Lionel The Polar Express Letters to Santa O Gauge Model Train Mail Car

About Us

When Lionel founder Joshua Lionel Cowen’s immigrant family arrived in New York after the Civil War, the railroads were literally America’s engines of progress. The “Golden Spike” meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines in 1869 unified the continent and signaled the birth of a world power. Cowen was born in 1877, just before Edison’s first electric light. He grew up with real trains, amid dizzying change. Around the time he founded Lionel in 1900, passenger lines like the peerless Twentieth Century Limited symbolized American technology and sophistication.

Cowen was already a successful inventor when he created his first toy train. But The Electric Express and its offspring soon became a sacred mission, and Cowen would spend a lifetime stoking America’s imagination with the romance of the rails. He told boys that Lionels would prepare them for adulthood. Soon Dads too were encouraged to join Youngsters in model train enthusiasm, to future father-son bonding. With growing prosperity, Lionel’s layouts cropped up in more living rooms, especially at Christmas. Before mid-century, railroads were our economic lifeblood, as well as cultural icons — but it was not to last.

And when Americans started driving to suburbia and flying cross-country, they stopped buying Lionel trains. By the 1960s, freight lines were being scrapped, and fathers and sons were on opposite sides of the “generation gap.” That decade saw the tragic demise of New York’s Pennsylvania Station, the retirement of The Twentieth Century Limited, and the passing of Joshua Lionel Cowen.

But now the Lionel dream is back and better than ever. As Lionel looks to the future, it strives to ignite the imaginations and hearts of today’s children and adults through continued success with branded and licensed products, an increased presence in the digital space and recapturing its rightful place “under the tree.” Through partnerships with evergreen brands such as NASCAR, Warner Bros., Crayola, Coca-Cola, John Deere and many others, Lionel has lined itself up for success for many years to come. With innovative products such as the LCS, iCab, Battle Trains, Lionel Tracks and a revamped, more user-friendly Lionel, the 115-year-old company has made sure it stays on the cutting-edge of technology. The Lionel name has always been synonymous with Christmas and a train set under every Christmas tree, and now more than ever the company’s ensuring that they are a major player in any holiday plans. For Lionel, the future is indeed bright.