled.

I had Flyer. I believe this picture was taken Christmas 1955. That year for Christmas, I received the Rocket (satin finish) A-A diesel passenger set. My three locomotives are sitting there side by side. My new Rocket passenger train sitting on the outside circle, my #374-375 T. and P. diesel set sitting on a siding and my original #312 PRR steam engine sitting on the inside circle.

I and my cousins all had Lionel O gauge. We each had a few engines, freight and passenger cars and operating accessories as well as Lionel and Plasticville buildings. One friend had American Flyer S gauge. This was during the 50s when trains were THE toy for any boy.

Lionel trains from age 4 or 5 to 13. Then into HO for a few years. MTH, Atlas O, K-Line, Weaver, Sunset/3rd Rail (scale-sized only) for the past twenty years.

MELGAR

I had Lionel.  But envied a school chum's AF Santa Fe Alco  AA passenger set.  It was 2-rail and more proportional in length vs width and height.  

I was always a Lionel man.

Bob C.

I can remember watching the trains at a department store in New Orleans at 5 1/2 years old before Christmas 1949 with my Dad.  That Christmas morning there was a Flyer 310 PRR Pacific and three cars on an oval. I can vividly remember thinking of how glad I was that Santa brought me the 2 rail trains! 

Our neighborhood had several of us Flyer boys and only two had Lionel - one pair of brothers who had the Erie FA freight set with a great horn. Never did realize that Lionel was bigger than our American Flyer as his was 027. Later a friend showed me his 2356 Southern set but his dad made him keep it packed away and I never saw it again. I do remember that it appeared larger but since we never carried them from house to house, we didn't realize the size difference!

I always had Lionel trains when I was a youngster but I did also have one Marx set which was my Grandfather's. 

This is going to be hard to believe but I lived in the Wissinoming section of Northeast Philly from 1950 to 1959 and I was the only kid in the neighborhood with a set of toy trains.   We moved to Martinsburg, West Virginia in May of 1959 and I lived there until April of 1970.  Again, I was the only kid that I knew that had toy trains.  Go figure that one.

Hafner windup, Marx windup, then Lionel.

Flyer was usually sold in rural areas outside the Cleveland area.

Lou N

See, once again Marx gets left out. The title of the thread says it all. Sigh.

Actually, I have come to dig Marx only in the last 20 years or so, though I always liked the 666 and 999 and 333...

I had Lionel, and a nice 027 layout, as such things go. 2055 Hudson, passing siding and 2 spurs. 4X8 or 4X6, I forget which. Scratch built (by my father) buildings. Yes, I still have them. All of it, actually, except for the "train table" itself.

No one else I knew actually cared much of a rip about trains. Curtis, across the street, had AF Alcos and a passenger set (they were silver and blue), but his weird mother was always fussing at him for having those "stupid trains" in the way on the floor. So - they mostly stayed put away. Another guy also had AF, but trains interested him for about 20 minutes. Glenn had Kusan, for pete's sake - the Alco ancestors of the K-line 027 body mold production. I liked them. Burlington? Later he got a Mark 666 set and we ran it on my Lionel layout. I really liked that 666 - it ran well, but was much noisier than my 2055.

I got hooked on my cousin's pre-war latch-coupler Lionel (and some of his other nice toys such as Lincoln logs and something l have never seen again, a bomb sight toy with a mirror in it that you could stand on a balcony and drop little bombs with dart points on a battlefield board at the bottom of the stairs.. that was a nifty toy), so l asked for an "electric train", and got a Marx 3/16 set with #999 for Christmas.  I was probably the second kid in town with a train, and the next year two cousins of each other who lived in town each got Flyer Atlantic sets.

Back in the 50's, my best friend and I both had Lionel, and we used to cart our locomotives back and forth about a block to run on each other's layouts. He had a steam locomotive (can't remember which one) and I had Santa Fe 2353's. He also had the #68 executive inspection car/ station wagon, and I had a #50 handcar. Every time I see a green & white Lionel station or switch tower, I think of him, as I only had Plasticville. He passed away last year.

