I'm getting somewhat confused.
Picked up two new Lionel catalogs: one is for tinplate, mostly std gage, some O gage. The cover says "Lionel Electric Trains" and "Lionel Corporation Tinplate". It goes on to say that 'Lionel Electric Trains' and 'MTH' are working together under the 'Lionel Corporation' banner to produce these tinplate trains, which are copies of Prewar Lionel Tinplate.
This suggests to me that 'Lionel Corporation' is a joint venture between 'Lionel Electric Trains' (whatever that actually is) and 'MTH'.
Do I have this right?
runtime
Ogaugeoverlord11th Street "... I don't hear operators mourning the passing of the "original" Lionel Corp." That's because negative posts are generally scorned on this forum. Not at all. Insults are scorned. Comments designed to start a fight sure are, as are "Brand X Stinks" posts. But "Brand X stinks because of my personal experience a) b) c) and d) that are factual, not fire bomb like, are okay by me. Most critical posts (including negative posts about the magazine) don't go away because they are critical, but how the thread devolves into a mud wrasslin' match.
11th Street "... I don't hear operators mourning the passing of the "original" Lionel Corp." That's because negative posts are generally scorned on this forum.
"... I don't hear operators mourning the passing of the "original" Lionel Corp."
That's because negative posts are generally scorned on this forum.
Hmmmmmm...
Didn't realize there was censureship, of that nature, on this forum.
"This suggests to me that 'Lionel Corporation' is a joint venture between 'Lionel Electric Trains' (whatever that actually is) and 'MTH'. Do I have this right?
Yes. Mike Wolff (MTH) owns four factories, two in Korea and two in China. The new "Lionel Corporation Tinplate" trains (ie the new "Brute") is being manufactured by ... MTH.
MTH pays Lionel a licensing fee for the right to put Lionel's name on tinplate product manufactured by MTH. By putting Lionel's name on the tinplate product MTH expects to increase sales of the product line. The more tinplate MTH sells the more revenue Lionel receives in licensing fees.
Bill T.
runtimeHmmmmmm... Didn't realize there was censureship, of that nature, on this forum.
Bob Keller
Ogaugeoverlordruntime Hmmmmmm... Didn't realize there was censureship, of that nature, on this forum. Yep. Sad but true. This is supposed to be a place of welcome to newcomers. If they see a bunch of grown ups pulling each other's hair out over who's wearing an orange T-shirt or who's wearing a purple T-shirt, they might decide this hobby isn't for them. There are plenty of other places on the web where toy train folk can act like crazies. Not here.
runtime Hmmmmmm... Didn't realize there was censureship, of that nature, on this forum.
Rather prefer it that way. Been to the other sites and it certainly can leave a bad taste for the hobby. If we are to grow the hobby, have to make a place where families can bring their children. I certainly would not allow my children to visit a site where name calling and rude behavior are accepted. Just glad CTT folks let us come here to share in this hobby.
Dennis
TCA#09-63805
Just before the Wellspring deal, Lionel Trains Incorporated purchased the exclusive rights to the Lionel name and about a year later the remaining assets of The Lionel Corporation. This included more than just the purchase of the "Lionel" name, but all of the files, office furniture from New York, whatever else was left. At the time Richard Kughn even joked about getting all the dust left from the original Lionel Corp. At this point, the tables that had been set in 1969 with Lionel the train company licensing from The Lionel Corp. had been spun 180 degrees. Lionel Trains now owned The Lionel Corp.
Regarding the un-serviceability of today's electronics: whatta load of hooey! The Can motors are easily replaceable, and the electronics can always be replaced with something as good as, if not better than the original.
Want something un-serviceable? Try an original Scout motor. Which is easier? Taking apart and replacing the drum and fingers on an e-unit, or replacing it with electronic reverse?
I'm now 45. My hair is turning gray. The Lionel Corporation of NY,NY has been out of the train business since I was five. For most people alive today, Lionel, LLC is the ONLY Lionel they've ever known.
