For some people, the aroma of Christmas is freshly baked cookies or a newly cut pine. For me, it’s the oily burn of my 71-year-old Lionel sparking across equally ancient tracks. The train is one of ...

As kids for generations have done, Landon Tennant looks longingly at a streamlined Lionel Santa Fe engine as it chugs around a tiny display with houses, mountains and bridges at TrainLand, a hobby ...

In the early 1950s, Lionel, founded by Joshua Lionel Cowen in 1900, was the largest toy maker in the world. In 1955, Lionel’s annual sales exceeded $140 million, a very impressive figure for that era.

Those of you who were not alive in the 1950s may be connected to toy trains through Thomas the Tank Engine. Thomas revived train toy sales that had rapidly declined beginning in the 1960s. The decade ...

Angela Trotta Thomas’ status as the only artist ever to be licensed by iconic toy train manufacturer Lionel has gotten her featured in plenty of magazines and catalogs during the past 25 years. But ...

They say there’s nothing like a boy and his toys, even if the “boy” is a retired neurologist. Dr. Charles Kaufman’s toys are electric trains, which he has loved since he was a young child. “In the ...

No one can say with certainty when the first Lionel model train was set up to chug around a Christmas tree and surprise children on Christmas morning, but it’s a safe bet that the idea and the ...

Angela Trotta Thomas’ status as the only artist ever to be licensed by iconic toy train manufacturer Lionel has gotten her featured in plenty of magazines and catalogs during the past 25 years. But ...