There was an AF layout next door, in the basement of the grandparents of a local kid, who was a couple years younger and didn't attend our school. I got to see it a couple of times, though. It was huge, and I was fascinated by the whitewalls on the steam engines, as well as the two rails, of course. However, we were Lionel guys.

All AF for me as a kid.   Hand me downs from my older brothers.  Only one other kid in the neighborhood had trains and those were Lionel.  I thought my AF trains were more realistic and was glad to have them. Happier still when I graduated to HO.  Funny how I now run exclusively 3 rail trains.  Having more fun than ever!

Lionel 671 Turbine set....

None of them. Didn't have any as a kid. Started in my early 50's with a Marx 666 (9625) freight set.

Steve

Lionel which I still run now. I only got to play with them after my Dad and uncle were done.

Lionel steam set from 1961 that my aunt bought from Montgomery Wards for my brothers and me.

The set is beat to hell now but I still have them.

Sean

The line with the wonderful Pepe LePew smelling smoke:  Marx!

In fact if I purchase a steamer, the frist question my mother asks is not how much it cost, but does it stink!

Interesting in that this relatively small sample (so far) it shows that quire a few of us had American Flyer. It's a shame that they went out of business and never regained their former popularity. In many ways, S scale IS the perfect scale with it's in between size but was overtaken by O gauge back then...

I had an AF set under the Christmas tree.   I love seeing old home movies of myself laying on my belly watching the train go around totally oblivious to all my presents waiting to be opened. 

-Greg

Greg Houser posted:

I had an AF set under the Christmas tree.   I love seeing old home movies of myself laying on my belly watching the train go around totally oblivious to all my presents waiting to be opened. 

-Greg

I'll bet ALL of us did the same thing, myself included.

As a kid growing up in the late 40's & 50's my first set was a Marx streamliner, then my grand dad gave me his Ives standard gauge and my uncle gave me his pre war Lionels.  All the other guys had post war Lionels with the exception Mary Jane Becker, she had American Flyer.  Oops almost forgot.  Wayne who lived down the street had Marklin HOs.  It amazing how the ten kids  on our street  all had  'lectric trains.  Just thought to mention that my wife had American Flyer trains as a kid.

I had Lionel

Most of the kids in the neighborhood and school had Lionel

However --- there were some pretty cool Flyer layouts in the hood

Growing up in So Cal I had a small 4 x 8 foot layout in a rear screened porch. I had friends with trains........one had a Lionel Trainmaster with a string of hoppers and a layout, temporary, that filled the floor of a 2 car garage......another had a sightly larger Flyer S layout.......we went to the Lionel guys house more often!!!  

The first trains in my home were American Flyer.  My dad may have used my birth in 1947 as an excuse to purchase our first American Flyer S gauge train, an AF 302AC freight set, that Christmas.  I still have a page out of an old Seattle newspaper from that time.  It is a local department store full page ad for AF and Lionel train sets on which Dad made notes following a personal "inspection" tour.  His conclusion was that AF trains and two rail track were most realistic.   Other AF sets followed, and I remember my dad, my uncle and their good boyhood friend getting together many times to  set up a fairly large floor layout.  I, of course, was allowed to watch while them run the trains. Although we packed a 5' by 9' sheet of plywood along with us through three moves, a permenant layout was never built.  

The first toy train that I was actually allowed to play with right away as a kid was a new Marx tinplate set that my folks gave me for Christmas when I was 5 years old. It was Marx set #8994.  Accordingly I have always maintained a affection for Marx six-inch tin.

I played the heck out of that Marx set until Christmas 1960 when my dad finally entrusted the AF S gauge trains to me.  My primary collecting and operating focus has been American Flyer S gauge ever since.  

I still have all of those first AF and Marx trains.

Cheers!

Alan

When I was a kid (this is 1952-1961, approximately) we were an all-Lionel household.  Even my dad's 252 prewar passenger set was Lionel (still have it).

Actually, I think ours was the only house in town that had trains at Christmastime at all.  Neither I nor my sister ever knew anyone else who had trains.  The single exception was one of my friends who had a Marx M10005 streamliner boxed set.  But I think it stayed in its box under his bed all year long, because it was never run under the Christmas tree, or anywhere else, as far as I saw.