Jon
Kooljock1Which is easier? Taking apart and replacing the drum and fingers on an e-unit, or replacing it with electronic reverse?
$10.00(drum & both contacts - easy to find) vs. $45.00(if you can find them) for the parts on an AC motor... if you have to buy them. $13.50 for the DC reversing unit, which has to be replaced as a whole. And there are so many different can motors...
Rob
At this point, the tables that had been set in 1969 with Lionel the train company licensing from The Lionel Corp. had been spun 180 degrees. Lionel Trains now owned The Lionel Corp.
So to clear this all up, what we have to do now, is spin off the Lionel Corp., and have those who purchase it be those who own Lionel Trains. Then the Lionel Corp. buys Lionel Trains, and we have back our beloved The Lionel Corp, and in the right order. With that solved, then we can get down to fixing whatever is wrong with the trains. Produce those 1950s models, just as they were, label and all. And then the new Lionel Trains that come out reflecting the changes in railroading as we see them today, and the addition of electronics or such...they too will be our beloved The Lionel Corp. And everybody should be happy ever after. In the meantime I will thank those who kept this hobby alive since 1968/69..Some of you were better at it than others....May you all be happy, and have good track ahead of you.
Debating today’s Lionel Trains vs what was is akin to debating whether today’s Generals (ie General Motors, General Electric, General Mills, West Point generals ... ) are similar to what was 100 yrs ago. For most of us it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that up to 20 yrs ago Lionel still had the O Gauge market all to itself, and now it’s market share is down to 50%. (according to Lionel’s own filing with the bankruptcy judge a few years ago, as reported by ‘locolawyer’ on that other forum). That fact is not political, but the marketplace decisions of thousands of hobbyists. For many of us the strategy has become “don’t by the Name, buy the train!” While companies like MTH, Atlas O, Bachmann-Williams, 3rd Rail and secondary players such as Gargraves & Ross have filled in the other 50% some problems continue, often across manufacturer/importer lines. That too is not partisan, although less often heard on this forum and seldom in the hobby press.
Happy Halloween all
alankSo to clear this all up, what we have to do now, is spin off the Lionel Corp.,
Lionel liquidated and went out of business in 1993-1994. It is GONE( "W - E - N - T" ).
Rob,
Hey Rob...I don't care. I have bought and continue to buy Lionel Trains accross all the companies that produce them. I have bought other trains as well. As said earlier all I want is good trains and a reliable company behind them.
"Just before the Wellspring deal, Lionel Trains Incorporated purchased the exclusive rights to the Lionel name and about a year later the remaining assets of The Lionel Corporation. This included more than just the purchase of the "Lionel" name, but all of the files, office furniture from New York, whatever else was left. At the time Richard Kughn even joked about getting all the dust left from the original Lionel Corp. At this point, the tables that had been set in 1969 with Lionel the train company licensing from The Lionel Corp. had been spun 180 degrees. Lionel Trains now owned The Lionel Corp."
Thank you; this is what I was inquiring about in my original question. But do we have any actual evidence of this transaction? I would fathom that while the Lionel Corp. now longer exists in the same context it did half a century ago, it exists in the sense of its "sucessor firm." Lionel is not alone in this; many countries, social clubs, religions, political parties, etc. perpetuate their respective traditions and cultures even though the original no longer exists in its earliest form. For example, the most modern of electric locomotives are still locomotives and still pull trains even though they no longer put out steam or inspire novelists as they did half a century ago.
At least Lionel fared better than Marx, which went out of business almost entirely with very few corporate or product linkages between the "original" Louis Marx & Co. and the various holders of former Marx property and product of the current day (i.e. "Ameritrains"). Lionel LLC can claim that it is a direct descendent of the Lionel Corp. via Mr. Kughn and LTI.
Kooljock1Want something un-serviceable? Try an original Scout motor. Which is easier? Taking apart and replacing the drum and fingers on an e-unit, or replacing it with electronic reverse?
