Customer Reviews

The Art of Lionel Trains - Toy Trains and American Dreams

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"Saying 'Lionel' to anyone over the age of 40 brings forth nods of recognition and stories of smoking, whistling trains chugging around Christmas trees."

"The Art of Lionel Trains" is a showcase of familiar images, famous pictures and the artwork from catalog covers, newspaper advertising and other marketing pieces. Some of the pictures are sentimental and show the dreams of children.

When my mother bought my husband his first Lionel Train, I think he spent most of one afternoon putting the track together and then would amuse our cats by running the train at least once a day, complete with smoke billowing about in our mostly empty room. I kept wondering what was burning. My memories of Lionel Trains now include cats jumping across tracks to avoid the impending doom. They were actually quite fascinated for weeks.

This book highlights classic Lionel trains, helps to revive memories of toy trains from the past and analyzes art and its relationship to dreams and values.

The Chapters Include:

Dreams of Ambition 1900-1923
Dreams of Consumption 1920-1933
Dreams of Authority 1931-1947
Dreams of Security 1946-1964
Dreams of Nostalgia 1963-1993
Dreams of Tomorrow 1990-2003

This book is a history of Lionel Trains from 1900-2003 and is the perfect gift for Lionel Train fans everywhere. Each chapter contains detailed information on all things train through an analysis of advertising.

What I noticed, is a sense of family unity throughout the pictures. It also seems that a Lionel Train looks best with a Christmas tree. Artists actually started promoting this idea back in the1920s. The text in the advertising is readable in most cases. You have to love the pictures of the poor kids watching while "grandpa and dad" took over the train tracks.

Roger Carp has been a member of the editorial staff of Classic Toy Trains magazine since 1988. You might want to look for additional selections by Roger Carp:

The World's Greatest Toy Train Maker: Insiders Remember Lionel

Classic Lionel Display Layouts You Can Build

~The Rebecca Review

I read all 143 double spaced, profusely illustrated pages of it. I had no idea of what I would be getting into other than ad art and Lionel. I decided to make it a read inasmuch as it promised fine artwork and how it related to Lionel's marketing.

The book is not just breezy, casual reading. It is more than pretty pictures as well. It is a combination of analysis, interpretation and commentary on the more than 100 years of Lionel history through five owners. In this Roger Carp has succeeded. He has profiled the Lionel we know today as well as the company which existed through two World Wars and other skirmishes, one Great Depression, diversifications and contractions as well as other economic ups and downs.

The evolution of Lionel has taken many twists and turns. The philosophy of each new owner. Controlling costs. Fluctuations of sales. The cycles of selling toys, then "accurately detailed replicas of the real thing", then reissues. The reader will find that this cycle has repeated itself again and again.

Some of the illustrations will be familiar as they cover the period from 1906 through an ad from the July 2001 Classic Toy Trains. Actually this is fertile territory for a well-done art book on American model train advertising. Much of the ad art from early Lionel, Ives and others in catalogs and elsewhere is truly art. Maybe .... some day. It's bound to be a "must have".

In The Art of Lionel Trains you won't find witty little anecdotes or factory stories or any yet unheard exposes. You will find the "big" names, CEO's and top level management. The names of some of the many artists and photographers who contributed their talents to Lionel's enduring success. And you will find more than 150 beautiful reproduced color illustrations The author succeeds very well in telling the story of Lionel as seen through its ads, publications and catalogs. This is another Lionel licensed product bound to bring enjoyment to the reader.

The ART OF Lionel Trains has increased my knowledge of the Lionel Corporation in an area that was almost unknown to me. I have been a toy train collector for over thirty years but knew little about the philosophies and rationale that went into creating the Lionel catalogs, and copy for their advertisng. The book traces the history of Lionel and simultaneously explains how the company's marketing strategies were transformed into art copy. The literary and historical content of this book is exceptional, as well as the myriad of illustrations and accompanying explanations. I recommend it to anyone interested in the toy train hobby.

Roger Carp has authored a real "winner." Recently there have been many "Coffee Table Books" released. Many contain mega errors and a great deal of self-serving rhetoric. Not this one by Roger! It is a first rate chronological look at the rise of The Lionel Corporation through its artwork and business philosophies. Roger very skillfully traces Lionel's emergence to its American ICON status by showing one piece of artwork after another, many of which have not been seen before. In addition to the full color artwork within the 143 pages, the text is interesting, informative, thought provoking, and best of all, VERY easy to read. You will not go wrong by adding this delightful hardback book to your collection of Lionel Lore.
Gordon L Wilson, Past TCA National President

THE ART OF LIONEL TRAINS is about more than the commercial art that Lionel used to illustrate its catalogs and brochures. Carp analyzes that art to explain the marketing trails that the company followed, changing its appeals according to fluctuating sociological, cultural and economic conditions. Carp uses the nature of Lionel's visual advertising to explain the evolution of the company's fortunes as its target market changed over time. Thus, the book becomes sort of a capsule history of Lionel, using its artwork as the focus to examine that history.

