Do you like Lionel toy trains? Enjoy corporate history? Or just want to take a nostalgic journey back to your childhood?

Then Inside The Lionel Trains Fun Factory: The History of a Manufacturing Icon and The Place Where Childhood Dreams Were Made is for you—delivering a fascinating trip through the rise, fall and rise again of Lionel, one of the manufacturing and pop icons in modern American life.  The impeccable research by Lionel historian Robert J. Osterhoff, along with hundreds of unpublished photos and images, tells the history of Lionel’s trains, factories, employees and business practices from the late 19^th century until today.

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The name Lionel has been synonymous with toy trains for more than a century in America.  But what is the history behind this beloved brand? Who made those electric trains?  Where did those laborers work?  And how did they view the toys and other products they were producing?

Only now, thanks to the tireless research conducted by Lionel historian Robert Osterhoff, can these questions be fully answered.  He has begun where other toy train enthusiasts have left off in the consideration of Joshua Lionel Cowen and the remarkable company he, as a young entrepreneur, founded in 1900 and guided through world wars, economic depressions, and notable changes in the American toy industry.

Inside The Lionel Trains Fun Factory: The History of a Manufacturing Icon and The Place Where Childhood Dreams Were Made widens the spotlight so that, without forgetting Cowen and his partners, confidants, and successors, it brilliantly showcases the people working for Lionel and the manufacture of its trains and many other products.

More than that, this book is a fascinating study of inventiveness followed by intermittent company implosions.  It traces the timeline of progressive business practices and represents an amazing industrialarchaeological study of the formation of one of the earliest American manufacturing conglomerates.

Fresh and exhaustive new research reveals many facts long hidden in archival documents. Dozens of new stories emerge about the laborers, their bosses, and the buildings where they made Lionel trains. Information now surfaces about the processes used to mass-produce electric trains, information that explodes myths accepted for years.

In 1917, Joshua Lionel Cowen invited the young readers of his catalog to take a ride through his “Fun Factory.”  Now, through the superb writing of Robert Osterhoff, all of us can take that nostalgic ride and learn the truth behind the rise and fall and rise again of Lionel, one of the manufacturing and pop culture icons in modern American life.

Hard Cover, 248 Pages, 10" x 10", Full Color, 575+ Photos & Images.

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