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Over the years I have picked up several postwar Lionel Service Manuals.  They are usually well used, not complete, and somewhat disorganized.  I recently picked up a two volume set, Service Manual and Parts List from what looks to be around 1956.  But this one looks to be in as received from the Lionel condition.  I was surprised to find out that it is much more organized than I realized they were. Can someone confirm that the way this manual is set up was standard for Lionel through many of the post war years, or is it a one year effort.

 

The Service Manual is printed on light green paper.  it is three hole punched and in a three ring blue binder marked Service Manual on the cover. It appears to have sections for equipment with instructional text only, no straight part lists.  The Parts List is also in a blue bKinder, but with eleven rings. All of the pages in this are on white paper. The pages are punched for both eleven and three ring binders. Some of the part lists are identical to the Service Manual, except the text has been omitted and it is printed on white paper.  This Manual is where all the part lists without text are.

 

I know that the format and page numbering changed some time in the 1960s. But were all of the Post War manuals from 1946 up to the 1960s supposed to be in the format I describe above?  I have several manuals with green and white pages mixed together, but I do not recall if all the white pages are eleven hole punched.  Thanks for any help on this.

Original Post

As far as I know, all of the Lionel service station manuals were well organized, and included a table of contents.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to define exactly what a complete manual would be.

Lionel issued update and/or replacement pages over the years. Some folks saved the original pages, others didn't.

In addition to original service material, I have the second edition of the Greenberg set. It has a few pages I don't have in my original materials.

Olsens has pages that neither my original pile, or the Greenberg set has.

 



quote:
The Parts List is also in a blue bKinder, but with eleven rings. All of the pages in this are on white paper. The pages are punched for both eleven and three ring binders. Some of the part lists are identical to the Service Manual, except the text has been omitted and it is printed on white paper.  This Manual is where all the part lists without text are.



 

I think there were two postwar parts only manuals published. I am familar with a multi-ringed one that has a soft, flexible, thin blue cover, with "LIONEL TRAINS" printed on the binder end in orange, and "Lionel Trains", PARTS CATALOG", "THE LIONEL CORPORATION", "NEW YORK, N.Y.". The inside back cover indicates it was made by Shyers Bookbinding Co., Newark, NJ.

 

I have a copy, and have seen several more. All of the ones I have seen have some  service manual pages, not strictly parts lists. The newest pages are dated 1953. My friends and I think the publication of this manual may have somethng to do with limited resources due to the Korean war.

 

There was a second parts list published, somewhere around 1956. I don't think this one had a binder. This one is purely parts. I haven't looked at it in a long time, so I couldn't say what was in it.

 

 

 

IMHO, the service manual pages are a valuable source of information that goes beyond repairing trains. That written, occasionally I do find errors.

 

Those interested in obtaining original service station material should be aware that the TCA published a manual a long time ago, Greenberg published a loose leave version before they published the soft bound edition, and the fellow who sells screws at York (Ted) had reprinted stuff available for a while. IMHO, the materail Ted had was printed on paper that was closest to what Lionel used.

Last edited by C W Burfle
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