Greenberg’s Guide To Lionel Trains: O Gauge, Volume 3: 1937-1942

Reviewed By Jim Koontz, TCA #99-49001 & Dr. Joseph Lechner, TCA #01-52673 Spring 2025 e*Train

Book Details:
Greenberg’s Guide to Lionel Trains, O Gauge, Volume 3: 1937-1942
By Bruce C. Greenberg
2024: Brinkmann Publishing LLC, 612 Old Iron Works Road, Spartanburg, SC 29302.
Hardcover: $110.00
Available from http://Brinkmannpub.com

Greenberg’s Guide to Lionel Trains, O Gauge, Volume 3: 1937-1942 is the final installation in his encyclopedic trilogy on prewar Lionel O gauge manufacturing.  Volume 1 (1915-1928) covered fourteen years of train production.  Volume 2 (1929-1936) covered eight years.  Volume 3 (although titled 1937-1942) essentially covers just five years of innovation, since Lionel converted to wartime production in 1942.

What an achievement!  Dr. Greenberg has spent the last twelve years creating four elaborate volumes covering Lionel prewar “O” and Standard gauge trains through all years of production. He has spent thousands of hours working with hundreds of collectors to produce tens of thousands of pictures.

One might ask, why devote a 344-page volume to such a brief period of toy train manufacturing?

A partial answer is that the sheer volume of train production increased greatly, as the United States recovered from economic depression, as more households received electric power, and as electric trains grew ever more popular.

A better answer is that, between 1937 and 1941, Lionel completed the transition from charming, brightly-colored toys to accurately scaled, well-detailed model trains.  Greenberg cites several factors that fueled the demand for greater realism; among them, the introduction of 1/48 scale locomotives by Edwin Alexander (1933) and others; elaborate model railroad displays at Chicago’s Century of Progress exhibition (1933-1934); and the first publication of Model Railroader (1934).

But the best answer, in my opinion, is that during this five-year window, Lionel developed most of the features that still contribute to the continuing popularity of O gauge 3-rail trains in the twenty-first century; among them:

• remotely-activated couplers; 
• electrically-operated action cars; 
• operating accessories that loaded cargo onto freight cars; and
• working knuckle couplers (although different from the postwar style that has become the industry standard to the present day).

Between 1937 and 1941, Lionel made widespread use of manufacturing technologies that remain staples of model train manufacturing to this day:

• compression (Bakelite®) molding;
• injection-molded plastics;  and
• zinc alloy (Zamak®) die-casting.

Phenolics (of which Bakelite® was the original brand) were the ideal material for transformer housings; roadbeds of switches and RCS sections; and electrical controllers of all kinds (including the ubiquitous uncouple/unload control that came with RCS tracks).  Not only are phenolics good electrical insulators, but they do not soften or deform if the item becomes warm during operation.

Lionel’s first compression-molded car body was a model of Pennsylvania Railroad’s X29 box car, which was offered both with scale trucks/ knuckle couplers (#714; 1940-1941) and with tinplate trucks/ box couplers (#2954, 1940-1942).

These box cars were followed in 1941 by a heavyweight passenger car with a compression-molded body.  #2623 was usually lettered Irvington, but some examples, lettered Manhattan, have been found.

Lionel described the Irvingtons as “coaches” and as “scale-proportioned”, but they are neither.  The car body is patterned after a Pullman 12-1 sleeper which was very common during the 1920s—1940s.  Such a car was 80’ long and contained twelve “sections” (pairs of facing seats that could be converted to upper and lower berths at night) and one “drawing room” (a more luxurious and private accommodation).  On a prototype car, there were six sections per side.  Each section had a pair of closely spaced windows.  Lionel eliminated two sections from each side, effectively creating an 8-1 sleeper.  Even manufacturers of “scale” O and HO trains did this to create 60’ “shorty” cars that could negotiate small-radius curves.  But Lionel’s model, at 14¼” long, is even shorter than 60 scale feet.

Lionel’s first injection-molded car body was a coal tender, which was offered with (#2666W) or without (#2666T) whistle beginning in 1941.

Zamak® die-casting enabled Lionel to design exquisitely detailed steam locomotives and to manufacture them less expensively than assembling them from dozens of stamped sheet-metal parts.  The 1/48 scale J1e Hudsons and B6 switchers are justly famous, and Greenberg covers them in great detail.  But Lionel created five other die-cast steamers that satisfied the demand for more realistic engines at a variety of price points:  an 0-4-0 switcher, a 2-4-2, two styles of 2-6-2 Prairie; and the largest and most expensive, a 2-6-4.  Lionel always called the latter wheel arrangement an “Adriatic”, but to my knowledge that name applied only to 2-6-4T tank locomotives used by European railroads.

