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Lionel model trains get back on track
star ledger ^ | 12.08.08 | Peter Genovese

Posted on 01/14/2009 9:53:24 PM PST by Coleus

Jerry Calabrese readily admits he's not a "fan boy" when it comes to Lionel trains; he doesn't own every locomotive, freight car or caboose Lionel ever made. But Calabrese, a Montclair resident who is Lionel's CEO, can claim something many rabid Lionel fans can't: He actually worked on the railroad, in his case the Erie-Lackawanna. "The summer of 1966, on an Erie-Lackawanna train gang, laying track," Calabrese said, laughing. "Made $2.34 an hour."

He's come a long way, and so has America's best-known toy train company. Calabrese is not only CEO but part-owner of Lionel. Among Calabrese's partners: singer-songwriter Neil Young, a childhood train fan who bought into the company in 1995 and holds patents for train control and sound systems, originally designed for his disabled son. Today, Young and Calabrese are overseeing Lionel's re-emergence as a toy store fixture and American pop icon. The company, which had nearly disappeared from view in the 1970s and 1980s, has enjoyed strong sales in recent years.

Lionel, founded in 1900 by Joshua Lionel Cohen (he later changed his name to Cowen), sold 200,000 train sets in 2006 and expects to top that number this year. Since 2004, when the company emerged from bankruptcy, sales are up 40 percent, according to Calabrese. "Lionel has been coming back; every year it's bigger and better than the year before," said Douglas Waller, co-owner of The Train Station, a toy train store in Mountain Lakes. "I've been through three recessions and we always worry, but it appears we're recession-proof."

In 1999, the A&E television network, in an hour-long show, ranked the top toys of the 20th century. Lionel was fourth, behind the yo-yo, crayons and Barbie. But it wasn't long ago that Lionel, according to Calabrese, "almost died; its heart stopped beating on the operating table."

(Excerpt) Read more at nj.com ...


TOPICS: Hobbies; Local News
KEYWORDS: aurora; ho; lionel; trains
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1 posted on 01/14/2009 9:53:24 PM PST by Coleus
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From his first train, the Electric Express — one account described it as “an open wood box on wheels” — Joshua Cowen fashioned a toy train empire. Sales increased tenfold between 1910 and 1919; Lionel even sold a war train with cannons. A company slogan in the 1920s went, “Real enough for a man to enjoy — simple enough for a boy to operate.” There were Lionel plants in Newark, Irvington and Hillside. (Lionel equipment is now made in China and South Korea).

In his book “Inside the Lionel Trains Fun Factory,” Robert Osterhoff described the daily scene at the Jersey plants:

“It was a manufacturing marvel how the nondescript sheets of shiny metal, delivered to exacting specifications of demanding engineers, were ushered into the dimly lit factories and emerged back into the sunshine, boxed and neatly packaged, glamorously formed and carrying a glossy coat of high-grade enamel, ready to be time-tested around the toy railroad tracks of youth around the world.”

In the 1940s, the company introduced an array of milestone products, including locomotives with real puffing smoke, and a remote-control coupling system. In 1949 alone, the company’s daily output was 18,000 cars and 52,000 pieces of track. By 1953, Lionel had become the world’s largest toy company. One celebrity collector: Frank Sinatra, who built a full-size replica of a train station at his Palm Springs compound to house his Lionel layout. There was even a Lionel TV show, hosted by Joe DiMaggio.

“Joshua Cowen once said the train going around the Christmas tree is as traditional as the tree itself,” Waller said. But in the ‘60s, according to the official Lionel website, the company “lost its founder and its bearings; America was undergoing social upheaval and the idealized image of Lionel railroading no longer fit in.” In 1967, Lionel filed for bankruptcy. In 1969, Lionel licensed its train manufacturing to breakfast-cereal conglomerate General Mills. Production was shifted to Michigan and, in one ill-fated move, to Mexico. In 1985, General Mills sold off its toy divisions, with Lionel was absorbed by Kenner Parker.