For his sake, I hope he still has it.

American Flyer for me.  I was given a choice of Lionel or Flyer for Christmas of 1951.  Many hours were spent pouring over the catalogs, but the two rail track and more realistically  proportioned models won out.  I got a three-car passenger set with a 290 Pacific up front.  Two of my neighbors had Flyer so our building was three for three, until some Lionel kids moved in.  I confess to having been very impressed by their Congressional set. I eventually went HO, which was better suited to apartment life.

Now I'm an old man, don't give a hoot about "realism" (whatever that is), and thanks to O-31 track I have a small Lionel setup in the garage.

Pete

Lionel in our neighborhood, only one kid had Flyer. Also a lot of Marx in those days.

Dad had Lionel, and my Uncle Jim had Lionel with a little bit of Marx, which was originally Dad's, and now all those trains I grew up watching under the Christmas tree are mine. Mom and Dad got me a couple HO sets,early '70s, which I played with, but I knew were the same as the Lionels. Latter they got me a Marx steam set, all plastic, and PC on the tender, which wasn't the same as the die cast steamers Dad and my Uncle had, and I just knew Penn Central never had steam engines. Wish I had hung onto the Marx set. 

"See, once again Marx gets left out. The title of the thread says it all. Sigh."

My first train was Marx, I was told that I wore the flanges off the wheels while playing with it on the concrete sidewalk. 

The second set was American Flyer, I think the Mountaineer, a 282 steam locomotive with a 651 baggage car, two 655 coaches, and one 652 heavy weight Pikes Peak coach.

I then went to HO and started a layout in HO, but found some used Flyer in a hobby shop and my interest in American Flyer was reignited. I now have more S gauge than I could have ever imagined, and I love it.

I do have some Marx which was donated by a great neighbor, one set is plastic with  ATSF diesels and a number of freight cars. I also have a couple of the lithograph sets.

I am blessed

Ray

My first set when I was 4 years old was a Lionel 520 which I still have then graduated to HO a couple years later.

HO as a child for me.  American Flyer had been long gone and Lionel was in the middle of the MPC Era. 

It is always interesting how Marx does get left out of these surveys.  They were certainly doing very creative things throughout their history.

Paul,

  We had a mixture of both, sad to say the American Flyer faded away in my family and Lionel ended up being our families O Gauge Train of choice.  I now wish we would have kept the Flyer Trains also, they were actually given away to other more needy children at Christmas time, in our neighborhood.

President Reagan's Big Silver American Flyer Presidential Standard Gauge Train, IMO was the most incredible piece of American made Hobby history ever engineered.  One of the most classy also.  Frank the owner of the Iron Horse Hobby Shop here in the Pittsburgh, Pa area owned one also.   Frank and President Reagan had a long conversation about their prize possessions one day on the phone.  

Frank was a Military Criminal Investigator during WWII, and because of his Railroad back ground and experience, he was assigned the duty of Investigating Felony Crime on all Military Railroads thru out the world, during WWII.  President Reagan wrote Frank a personal letter thanking him for his incredible work during WWII, Protecting the Railroads.  

One of Franks Criminal Military Investigations was on the disappearance of a Nazi Train filled with Gold Bars at the end of the war.  Frank concluded General Patton was murdered  because General Patton was personally looking into the disappearance of this Nazi Train himself.  Frank believed that Patton was murdered, either by foreign agents or Nazi collaborators and that Patton's car accident was no accident at all.  Franks was shipped home before he was allowed to complete the Military Investigation.  The investigation is still open even today an unsolved US Army CID Felony Investigation.

 Frank often wondered about the timing of his orders to be shipped home to the States at that exact time.  Both the death of General Patton and the missing Nazi Train filled with Gold Bars, has never been solved.

PCRR/Dave

and Marx has some great stuff, that a lot of us appreciate now. The 3/16 litho cars are one that I appreciate, one reason being I work in a litho plant. The accessories as well. 

this $1 CV helped me get started collecting Marx.

