A friend found this when digging out the family postwar train set. What is it?
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I am not a Lionel expert but I will guess that it is from a chemistry set.
It looks like a centrifuge for two test tubes. Does the handle pump up and down causing the arms to spin?
I believe that is part of one of the Chemistry/science kits that Lionel produced in the late 1950s. Lionel trains weren't selling well from 1958 onward so the company tried to diversify into other areas like chemistry sets, slot cars, and even toy phonographs.
Maybe you can make your own smoke fluid.
Good call, guys! 
......a hand-powered centrifuge from a Lionel Chemistry set.
Jim
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Wow, thanks a lot. This closes a mystery for my friend.
My brother had a good sized Lionel / Porter Chemistry set that included that centrifuge. It also had the balance scale shown in Jim's photograph, and some sort of Spectrometer.
One of my friends had a Lionel microscope.
They appear in the Lionel 1965 science catalog. Maybe other catalogs too.