In 1986, Detroit-based real estate developer Richard Kughn bought the brand; Kughn sold Lionel to 1995 to an investment group that included Neil Young. “Our task was to reopen Lionel to the mass market, to American pop culture again,” explained Calabrese, a onetime newspaper editor who also worked at Playboy magazine and Marvel Comics. In 2004, the company once again filed for bankruptcy. “I had a clear mandate to change the company,” Calabrese said. “Bankruptcy provided the means to do it.”

He stood in the atrium at One Gateway Center in Newark, where four Lionel layouts are on display through Dec. 31. The atrium is across the street from Newark Penn Station, where another Lionel layout is on display in the main waiting room. The Polar Express and Harry Potter train sets have helped fuel Lionel’s recent resurgence. Waller, at The Train Station, has already sold out of Lionel’s R27 subway train set, which features opening and closing doors and an operator announcing the stops. At The Train Station, you can buy everything from ready-to-run $300 sets to such collectibles as the prized 700E New York Central Hudson. The Train Station even hosts Net auctions on its train-station.com website.

“I sold an empty cardboard Lionel box from 1965 for $5,000,” Waller said, wonder in his voice. “I was about to throw it away.” His regular customers? “Grandfathers buying for their grandsons, dads for their kids, and dads for their kids, but it’s really for dad,” he said, laughing. Calabrese, for his part, talks of bringing the Lionel name back to New Jersey. Newark, he said, would be a perfect location for a Lionel museum/visitors center. “We have both gone through some really hard times, and we’re both still alive,” Calabrese said of Newark and Lionel. “We’re both scrappy.”


2 posted on 01/14/2009 9:54:33 PM PST by Coleus (Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!)
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Thomas C. Nuzzo, events manager, operates Lionel train layouts at Gateway Center in Newark

3 posted on 01/14/2009 9:56:17 PM PST by Coleus (Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!)
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To: Coleus
"The summer of 1966, on an Erie-Lackawanna train gang, laying track," Calabrese said, laughing. "Made $2.34 an hour."

For the perspective of the youngsters here, for an hour's work he could buy ten gallons of gasoline.

4 posted on 01/14/2009 10:03:01 PM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: Coleus

How about bringing manufacturing back to America?


5 posted on 01/14/2009 10:04:20 PM PST by wastedyears (In Canada, Santa says "Ho Ho, eh?")
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To: Coleus

Been working on my 55 year-old Lionel this winter. Those things were made well back then. Wonder if the stuff Calabrese is making will be working 55 years from now?


6 posted on 01/14/2009 10:12:14 PM PST by Proud2BeRight
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To: Coleus









7 posted on 01/14/2009 10:13:58 PM PST by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home/About page)
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To: Coleus

For those that worked/work the roads.

FRN — plain and simple.

Actually in this case, FMRN.

I bought a Lionel Polar Express Train for my 2 year old for Christmas. It’s mostly plastic. But what do you want for $150 bucks these days.


8 posted on 01/14/2009 10:24:29 PM PST by model B (attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference -- Sir Winston Churchill)
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To: Coleus

There sure were a lot of stacks of unpurchased stacks of Lionel (and other) train sets at The Train Shack last week.


9 posted on 01/14/2009 10:43:22 PM PST by BurbankKarl
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To: Coleus
I love toy trains at Christmas.

Old Toy Trains

by Roger Miller

Old toy trains, little toy tracks

Little toy drums coming from a sack

Carried by a man dressed in white and red

Little boy, don't you think it's time you were in bed?

Close your eyes

Listen to the skies

All is calm, all is well

Soon you'll hear Kris Kringle and the jingle bells

Bringin' old toy trains, little toy tracks

Little toy drums coming from a sack

Carried by a man dressed in white and red

Little boy, don't you think it's time you were in bed?

