Johnny Cash did a lot of commercials for Lionel trains. My dad was a chauffeur and picked him up at Kennedy Airport mentioned that I loved all of his train songs so they stopped at a record store bought a record with him on the cover in front of a steam locomotive and he autograph it for me and my mom threw it away with all of the children records. I would still have that album today in my collection of train stuff and imagine what it would be worth. My dad was a big Lionel fan and had a huge Lionel layout in the basement so we all went down so Johnny Cash could take a look at it and they spent 10 15 minutes firing up the layout. Then my father took him to his hotel room. He once brought Barbara Eden to the house and I fell in love with her immediately she would call me little Frankie. Such a sweet and beautiful lady.
@@donstrains None of them actually had them but the box depicts the boxcar with AAR trucks . This was said to be a nod to the postwar era , no one knows for sure .
Old man Cohen saw one of his employees painting a refrigerator car in Budweiser colors and he said Lionel will never advertise anything harmful for children. Got tobacco cars I don't care for but the beer reefer cars are more prototypical.
Frank Sinatra built a replica of the Lionel Rico station at his mansion and that was his train room he ran everything from post-war MPC era train as well he was a real operator. I met him once when I was a little kid at trainland in Brooklyn and we talked trains for a little while and I had no idea who he was he was just another train guy.
The Lionel Alco fa diesel locomotive with the closed pilot look so much more realistic than the ones with the humongous coupler and the great big gapping hole in the front end. One good thing about the plastic MPC trucks were that you could swap the wheels out with scale insulated wheels so you could run them onto rail layout and acquire Rolling Stock much cheaper. I have had an old Model Railroader Magazine from the 1950s and which companies would make car bodies and there would be a plate on the bottom so you could screw a Lionel truck to the bottom of the scale freightcar or you could put scale trucks on it and body mount the couplers but you could do it both ways. It is ironic that Lionel's decision to leave off the front coupler actually made the locomotive so much more realistic.
I went to a train show at the Shriners one year and got a bunch of stuff and saw a guy who had a brand new Milwaukee special train set in the Box. I told them I would come back tomorrow which was Sunday and I brought him a check for $125 for the train set. His wife said you're not really going to take a check from someone you don't know do you? And I looked at her and I said we are train people. We are not regular people. He is welcome to come to my house and look at my collection and run my layout and the same thing on his part. I had it in a shed full of boxed train stuff that a tree landed on it from Hurricane in and outside of some water damage on the box everything inside was immaculate. There was a video on the Mighty sound of steam and the foam that insulated the circuit board from the metal frame of the tender would have usually crumbled away from a and the first time he put it on the track it will short out so I learned that when I take it out of the box I will put fresh foam underneath the unit so it does not short out before I put power to it. I accumulated a set of the Milwaukee special cars here and there and I painted the roof solid orange to match the rest of the car as well as the Union Pacific 202 Alco fa that pulls the train. I got a brand new Alco 202 from a train collector in Chicago and when I put it on the track it ran beautifully straight out-of-the-box he chastised me for taking it out of the box and actually putting it on the track and running it and I said that's what I bought it for. To hell with collectability. I have the orange MTH Train Station in the middle of 4 ovals of track one orange 202 pulls a train of operating orange Lionel cars, another pulls a train of repainted Milwaukee special cars, then I have the steam powered Milwaukee special and on the outside I have a Kaline 02 7 Big Boy hauling a train of orange Lionel boxcars. People know me as the Orange train guy. I also love the Lionel glow-in-the-dark tank cars those are so cool to watch them run in the dark.
It always was odd to me why Lionel only put one coupler on their Alco deisel locomotives in some of their sets during this period of the 70's because they made both those Santa Fe sets that were just an A and a B unit when to me those sets should of been an A B A instead of just an A and B unit sets those set would of made more sense that way I think an another thinng I have herd an agree with is Lionel during this time should of put a horn in their Alco deisel's there was no reason why they couldn't of it would of added somthing to their Alco deisels that should of been their in the first place but another great video as always
Johnny Cash did a lot of commercials for Lionel trains. My dad was a chauffeur and picked him up at Kennedy Airport mentioned that I loved all of his train songs so they stopped at a record store bought a record with him on the cover in front of a steam locomotive and he autograph it for me and my mom threw it away with all of the children records. I would still have that album today in my collection of train stuff and imagine what it would be worth. My dad was a big Lionel fan and had a huge Lionel layout in the basement so we all went down so Johnny Cash could take a look at it and they spent 10 15 minutes firing up the layout. Then my father took him to his hotel room. He once brought Barbara Eden to the house and I fell in love with her immediately she would call me little Frankie. Such a sweet and beautiful lady.
