GUEST BLOGGER: Carmine Frank Piecora - New Archive Additions to the Lionel Girl’s Set
Carmine submitted this post earlier this year. Enjoy!
Everyone remembers that infamous Lady Lionel train set produced in 1957 that was supposed to encourage little girls to play with trains. The miniature equivalent of Ford's Edsel or New Coke, it was a marketing nuclear disaster. Girls wanted little to do with pink locomotives and pastel box cars and stayed away in droves. Over time the set became a train collector's windfall if he happened to have one in his possession. It became a must have for the serious model train collector.
Lionel decided in 1991 and again in 2001 to revisit the "Lady Lionel" set and recreated it in all its feminine hues. Known to collectors as the Girls Set, both reissued sets became instant hits with today's Lionel buffs. As the 100th anniversary of the Lionel Corporation approached, Lionel began releasing many classic remakes of postwar locomotives, freight cars and entire sets known as the Postwar Celebration Series. These memorable trains have become both desirable and collectible due to quality similar to the originals and the release of very rare models and variations which were unavailable to average collectors and operators due to the astronomical prices demanded for original pieces. The Postwar Celebration version (6-31700) Girls Set was released in 2001. It was very similar to the reissue in 1991, aside from the lack of a Pulmor motor and Magnatraction in the locomotive. The set box also had contemporary Lionel Postwar Celebration packaging in pink, mimicking the standard orange.
In the Lionel 2003 Volume 2 catalog, Lionel decided to create two extra freight cars to become additions to the Girl's train wild consist. They went back to their archives and decided to produce two freight cars that never made it off the drawing board back in 1957. These new cars from the archives have the look and feel of the Lady Lionel original consist and are clothed in similar pastel hues as well. These two cars were sold in special Lionel pink boxes matching the reissued Girls set packaging from 2001.
In last year's 2007 catalogs, in a similar vein, Lionel has issued a couple of new archive additions to the Girls Set. Two of the new cars in the Lionel 2007 Train Catalog Volume 1 are the N & W Hopper Car #6444-25 (6-19367) The other car is the Fort Knox Mint Car #6445-25 (6-29622). According to the 2007 Volume 1 catalog, these cars were made in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Girl's Train Set.
The #6444-25 N & W Quad Hopper Car is a quad style hopper like the Postwar Alcoa Hopper #6444, except it has a molded coal load instead of a cover with hatches. It is painted a vivid shade of pink, which is slightly darker than the original Lionel #2037-500 2-6-4 steam engine and the #6462-560 pink Canister Car that came with the Girls set. The detailed coal load was rarely seen in the postwar era, and gives the car a more realistic look. This car has die-cast metal sprung trucks, operating couplers and has the heft of the original post war hoppers. It has a length of 11 3/4". This car is also listed in the Lionel 2007 Train Catalog Volume 2 as part of the Archive Collection and was issued in a standard orange Lionel box.
The other car is the popular Fort Knox Mint car #6445-25 which is in soft lilac but just as unusual as all of the other colors. It has a visible plated bullion load of gold bricks just like the original Fort Knox Gold Reserve car manufactured in 1961 through 1963. Collectors of "mint" cars will surely want this unusual color variation. It will certainly stand out on the shelf among the dozens of mint cars Lionel has already produced. An interesting feature of this car was that in was made to be used as a child's bank and had a coin slot on the top. This car has a minimum curve of O-27 and is traditionally sized O Gauge. This car was also was issued in a standard orange Lionel box.
In the current Lionel Signature Volume 1 catalog for 2008, a new green double door Pastel Stock Car #6356 (6-36118) is offered in the New York Central road name. This car's color scheme resembles the scheme of the NY Central Pacemaker boxcar #6464-510, which is pastel green with pastel yellow doors. Lionel does not refer to this new stock car as being from their archive but instead indicates it is a product of imagination inspired by the Girls set. It certainly is cast in the same concept of the other girl's freight cars though. It will make a great addition to the set, as the original Lady Lionel set did not contain a stock car. At this writing, this car has not been released yet.