Close your eyes

Listen to the skies

All is calm, all is well

Soon you'll hear Kris Kringle and the jingle bells

Bringin' old toy trains, little toy tracks

Little toy drums coming from a sack

Carried by a man dressed in white and red

Little boy, don't you think it's time you were in bed?


10 posted on 01/14/2009 10:43:37 PM PST by BBell
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To: Coleus
The Good Old GG 1 .... perhaps the greatest of locomotives.


11 posted on 01/14/2009 11:11:11 PM PST by Prophet in the wilderness (PSALM .53 : 1 The FOOL hath said in his heart, there is no GOD.)
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To: Coleus

bttt


12 posted on 01/14/2009 11:32:27 PM PST by RebelTex (:^D)
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To: wastedyears

I bought a *pricey* Lionel kit a few years ago and couldn’t believe the amount of trouble I experienced with it. I took it straight back to the store and received a full refund after the owner couldn’t determine what was wrong with it. Chinese crap.


13 posted on 01/14/2009 11:39:15 PM PST by roscommon
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To: Coleus

14 posted on 01/15/2009 1:04:52 AM PST by JoeProBono (Apparitions are in the eye of the beholder)
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To: Coleus

I have Direct TV and on channel 345 RFD they have a program called “I love Toy Trains”. Some of the lay outs they show boggle the mind...Don’t remember the time but never miss it when I program my TV for 24 hours...


15 posted on 01/15/2009 1:54:07 AM PST by goat granny
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To: Coleus

Thank you for posting this. I thought Lionel was dead. Oh, how I love trains, great and small. I wonder why?


16 posted on 01/15/2009 3:54:07 AM PST by ottbmare
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To: ETL
As gorgeously detailed as those layout are, they appear to be HO gage layouts. Lionel trains use O Gage track, with the third rail for power.

O gage track (with three rails) is on the outside of this layout, with HO (with two rail track) in the middle, and N gage on the inside. The HO track is one half the size of O Gage (shocking since 'HO' stands for "Half O.")


17 posted on 01/15/2009 4:40:28 AM PST by Yo-Yo
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To: Coleus

I could never get used to the third rail so Lionel was never on my radar (too “toyish”. My dad was an HO scale guy and that’s what I grew up on. But, now I’m in the planning phase of putting together a garden railroad and have a few LGB pieces that I plan on running. LGB filed for bankruptcy last year and it has been difficult finding some items. Marklin bought out LGB but production was cut for a year or so until it resumes sometime this year (grapevine news).

With that said, I was eyeing some of the new Lionel products at a train show recently and they have started to catch my eye. There is more detail in the locos and rolling stock and they have worked on making that third rail less obtrusive. I was pretty impressed.


18 posted on 01/15/2009 4:55:17 AM PST by Hatteras
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To: Coleus

So, Lionel goes out and licenses Polar Express and other names and this turns into a comeback?!

As someone who is currently in the hobby (not too deep), I find the MTH products to be far, far superior to Lionel.

MTH was started in 1980 by an avid railroader in Columbia, Maryland. The company is still there and they offer anything from basic sets to the most technologically advanced trains in the industry.

MTH’s proto-sound is incredible. The steam locomotives chuff in pace with their speed. The automation is incredible where you can control multiple engines on the same track wirelessly.

Check out this company that has surpassed Lionel (which I don’t hate) by giving railroaders what they want......

http://www.mth-railking.com/index.asp


19 posted on 01/15/2009 5:04:18 AM PST by Erik Latranyi (Too many conservatives urge retreat when the war of politics doesn't go their way.)
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To: Yo-Yo

Lionel sells more than just O gauge.

For example, their American Flyer series uses S Gauge

http://www.lionelstore.com/site/department.cfm?id=5C70F52C-9C60-3DAE-EEBA9FABE72B90E7&killnav=1


20 posted on 01/15/2009 5:13:43 AM PST by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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