Nearly every page includes full-color examples of the artwork that Carp is analyzing, and every illustration is accompanied by a succinct but informative caption. The explanatory text is double-spaced throughout the book, and each page is well laid out, presenting a visual feast for the reader's eyes. Coupled with this enticing presentation is the fact that, thanks to Carp's skill as an author and perhaps to the skills of his editors and proofreaders as well, the text consistently holds the reader's interest and is devoid of any distracting grammatical or stylistic weaknesses--something that cannot be said for many books currently being foisted upon an unsuspecting or perhaps uncritical reading public. The text is as much a joy to read as are the illustrations to be seen. Together, they result in a truly beautiful book.

I am going to pick one nit in this otherwise exceptionally fine book, its size. Each page (as well as the front and back cover) measures 10.5 inches square, which proves to be a very awkward size to hold while sitting in ones favorite reading chair. The reader almost needs to lay the book on a table or desk top rather than holding it in his hands. On the other hand, the unusually large format does allow generous page space to accommodate the widely spaced text, illustrations, and captions, and that may outweigh the "ergonomic challenge" of the format.

A rather curious mystery is why this book went out of print so quickly. Perhaps its brief lifespan is related to its being a Lionel-licensed product? Did the licensing fee make it unprofitable for Kalmbach Publishing Company? Whatever the reason may have been, we are fortunate that copies in very good condition are still readily available through second-hand and out-of-print book sellers. As I write this in late 2009, several sellers are offering the book here on Amazon.com. Many others can also be found through [..]. THE ART OF LIONEL TRAINS is, I feel, quite good enough to warrant a search for sellers with realistic prices, and I believe that anyone who ever dreamed over a Lionel catalog will vastly enjoy it.

I saw this book on the shelf and opened it ever so gently and reverently. Those beautiful pictures of Lionel Trains reproduced from the old catalogs graced the pages. I went back in time for a few moments and tried to recall those days so long ago. I relived for a very fleeting moment that era and in a blink of the eye it was gone. But I savored the moment and put it away somewhere special to take out again perhaps on a rainy day as I gaze out my window in a bit of melancholy and think how long ago it was when I held my first Lionel Train. Flipping through the pages of this book is a moving experience if you grew up with Lionel Trains as I did. Collecting Lionel Trains and the catalogs was truly a family affair and one I will always cherish. This is an important book for me. I don't have to take out my Lionel catalogs with their yellowing and brittle pages or pull out streamlined passenger cars or boxcars from my closet in orange boxes now crumbling at the edges. I can sit down and open this book and gaze into the past and just remember. Just remembering is good enough these days. Just remembering when.

A "must have" for Lionel Train enthusiasts. I'm not sure who enjoys it the most, my 60 year old husband or our three year old grandson! Ours is getting so dog-eared from hours of enjoyment that we might need to think about a repalacement!

Officially licensed by Lionel itself, The Art Of Lionel Trains: Toy Trains And American Dreams by Roger Carp is more than just a simple showcase of promotional art that the Lionel company used to advertise their classic model locomotives; its informed and informative text follows the journey and evolution of the internationally famous model railroading company and its various products that inspired hobbies and dreams in households across America. Illustrated throughout in full color and a highly recommended addition to any personal or community library Railroading History collection, The Art Of Lionel Trains is as much a trip down memory lane for model train buffs as it is a peek to an era when advertising art was lively yet simple.

The book is appropriately titled, as it is, in and of itself, a work of art. It is much more than a book about model trains. It is a well-written thesis on the societal changes in America during the past century, and how they have impacted our ability to deal with life's stressful situations. The book very artfully discusses the changing behavioral patterns of consumption and productivity, and how these patterns influence parent-child relationships, family structure, etc. These behavioral patterns, at least in part, manifested themselves in the toy (and other) purchasing patterns of the consuming public. How these purchases, and the related parent-child interactions, unfold throughout the century is described in this excellent reference to the model train hobby. This hobby's influence on the American family more broadly is also discussed extensively. This is a very timely work given the stressfulness of the current social/political environment.

Roger has done a fine job collecting both the leading artwork and historic backstories associated with the creation of Lionel model train catalogs throughout the company's history. If you're interested in Lionel, commercial artwork and the behind-the-scenes processes involved with such production, then The Art of Model Trains is for you. Big, colorful and well-designed, it's a great and pretty read for that retro toy enthusiast on your shopping list.