As a Postwar Lionel collector, I have interests in all things Lionel and Dealer Displays are no exception. Several years ago I was able to secure a couple of original Lionel dealer display layouts including a D-1601 and a D-133 from a fellow TCA/L&P member. I have been restoring (mostly storing) them since I purchased them and it has been a slow process. I find the manufacturing techniques as well as stories that surround the layouts to be quite fascinating.
Some of you may remember the Lionel D-164 dealer display replica that I built for our November 2008 Open Meet. The original layout was manufactured in 1956 by the display department and was sold to Lionel dealers and toy, hobby and department stores across the United States to help sell trains during the holiday season. Since I was not around in the post war era, I never got to experience the thrill of seeing an action packed layout in all it’s glory lighting up a storefront window or entertaining kids at a local store. Rather my memories of purchasing trains as a child were sifting through boxes of trains on shelves until one of them caught my eye. Boring! I can only imagine how exciting these layouts must have been to a young kid who was hoping for some new trains around the holidays.
I spent most of 2007 constructing this layout in my garage using very similar building techniques that were used 51 years prior. This included buss bar wiring, original Lionel grass, and real wool felt for the mountain and all original postwar accessories etc. The layout turned out pretty good and has been on loan to the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum under the care of the Toy Train Division for the past couple of years.
Since my layout building skills have been dormant for a couple of years, I thought that 2010 would be a good year to build another layout for the upcoming November Open Meet. The first one I built used tubular track so I thought I would try something different this time. Super O!
The dealer layout I will be recreating is from 1959 and has the catalog # D-264. The D-264 is a Super O layout that contains many exciting accessories from 1958 and 1959. It will have an outside main loop that goes through a mountain and an inside loop that snakes around and through the same mountain. It is jam packed with Lionel’s finest accessories that were available at the time.
Once I decided that I would be building this layout I began researching the history of it on the web and was able to find original pictures of actual surviving layouts. I was also able to secure a wiring diagram as well as an extensive bill of materials that are required for the layout. The list below is from the 1959 Dealer advance catalog: 40 No. 31 curved Track 1 No. 110 Graduated Trestle 1 No. 192 Railroad Control Tower 46 No 32 Straight Track 4 No. 110-A "A" Piers for 110 1 No. 195 Eight-Bulb Floodlight Tower 4 No. 34 Half Straight Track 1 No. 112 R. C. Switches Pr. 1 No. 197 Rotating Radar Antenna 1 No. 36 Operating R. C. Set 1 No. 128 Animated Newsstand 1 No. 199 Microwave Relay Tower 1 No. 37 Uncoupling Set 1 No. 140 Banjo Signal 1 No. 252 Automatic Crossing Gate 3 No. 49 Insulated Curved Track 1 No. 151 Automatic Semaphore 4 No. 260 Bumper 2 No. 71 Lamp Post 1 No. 157 Picket Fence Station 2 No. 310-3 Billboard 2 No. 91 Circuit Breaker 1 No. 175 Rocket Launcher 1 No. 332 Arch-Under-Bridge 1 No. 364C Controller 2 No. 920-2 Tunnel Portals 1 No. 3662 Operating Milk Car 1 No. 494 Rotary Beacon 1 No. 1047 Switchman with Flag 1 No. ZW 275-Watt Transformer Quite a list! While my collection includes most of the items, I will still need to spend the summer acquiring the missing pieces with the most difficult (and strangest) being the #1047 Switchman and perhaps the four black #260 bumpers. As I continued to research this layout I came across some discrepancies when comparing the surviving layouts to the original catalog photos. First, the catalog shows the #110 Trestles to be gray when all known surviving layouts have had black trestles. This makes sense since the black trestles were only cataloged in 1958 and 1959, therefore I will use the black ones. Second, in the catalog and in photos of the surviving layouts there is a # 264 Operating Forklift Platform on a back spur. While not mentioned in the bill of materials it also makes sense since the #264 was cataloged from 1957 – 1960. Since I have a nice example of this in my collection, it will be included. I hope to make a lot of progress before this newsletter returns in the fall. The photo below is what the layout should look like if I can secure enough time to make it happen. Look for updates in the September Newsletter. See you in May. Mike Speltz