Lionel’s Super O Track
To model railroad purists the presence of the unrealistic third rail running down the center of O Gauge track is a major drawback to O Gauge model railroading. Even with today’s realistic looking modern offerings from Atlas, Lionel, MTH, Gargraves and Ross Custom Switches, that third rail is hard to hide. Back in the heyday of O Gauge railroading, modelers were basically stuck with using the unrealistic looking three rail tinplate track Lionel was manufacturing at the time. Modelers came up with ways to enhance the look of tinplate track by adding extra home made railroad ties and weathering the rails but the third rail still stuck out like a sore thumb. O Gauge enthusiasts didn’t seem to mind but those looking to create a more realistic model railroad layout opted for 2 rail O Scale, S Gauge or HO scale. Despite its unrealistic appearance, running electricity through a third rail did simplify the control of automatic accessories and eliminated the need for special wiring on layouts with reversing loops.
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Electric Sky Rides
One of the many blogs I like to check out from time to time is called Modern Mechanix. The theme of the blog is "Yesterday’s tomorrow, today". A recent Modern Mechanix post featured an advertisement for "Beautiful Electric Sky Rides" from the December 1933 issue of Popular Science. The sky rides were electrically powered enamel painted tinplate creations which ran on a rail suspended from a series of towers. They looked very cool and the manufacturer boasted that they had the "finest toy power motor on earth." The Sky Ride would definitely be a nice complement to either an O Gauge or Standard Gauge tinplate layout. Electric Sky Rides remind me of the toy monorail manufactured by Leland Detroit that eventually was reproduced by MTH. Check out an image of the Sky Ride advertisement here.
A Good Article About Lionel
AmericanHeritage.com posted a very nice article about Lionel. Check it out here.
Old Lionel Videos
I saw a post on Model Train Journal concerning old Lionel Train videos that I thought was worth repeating here. Click on the link below to view a number of old Lionel train videos from Google Video and tvdays.com.
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Interesting Use of Lionel Trains
Back in the day, Lionel trains were apparently viewed as more than just toys by the scientific community. An article In the June 1949 issue of Popular Science explains how Lionel trains were used to move capsules of radon gas around a laboratory. The Modern Mechanix blog has scanned and posted the original Popular Science article. Check it out here.
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Unusual Use For Lionel Trains
A Little Lionel History
On the OGR forum, ed h posted a question asking for photos of Lionel’s New Jersey factory. There is a link in the thread with some photos of the abandoned NJ factory but nothing from when it was operating. So I decided to do search the web for photos of the NJ factory. I came up empty but did find a bunch of pictures of the Michigan facility from 1988. Take a look.