In the closing decade of the twentieth century, Lionel sporadically re-released many classic trains. Along with these, Lionel issued trains designed in the postwar time period, but never actually made, and still resting in the Lionel archives. As mentioned earlier, the first two additional cars issued for the Postwar Celebration Girls Set in the Lionel 2003 Volume 2 catalog, were a pastel green and yellow #6315 (6-26164) Lionel Lines Tank Car and a #6424 (6-26077) Lionel Lines Flat Car with Autos in gray with lavender colored automobiles. These two cars were sold in special Lionel pink packaging matching the reissued Girls set packaging from 2001. The tank car had die-cast metal sprung trucks and couplers, metal ladders, platform and railings. The flat car also had die-cast metal sprung trucks and couplers and a metal superstructure. Both are now difficult to obtain.
Based upon the success of the Postwar Celebration series of trains and the creation of archived designs, Lionel took the idea one step further by attempting to create trains inspired by the Girl's set. An interesting double door stock car was issued in 2002. This was the #6356 (6-19559) MLR MKT GIRLS STOCK CAR – SPECIAL EDITION, marked with the Katy road name. Created as an add-on to the Girl's Set, it was molded in a unique medium pastel blue with a light pastel turquoise set of double doors. It is quite an attractive variation of the typical stock car. The car featured operating couplers, sliding doors, die-cast sprung trucks and a metal frame. The length is 10 and 1/2 inches. This rare car was only available to Lionel dealers directly, was made in extremely limited numbers, and is not in any consumer catalog. It was packaged in a standard orange Lionel box, not in the unique pink box like the Girls cars produced in later in 2003. It came in its own individual outer carton when delivered, clearly stating "6-19559 MLR STOCK CAR GIRLS MKT" stamped on a pink label. Collectors have driven the price up for this particular piece due to strong demand.
Another Lionel Archive series in which Lionel reissued most of the original and classic post war #6464 series box cars in three car sets began in the 1990's. There were ten three car sets released over time as Series I through Series X and one of those, released in 1999, was a three car set of #6464 box cars (Asst. 6464 Archive Series VIII). This particular set contained the New York Central Pacemaker box car #6464-510 (6-29235) in pastel green with yellow doors and the M-K-T Katy box car #6464-615 (6-29238) in reversed pastel yellow with contrasting green doors. These two boxcars were the close copies of the ones which were part of the postwar Girls Set of 1957. The third box car in the set, the red Minneapolis & St. Louis 6464-525 (6-29237) was not part of the original Girl's set.
I hope that Lionel will continue to issue these lively and unusual additions, as they are certainly eye-catchers and are sure to be collectible in the future.
Related posts:
- MTH Debuts Catalog Cover in Newsletter
- Da Da-Da Daaaa: Introducing The Lionel Corporation
- GUEST BLOGGER: Dr. Richard H Knee - A Journey back to Model Trains
« OGaugeWatch is still breathing thanks to Twitter | Main | Kader Manufacturing Trust Buys Sanda Kan Industrial »
3 Responses to “GUEST BLOGGER: Carmine Frank Piecora - New Archive Additions to the Lionel Girl’s Set”
New Coke was not a maketing disaster, it was a marketing conspiracy. Coke was expensive to produce because it used real sugar instead of corn syrup. Changing out sugar for corn syrup changes the taste, so they introduced “New Coke” with an entirely different taste to make people forget the taste of the original Coke. Then “Classic Coke” was introduced using the original formula but with corn syrup. The original Coke, with real sugar is still bottled in many other countries. Get yourself a Mexican Coke and compare it’s taste to a “Classic Coke” if you don’t believe me.
Posted by: Randall | Nov 14, 2008 at 4:17 PM
I got my Lionel Girl’s Train set back in 1957/58 from my dad. I loved it & I still have it. I’d spend hours and hours playing with the train. Even the neighbor boys got a kick out of it! The only difference is: my tender is black, not pink. The engine is pink (and the smoke was produced with tablets rather than fluids), the caboose is baby blue and the tender is black, not pink. I have a couple of other cars but I can’t remember which ones or their colors now. I know one is lavendar. Considering it’s over 50 yrs. old now, I’m sure it isn’t a phony set, so why mine are different colors, I don’t know. I can’t find any information on any other girl’s sets.
Posted by: KAT | Feb 26, 2009 at 2:31 PM
I have a complete lady lionel set from 1956, boxed. What is the current value of this set? thanks.
Posted by: jim | Apr 2, 2009 at 10:52 PM