Even in 1941, Lionel continued to create new rolling stock using its tried-and-true sheet metal technology, but these attractive freight cars combined Zamak® and Bakelite® parts with their traditional stamped-steel components.  The #2755 tank car consisted of a rolled sheet-metal tank, a die-cast chassis, and a compression-molded dome.  The #2758 automobile car had stamped-steel sides and roof, die-cast doors, and ends.  #2672 and #2757 cabooses were accurately proportioned after Pennsylvania Railroad’s N5 cabin car.  All three cars had Bakelite® air tanks.  They were painted in realistic colors and featured prototypical road names, reporting marks, and dimensional data.

Many of Lionel’s locomotives and rolling stock designs from 1937-1941 carried into the postwar era with little more than a change of trucks and couplers.  #2623 Irvington yielded the highly-coveted Madison heavyweight passenger cars.  #714 provided the body for the #3854 Merchandise Car.  Mid-range die-cast steamers returned as the #1665/ 1656 0-4-0 switchers and #1666/ 224 Prairies.  The pre-war #225 got a new PRR-style boiler front to become #2025/ 2035/ 675.  #226 got new mechanisms and running gear to yield, first the #726/ 736 Berkshires, then the #2046/ 646 Hudsons.

But the most enduring prewar design of all is Lionel’s ubiquitous 2-4-2, which has been a staple of 027 outfits for more than eight decades.  Die-cast boiler shells have given way to engineering plastics; open-frame motors have been replaced with can motors; electromechanical E-units have been displaced by solid-state reverse units or even command receivers; and whistle impellers have been superseded by digital sound systems; but the body molding on Lionel LLC #2445010 from the 2024 Big Book looks remarkably like the  #1684 that Lionel introduced in 1940.

Scale J1e Hudsons, B6 switchers, and the freight cars that accompanied them have long been regarded as the apex of prewar Lionel production.  Not only have these classic designs been duplicated by several manufacturers in the modern era; but they whetted demand for the plethora of full 1/48 scale trains that are available today.

In summary, Lionel O gauge production from 1937-1942 merits our special attention, because the company’s innovations during that era were springboards, both for Lionel’s phenomenal success after hostilities ended and also for the continuing popularity of O 3-rail trains in the twenty-first century.

Chapter 1 explains why Lionel changed their products from toy-like to realistic in appearance and operation, and how advances in casting technology in part made it possible. 

In Chapter 2, Dr. Joseph Lechner explains how Lionel utilized advances in plastics (polymers) to make new, realistic passenger and freight cars.  Jim Kinder’s list of items made from polymers is interesting.  Many detailed pictures of couplers, underside stampings, motors, pickup plates, trucks, and sealing tapes answer so many questions of how, why, and when.  The discussions and accompanying pictures of the Ives and Lionel reverse units and the amazing whistle are the best I have seen.

Chapters 3—7 review Lionel’s use of their multiple new realistic engines in passenger and freight cataloged and promotional sets.  Dave McEntarfer’s, Jim Kinder’s, and Bruce Young’s lists of sets with detailed contents in Chapters 3–7 are immensely helpful.  These sets demonstrate how Lionel used their colorful toy-like cars with the new realistic engines.  Dr. Greenberg shows how features were combined or omitted to make sets available at all price points to meet the demands of the local hobby shops as well as the national retailers.  The report on the 1940 905-B outfit that was sold without cars or tracks is an extreme example of pricing efficiency.

Chapter 8 describes the large and elaborate Hudsons and how Lionel overcame early casting issues to produce some of their finest locomotives.  Christopher DiCianna’s history of the evolution of the zinc alloy Zamak®, made by New Jersey Zinc Inc. from 1922 into the 1960s, reveals the constant struggle to combat zinc pest and produce products with fine detail.  Zinc pest probably damaged the majority of the 1937 production of Hudsons.  Many fine freight sets with 700 series engines are pictured.  In 1941 Lionel finally replaced the Hiawatha-based Rail Chief cars with the all-new Manhattan coaches specifically for the 700 series.

Chapter 9 could be titled “Switchers Made Easy”.  If you have ever tried to sort out the seemingly endless number of switchers and their outfits, you will appreciate Rob English’s fine charts solving that problem.

The promotional streamliner made attractive low-priced outfits, which are nicely pictured in Chapter 10.  These quite popular sets are generally available today.

Chapters 11, 12, and 13 start with the smaller 4- and 8-wheel freights.  These cars are often overlooked because of their size and low value.  They are, however, quite attractive and can be an inexpensive way to ease into collecting.  The larger 800 and 2800 freights are my personal favorites because I inherited many as a child and played with them for years.  Extensive pictures and detailed charts present them well.  The pictures and description of the merchandise car got my immediate attention.  Wow.

The rest of the book features the many lithographed cars that were sold from 1931-1942.  There is a good discussion of Ives, the transition to Lionel-Ives, and finally the dropping of the Ives name completely.  A once-proud name was eliminated from the manufacture of toy trains.

Greenberg’s informative books are enjoyable to peruse from cover to cover or to look up an item of current interest.  They will be your most useful resource on Lionel’s wonderful prewar trains.  These are going to be the permanent core reference books for all current and future collectors.  Don’t be the person scrounging for them online when they are all sold.