Scout motors are not as difficult to service as many people believe. The drive wheels do need to be removed for major work, and it is very helpful to have the service manual pages to make certain everything goes back in the correct place.As far as e-units go - replacing the drun and lower fingers is a simple job. I find it a bit more difficult to replace the upper fingers. The last time I purchased fingers, they were about $1.50 each. How much are those electronic reverse units?
I have been reading this thread with some amazement to say the least. The Lionel LLC is what we have today. Companies come and go, reform, transition, change, etc. There are plenty of resources that enable anyone to find the business filings for name transfers, legal information, etc. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, most scholars will not allow students to use it since it flawed academically. There are too many opinions, etc. for Wikipedia to be referenced and accepted as a source. Good layman information. I clearly see the passions that everyone has for their preferences and that is great, but please remember that not everyone is the same.
I like the new stuff because it works out of the box for the most part. I have post war stuff through modern. The postwar reporductions clearly are not, but then again the tooling and certain manufacturing techniques used then are not availalbe today. While a company provides a product, it still must meet the market demands of cost and making a decent profit on something that the public wants. Lionel is operating in tough times and so far is surviving. Lineage can always be questioned, but if the product makes you happy, then have fun.
IMHO the Lionel of today is every much of the Lionel of yesterday, and hopefully well into the future.
Founding member of the All Aboard Fastrackers! See us at: www.allaboardfastrackers.com
You know, I'm a new old hand at this. I got my first Lionel for Christmas in 1959,I was wide eyed at the age of seven, now, all these years later I found the old "Berkie" in moms attic. I intend to build a layout, I'm as wide eyed now as I was so long ago. I don't care who owns Lionel, its still LIONEL, I'll buy others of course, But I've just retired and this is something that I can just build on and have fun and remember those times so long ago, what I'm saying I guess, is that there is room for everyone, without all the brand bashing
Welcome aboard Doc.Enjoy your trains.
This thread you brought back to life is almost five years old. People should be able to disagree on the subject without any hard feelings.Unfortunately, it rarely turns out that way.
There is also a lot of good, positive information shared on the various toy & model train boards.
Lionel as it was originally constituted with an American identity by way of it's engineers employees, factories, showrooms and strong advertising presence had a continuity in it's composition. It was an organic whole with various facets of activity. It ceased to exist.
What remained was the trademark, the name in all it's various uses and owners. Yes, they are all "technically" Lionel and each has it's upside and downside etc. It is not the original organisation.
The name in of itself means little except as giving the appearance of continuity.
Lionel is gone, Long live Lionel.
You can slice and dice this as you please to no avail.
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Since I was the one who originally asked the question five years ago about whether there was any direct connection between the original Lionel Corporation and today's Lionel LLC, I might as well make a small contribution to the apparent revival of this discussion.Here in Canada, we have a legal phrase that says "The King is dead, long live the King" (or Queen, depending on who is on the throne). Essentially, this means that, even though one Sovereign dies and is succeeded by another, "the Crown" (an institution encompassing the Sovereign's powers and authorities in parliament, in council, and on the bench, as exercised by a duly-elected government) remains a self-perpetuating legal entity that can never "die," so to speak. As a natural person, the Sovereign is a custodian of royal power, withdrawing it or withholding its exercise as circumstances require, but almost invariably granting it in the interests of responsible government.What does any of this have to do with Lionel? Well, one could make the argument that Lionel LLC is to the Lionel Corp. what Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor is to Queen Victoria and the House of Hanover, or to stretch it back even further, to James I and the House of Stuart or Henry VIII and the House of Tudor. Queen, Victoria, George III, Charles I, Elizabeth I, and so on are all dead and gone. Like the original Lionel Corp., their reigns came to be defined as whole eras (i.e. the Tudor Era; the Prewar