Customer Reviews

Lionel Trains: A Pictorial History of Trains and Their Collectors

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A production of the combined efforts of the Turner Publishing Company staff under the editorship of Randy Baumgardner and designer Frene Melton, "Lionel Trains: A Pictorial History of Trains And Their Collectors" is a magnificently illustrated history of America's most popular manufacturer of model trains and model train accessories. A unique compendium of illustrations and information, "Lionel Trains" begins with an informed and informative introduction, the goes on the feature a 'Lionel Timeline', an extended interview with Richard Kughn, and succinct profiles of an extensive roster of Lionel Train collectors. A throughly user friendly index completes this seminal and visually impressive reference which is most especially recommended to the attention of the legions of model railroading enthusiasts in general, and Lionel Train collectors in particular.

The front of the book (Lionel Timeline, and Interview with Richard Kughn) was decent, although it would be nice if all those who undertake a history of Lionel could agree on the basics. You read three of them and you get three slightly different renditions of who did what, when, and with (or to) whom. Despite the distractions caused by these seeming disagreements, the timeline is interesting. The Kughn interview is the best part of the book: a good blend of verbiage and photography. But the back of the book suffers from unimaginative expositions of what must have been answers to a questionaire or survey given to the various collectors. They are way too formulaic, and thus end up boring. Maybe the answers should have been presented as a table, like political candidates' answers to policy questions, and then devote more space to pictures. In a few cases, the most interesting or rarest item in a given collection was mentioned in the text, but not pictured. After reading the first dozen or so narratives, I just looked at the pictures. Very happy that I bought this at a steep discount off the $69.95 dust jacket price.