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As most of us have homes to return to at night, so must the steam engine return to the Roundhouse. This section of five stalls was produced in 1932 to 1934 by the LIONEL Corporation and sold for $12.50 a stall. In 1932, that was a lot on money for an accessory that would take up so much room that the turntable had to be made small enough that most steam engines produced at that time would not fit on the table with their tender. |
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Lionel learned that after the Christmas season, kids (and their parents) would purchase accessories for the trains that arrived on the 25th of December. This picture shows the largest of the three power houses Lionel produced as extra accessories. In all three cases, the power houses would "hide" a transformer which of course was required to run the trains and lights on the layout.
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| To be able to run a toy train in the early part of the century, you needed to be a "electrician of sorts" in order to get all of the wires to work the switches and set the proper voltages to the acessories and trains. What a start for a young person to learn these skill while at play. The Great Train Room uses over a dozen rheostats to control the speed (voltage) of the trains... just the way a young person would have had to do it in 1932.
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This scene shows the channel under Lionel's "Hell Gate" bridge... the very same one that connects Manhatten to Brooklyn as it crosses over the East River. This bridge was finished just three days before America joined the allies in WWI. Lionel introduced the bridge as an accessory starting in 1928. This toy bridge is an example of the craftmanship that went into building Lionel toys.
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