Great conversation
i have the Santa Fe Double Diesel
The Empire State Express set also had postwar style trucks on the box and catalog pics featured on the Great Northern boxcar .
I think all the cars had postwar trucks maybe. I did forget to mention that. Good catch.
@@donstrains None of them actually had them but the box depicts the boxcar with AAR trucks . This was said to be a nod to the postwar era , no one knows for sure .
Old man Cohen saw one of his employees painting a refrigerator car in Budweiser colors and he said Lionel will never advertise anything harmful for children. Got tobacco cars I don't care for but the beer reefer cars are more prototypical.
I’ve always like the Winston & Salem cars personally 🚂
Really enjoy these catalog reviews. Thanks for your efforts.
Frank Sinatra built a replica of the Lionel Rico station at his mansion and that was his train room he ran everything from post-war MPC era train as well he was a real operator. I met him once when I was a little kid at trainland in Brooklyn and we talked trains for a little while and I had no idea who he was he was just another train guy.
They actually had a pretty good line up of product considering the times! Thanks, Don! T4
The Lionel Alco fa diesel locomotive with the closed pilot look so much more realistic than the ones with the humongous coupler and the great big gapping hole in the front end. One good thing about the plastic MPC trucks were that you could swap the wheels out with scale insulated wheels so you could run them onto rail layout and acquire Rolling Stock much cheaper. I have had an old Model Railroader Magazine from the 1950s and which companies would make car bodies and there would be a plate on the bottom so you could screw a Lionel truck to the bottom of the scale freightcar or you could put scale trucks on it and body mount the couplers but you could do it both ways. It is ironic that Lionel's decision to leave off the front coupler actually made the locomotive so much more realistic.
I went to a train show at the Shriners one year and got a bunch of stuff and saw a guy who had a brand new Milwaukee special train set in the Box. I told them I would come back tomorrow which was Sunday and I brought him a check for $125 for the train set. His wife said you're not really going to take a check from someone you don't know do you? And I looked at her and I said we are train people. We are not regular people. He is welcome to come to my house and look at my collection and run my layout and the same thing on his part. I had it in a shed full of boxed train stuff that a tree landed on it from Hurricane in and outside of some water damage on the box everything inside was immaculate. There was a video on the Mighty sound of steam and the foam that insulated the circuit board from the metal frame of the tender would have usually crumbled away from a and the first time he put it on the track it will short out so I learned that when I take it out of the box I will put fresh foam underneath the unit so it does not short out before I put power to it. I accumulated a set of the Milwaukee special cars here and there and I painted the roof solid orange to match the rest of the car as well as the Union Pacific 202 Alco fa that pulls the train. I got a brand new Alco 202 from a train collector in Chicago and when I put it on the track it ran beautifully straight out-of-the-box he chastised me for taking it out of the box and actually putting it on the track and running it and I said that's what I bought it for. To hell with collectability. I have the orange MTH Train Station in the middle of 4 ovals of track one orange 202 pulls a train of operating orange Lionel cars, another pulls a train of repainted Milwaukee special cars, then I have the steam powered Milwaukee special and on the outside I have a Kaline 02 7 Big Boy hauling a train of orange Lionel boxcars. People know me as the Orange train guy. I also love the Lionel glow-in-the-dark tank cars those are so cool to watch them run in the dark.
I actually got this catalog in like new
Condition on ebay for .87 cents because of a coupon
It always was odd to me why Lionel only put one coupler on their Alco deisel locomotives in some of their sets during this period of the 70's because they made both those Santa Fe sets that were just an A and a B unit when to me those sets should of been an A B A instead of just an A and B unit sets those set would of made more sense that way I think an another thinng I have herd an agree with is Lionel during this time should of put a horn in their Alco deisel's there was no reason why they couldn't of it would of added somthing to their Alco deisels that should of been their in the first place but another great video as always
Thank you, Jody.
@@donstrains Your very welcome
What year featured the Black Diamond set with the Pennsylvania 8203 2-4-2 steamer?