All Aboard : The Story of Joshua Lionel Cowen & His Lionel Train Company (Hardcover)

by Ron Hollander (Author) "Though The Twentieth Century made daily runs between Chicago and New York, the Cohens (Cowen's forebears) made the longer journey-and the miles of dirt roads..." (more)
Key Phrases: New York, New Jersey, Union Pacific (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"All Aboard will be required reading for anybody who ever had a model railroad." -- Palm Beach Post

Product Description
This year the Lionel Train Company celebrates its 100th anniversary, and to commemorate the milestone comes a an updated second edition of ALL ABOARD!, the marvelous story of Joshua Lionel Cowen and the toy trains he created. Originally published in 1981, ALL ABOARD! brings back the classic electric trains for all those who remember them. The Santa Fe came in gleaming silver and shiny red. The New York Central was gray and white. World War I models carried seige guns, a 1957 engine came in pink for girls. There were Pullmans and steam locomotives, Lehigh Valley coal cars, lumber cars, and a design from 1964 that carried radioactive waste and the Mercury capsule. A&E Network named Lionel trains a "Top Ten Toy" of the century-#4 specifically.

But the story of Lionel trains is far from over. Co-owned by rock star Neil Young, who bought the company because of his autistic son's love for the trains, the Lionel Train Company is stronger than ever, and is evolving with the times by employing remote control, sound chips, and other technical innovations. With 32 all-new pages and scores of colorful illustrations from the archives of Lionel catalogs, ALL ABOARD! is the definitive collector's book on the subject.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company; Revised and Updated edition (October 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761121331
• ISBN-13: 978-0761121336
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #705,919 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marvelous book. A starting point for the Lionel Hobby, January 1, 2001

By	Jim (St. Paul, MN United States) - See all my reviews

I have had several copies of the previous edition of this book but kept giving them away to neighbors of mine. It is a wonderful look at one of the oldest and most successful toy companies in the world: Lionel Trains. This book covers everything: humble beginnings, postwar boom, near destruction at the hands of famed veteran of the "Red Scare" Roy Cohn to it's present day owners. If you had Lionel trains as a child or have always loved them from afar I cannot tell you how much fun this book is. With stories on all of the most famous cars and the people behind the genius it's an engrossing read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended reading for toy train enthusiasts, January 28, 2001

By	Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

All Aboard! The Story Of Joshua Lionel Cowen & His Lionel Train Company is the fascinating story of the man who made the electric toy train one of the most popular toys for boys and hobbies for grown men in the last century. Published in part to celebrate the Lionel Train Company's 100th Anniversary, All Aboard! is also a testament to how this producer of toy trains dealt with the competition of electronic games at the end of the 20th century and is experiencing a surge of popularity at the beginning of the 21st Century. Original published in 1981, this new, revised and updated celebratory edition of All Aboard! is welcome and highly recommended reading for toy train enthusiasts in general, and Lionel Train collectors in particular!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Definitive (and Readable) History of Lionel Trains, January 27, 2004

By	WILLIAM H FULLER (SPEARFISH, SD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Simply put, Hollander has written and compiled the highest quality, most comprehensive, and most readable book about the history of the Lionel electric train company that has ever been done. I make that claim while scanning my bookcase holding 45 books on electric toy trains, the majority of them dealing with Lionel, indisputably the penultimate brand name in America, at least where toy trains are concerned.

Hollander writes of the origin and the evolution of Lionel trains from their beginning around 1900 through their status at the commencement of the 21st century, including their near death in 1969 and their miraculous resuscitation by the General Mills cereal company in 1970. Don't be alienated by the earlier statement that this is a history book. It is in no way a dry rehashing of facts, dates and dollars such as comprise boring histories. On the contrary, "All Aboard!" is more of a love story, for Hollander is truly in love with his subject, and his excitement in telling us about the Lionel legend carries the reader through the book on wings of delight.

Highly descriptive text leaves us with a wonderful acquaintanceship with Lionel's parent, Joshua Lionel Cohen (who "Americanized" his name to Cowen), shows us the birth of his baby, draws us word pictures of that baby's successes and failures, its grand leaps of inventiveness and its faltering steps of failure in the changing business and economic climate of a century of American enterprise. Along the way, we are presented with copious visual reinforcement (both in color and in black and white) of the story that the text is weaving for us. We see photographs of the movers and shakers of this great company, some of the wondrous trains that they produced, and some of the expert art work that marketed those trains to the boys and fathers (and girls and mothers, too) of 20th century America. That art work, in annual catalogs and in magazine and newspaper advertisements, forged an emotional bond between American youth and the Lionel Corporation that endures today despite changing fortunes and changing ownership. Its effect on our culture has been phenomenal and is clearly addressed in Hollander's book.

I can levy only two criticisms against "All Aboard!" The first is that I sometimes find the page layout annoying in that many sidebars and notes are included to give us insights into Lionel's executives, competitors, and plans. These are valuable and interesting, but they do interrupt the flow of the main text. The reader must either pause to read the sidebars or else ignore them at first and then return to them later. The second criticism is that the final chapter, which is the only "revised and updated" part of the book since its original release in 1981, lacks the intimate, revealing analysis that gives the rest of the book its finesse. The first eight chapters read as though Hollander had been an insider at the Lionel Corporation for its eighty-one years of birth, growth and turmoil, whereas the ninth chapter, which looks at the technological advances in toy trains from 1982 to 2000, is told by an outside observer who is no more privy to corporate thoughts than are the rest of us.

If one has already enjoyed the 1981 edition of "All Aboard!", I cannot recommend purchasing the current edition just to have the new chapter. On the other hand, if one has never seen either edition of "All Aboard!", then, no matter what other books he may have read on Lionel trains, he has missed the most definitive and enjoyable book of all, and I cannot recommend Hollander's book too highly.