Born in 1965 trains were on the way out as we know. My first set was a cheapo plastic Marx set in1969 or early 70's.  Although it was a plastic engine and 4 wheel cars, Just like any Marx it never failed. My sisters who were about ten years older had a set of Lionel that were hand me downs from our Uncles;  they were destroyed by some friends of the family's rotten kids, who tore up everything they touched. I remember Dad having engine hooked up to power once, and it still ran; I remember it being a four wheel driver loco, a white stripe down the walk way;  but that might have been add by my Artist Uncle. Later on my folks got me TYCO HO, and many cars and engines later; I had a fold down 4/8 on my bed room wall with track around the outside and a TYCO race car set in the center; of all my friends except 1 did not have trains. Greg and his family had a Lionel set with an Alco - A unit engine, this was in the mid to late 70's we ran it one time, but they weren't much into trains. Some time in the late 70's I bought my first Lionel at a garage sell ; it was a Canon Ball Flyer set in the box  and in very good condition. I later gave it to some kids, who's parents could afford their  kids a train. My next set was a 1947 set with 675 engine s/w and three cars. Bought at a second hand shop for $150. Then one day a friend came and wanted to  trade me a set he had dug out of another kids sand box. After many hours of cleanings; it still ran and S/W still worked. Those trains are all gone now, wish I kept them, but moving and life dose not always allow that to happen. I now have a small collection of mostly Lionel, Williams ,Marx, K-line, Industrial Rail, some American Flyer, and even some G-scale. Most have been put back in their boxes as we are thinking about moving out of this area. As for a history of trains in my area; The town I grew up in and the town I live in now; were both built by the ( FRISCO RR), although I don't know much about model trains before 1970, there seems to be not much more than starter sets ever sold around here.  Springfield, Mo. was the biggest local city around when I was growing up and had several Hobby Shops, But there is only one left that I know of ( Train Land Hobbies) and one in Hollister, Mo.  We have one in Fayetteville, Ar. but for some reason I don't click with these guys. Anyway that's my .02$ worth.

Marx guys, I'm sorry I didn't include you but, in my 1950s circle of my friends, nobody had them. Thanks for the Marx input too. 

Started with 027 Marx (at 4) then got some Lionel (age 8) then a few years later a neighbor gave me some AF S.

Me and a couple cousin each had our American Flyer empires. Another cousin had Lionel and we laughed at his unsightly third rail, and caused some minor uproar in the family.

My first trainset was American Flyer - a Pennsy K-5 (#312) and the green New Haven passenger train set (baggage car and two coaches) -- I think I was 5 or 6 - a Xmas gift (early 1950's).  Since my birthday was within a week of Xmas, I usually got 'combined' presents - and as I recall - during the 1950s, it was almost always something for my Flyer collection.  Gold's Department store in Lincoln, NE was the source of most of those purchases

Two neighborhood kids also had Flyer, and at one point, we put together a combined layout in my basement.  There was one other neighborhood kid that had Lionel, who took a ration of teasing for the three rails and foreshortened cars and engines.  I think there was also someone who had a small Marx set that appeared as a circle of track around the Xmas tree every year.

I still have the first engine and cars - along with all the other cars, accessories and second engine acquired as a kid.  All of it was boxed up while I was in high school and college.  Those boxes made the 'half-continent' migration to the west coast when I came out here for grad school and one winter, I filled up the living room floor with trains, including some new purchases of used Flyer from a local hardware store.  During my working career, it remained in the boxes - we acquired a small amount of HO and N-scale along the way that made seasonal appearances.  After I retired, I resurrected the Flyer stuff at my wife's suggestion (which has turned out to be an expensive suggestion thanks to eBay and local train shows...).  No permanent layout, but there is a temporary (for 1.5 years) one that keeps me amused but not out of trouble...

I'd also note that like, I suspect, a lot of others, my early tinkering with an electric train layout -- learning to pull apart and reassemble the engines for cleaning and oiling, figuring out how to wire up multiple tracks and accessories, etc. -- had an influence on my academic and career choices (scientist).