Era; the Victoria Era; the Postwar Era), which have long since been consigned to the ash heaps of history. And yet, the powers and authorities of the Crown as an institution, together with a number of physical symbols of the Crown (actual crowns, palaces, government houses in Commonwealth countries, heraldry, etc.) continue to exist. So, while I'll concede that the "original Lionel Corp." is gone, Lionel as an institution built upon quality, imagination, and innovation is alive and well; and with the physical assets of tooling, trademarks, intellectual property, archival material, and so forth, it continues to exist, as it has since 1900 (or 1901, depending on the source).Perhaps we should start thinking of "Lionel" as an institution spanning multiple custodians (e.g. the Lionel Corp. of J.L. Cowen; Fundimensions; Richard Kughn; and - coming full circle - Lionel LLC), rather than as any one particular company. I for one would like to see more articles in CTT where there is an obvious effort to draw parallels and connections between today's Lionel and the Lionel of the past, rather than sharply separating them by romanticizing the Lionel Corp. and treating anything marketed today as being a mere imitation of something else with a mere "brand name" slapped on the side in the name of appeasing collectors. Surely, this doesn't do justice to the talented people who design and advertise the Lionel trains of today, and I don't believe that J.L. Cowen would appreciate such an attitude. As the great French reformer, John Calvin (1509-1564), said about a very different subject, "To distinguish, in order to guard against confounding them, is not only good and reasonable, but altogether necessary; but to divide them, so as to make the one exist without the other, is absurd." Let's take this wisdom to heart in our analyses of Lionel's great history.
Perhaps we should start thinking of "Lionel" as an institution spanning multiple custodians (e.g. the Lionel Corp. of J.L. Cowen; Fundimensions; Richard Kughn; and - coming full circle - Lionel LLC), rather than as any one particular company.
Sorry, I don't see it. Contrary to John Calvin, we collectors like to compartmentalize to set boundaries on what we are interested in collecting.
Yeah well, I've been behind on this stuf for a lot longer then 5 years :D I'm with you CW,It's one thing to express your own PERSONAL observations, likes, dis-likes, etc. but, personally, I don't believe we need to resort to a, er, uh, compition of urination as to whos cooler than who... Geez guys thats as bad as "my dad can whip your dad" stuff I really enjoy the personal observations and the trials and mishaps of others, data and input, if reported honestly, are a great tool for any hobby, especially one as diverse and convoluted as this one.I really appreciate all the REAL data and reports, good or bad, I just don't care for the bickering...
Coming to this with a background in gun collecting and the gun business let me say this...
Various gun companies such as Colt, Smith and Wesson, Winchester, Remington and others have gone though various hands since the founders passed away, but as far as collectors and enthusiasts are concerned they're still Colt, S&W, and so on. Oh, they've got their various eras and iterations but they're still who they always were, it really doesn't matter.
This doesn't mean there aren't disagreements over the BEST era, but no-one says " it's NOT a real Colt!"
Look, 100 years from now when Mike Wolf (or any of us, for matter) isn't around anymore is anyone going to say "it's not a real MTH" if MTH is still in business? I kind of doubt it.
By the way, the Springfield Armory in business now isn't the old Springfield Armory, but that's another story.
Are those guns being made in China?
cwburfle Are those guns being made in China?
HELL NO!!!!! But I see your point. I can't really agree with it because damn near EVERYTHING is made in China it seems, no matter what it is.
Yeah! Lionel just hasn't been the same since they started manufacturing them in Italy. Bring back the good old days!
Bruce
Lionel had Trutrack made in Italy in the 1970's. What else was manufactured there?
One more question about gun collectors:
They don't see the difference between a Colt made 75 years ago and one made last week?
Barbie collectors do.
cwburfle Lionel had Trutrack made in Italy in the 1970's. What else was manufactured there?
The less than successful HO relationship of Lionel/Rivarossi in 1957.
The 1922 establishment of Societa Meccanica La Precisa in Naples, Italy by Cowen and Caruso," for experimenting, researching and manufacturing samples, models and tools".
La Precisa made tooling, never read anything about them manufacturing trains.
Forgot about Rivarossi, and I even have a few of those items.Lionel isn't really well known for their HO line anyway.
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