Toy Trains magazine....of the 1950's

It is a fun magazine and Frank Ellison used to be a frequent contributor.
About 20+ years ago a fellow named John Holtmann got the rights from Carstens Publications (I think the company name is close) to make DVDs and was selling them.

i know this, because I own a complete set of the magazines that ran from 1950-54, which I collected in the years 1983 till about 1990-92. You still see issues showing up for sale at shows. I also suspect the DVD sets sold by John Holtmann are also available on the secondary market. However, I cannot remember seeing any recently.

About 5+ years ago, I believe he sold the rights to LCCA and they ( the Toy Trains Digital archive) are now part of the members-only digital downloads of the organization and the are free to the LCCA membership.

Becoming a digital LCCA member is probably the easiest and least expensive way to get to see them.

Peter

@gandydancer1950 posted:

Does anyone know the history of a magazine that went by the name simply ...'TOY TRAINS'. I believe this was a short lived publication during the 1950's. I have several various issues and would like to know if they are still available on the secondary market. I know very litttle of it's history, publishing era, and demise. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ebay

I forgot.....after Toy Trains stopped publishing in 1954, Mr Carstens tried to revive it as part of Railroad Model Craftsman. The January through June issues of RMC had a Toy Trains Magazine section in them and it just stopped after June 1957. I do not own the RMC issues......I only have them digitally (and they were a far cry from the hayday of the separate magazine from the early 50s).

Peter

Toy Trains was THE publication--along with the Bantam book published by Lionel--that got me completely hooked on Lionel Trains when I was a boy. I still have every issue of the original Toy Trains, plus John Holtmann's DVD. Also have my original, now dog-eared and well-worn copy of that 50-cent Model Railroading book. Still fun to go back through those pages on occasion and to relive the popularity of Lionel back in that all-important era when toy trains ruled as a #1 toy among so many young American boys.

Nice to see American Flyer on the cover.

The "cut-outs" paper models in each issue are excellent...here are a few (slightly modified):

PD

My original Toy Trains Magazines had the back cover cut off to make the Hal Carstens cut-outs which left the front cover loose so the front covers were hung on the wall as pictures. I have since obtained replacement magazines and now make color copies for the cut-outs and leave the originals intact. The following photo shows some more of the assembled models.

I scanned copies as well, David, then used MS Paint to black out the windows before printing on cardstock. I then mounted the cardstock on framing matt board for extra rigidity. Some of the models had no colorization, but that easy enough to add using Paint. They are fun little projects.

Nice Erector bridge, BTW.

PD

In 1955 and again in 1957 some of the back cover cut-outs were republished as a Cutout Book. These were printed on heavy card stock.

Worth every bit of a buck, lol.

@jim sutter posted:

Nice to see American Flyer on the cover.

Judging by the trains, 1952. The picture was most likely taken on the far right hand end of the Hall of Science layout of the period.

Bob

That is the cover of the August, 1952 issue with the Gilbert trains inside. The October, 1952 issue also had a cover photo taken on the second floor layout, with more Gilbert items inside.

From 1969 to 1982, I was all American Flyer. In 1983, I sold all my flyer and bought MPC Lionel.

@gandydancer1950 posted:

Does anyone know the history of a magazine that went by the name simply ...'TOY TRAINS'. I believe this was a short lived publication during the 1950's. I have several various issues and would like to know if they are still available on the secondary market. I know very little of its history, publishing era, and demise. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for starting this topic and all those that replied.  I really enjoy threads like this, dealing with the history of the hobby.  So much too learn, so little time.

@Allan Miller posted:

Toy Trains was THE publication--along with the Bantam book published by Lionel--that got me completely hooked on Lionel Trains when I was a boy. I still have every issue of the original Toy Trains, plus John Holtmann's DVD. Also have my original, now dog-eared and well-worn copy of that 50-cent Model Railroading book. Still fun to go back through those pages on occasion and to relive the popularity of Lionel back in that all-important era when toy trains ruled as a #1 toy among so many young American boys.

Allan thank you for your response. I currently have 35 individual issues, but I am unaware of the date range of the magazine. The earliest I have is the November 1951 issue and the latest is the Christmas issue of 1954, but I have no idea if this is the complete date range. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

THanks to all that have responded!!!

@Allan Miller posted:

Toy Trains was THE publication--along with the Bantam book published by Lionel--that got me completely hooked on Lionel Trains when I was a boy. I still have every issue of the original Toy Trains, plus John Holtmann's DVD. Also have my original, now dog-eared and well-worn copy of that 50-cent Model Railroading book. Still fun to go back through those pages on occasion and to relive the popularity of Lionel back in that all-important era when toy trains ruled as a #1 toy among so many young American boys.

True - my story exactly. When I was young and working on my first layout Toy Trains was my go to. At the time , around 12 or 13, I thought both Model Railroader and RMC were both way too technical for me so TT was perfect. That plus probably half my buildings on the layout were the ones from the rear covers. Still have a lot of them and love to look through now and then.      Wayne

Another great  how to book of that era (1955) was "How to build and operate a model railroad" by Marshall McClintock  based on America Flyer trains.

Gunny

@gandydancer1950 posted:

Allan thank you for your response. I currently have 35 individual issues, but I am unaware of the date range of the magazine. The earliest I have is the November 1951 issue and the latest is the Christmas issue of 1954, but I have no idea if this is the complete date range. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Toy Trains was published from 1951 through 1954, with the later Railroad Model Craftsman inserts published in RMC in 1956-57.

Allan and Peter,

Thanks for mentioning my Toy Trains Digital Archive effort! I did a double-take when Peter mentioned, “about 20 years ago … developed a digital archive of the publication.” Time does fly!

As I have stated previously, Peter Condro was the guy who suggested this publication to me as a good potential publication to digitize.  It followed on the heels of my effort on the OGR Digital Archive and, due to the support of many OGR forum members, became one of my most popular sellers.  It was enjoyable to work with Hal Carstens on the project as he wrote the intro.  I detected a sense of “people are still interested in the Toy Trains publication?” when I first approached him about it.  I think he truly enjoyed writing the introduction!

A brief write up can be found here:

http://www.hslinc.com/dahome/datthome.html

All of the content including the cutout issue is available now in the LCCA’s digital library of train hobby publications for a modest annual fee.

https://www.lionelcollectors.org