The creator of Lionel Trains, Joshua Lionel Cowen (or Cohen) lived from 1877 until 1965. At the age of seven, young Cowen was already fascinated with the mechanics of operation when he whittled his first small wooden locomotive and unsuccessfully tried to motorize it with a tiny steam engine. During the next few years, he gained valuable experience working at a manufacturing company for dry cell batteries and at a lamp company. The knowledge gained working at these companies helped to lay the ground work for success with his next endeavor for motorizing the little locomotive.
The Lionel Manufacturing Company was formed in 1900 with Cowen and business colleague, Harry C. Grant. After an unsuccessful first product of an electric fan, Cowen's next product inspiration came when he was walking through lower Manhattan and saw a push train in a toy store window. Envisioning the little locomotive circling a track without attention from anyone, he tried again to motorize the wooden train using the battery from the electric fan to the underneath of a railroad flat car.
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A success, this motorized train, created to use in a window display, was called the "Electric Express". And thus, the legend of the Lionel train was born. Lionel's first customer was the toy store company, Ingersoll, where Lionel had first viewed the push train. After this auspicious beginning, Lionel trains were further developed, experiencing their "golden years" during the 1920's.
Accessories and elaborate designs flourished until 1931, when the company began to feel the effects of the 1929 stock market crash. It wasn't until 1934 that Lionel trains
made a comeback with their streamliners and brought the company back to profitability. Lionel trains had their best year ever in 1953, then gradually declined over the years, and the company dissolved in the early 1990's.
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