Trains & Locomotives Gallery 3
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It was American Flyer that was extraordinary because it had two rails instead of the dumb three rails on Lionels. George Will once wrote a column on the theme of American Flyer as the underdog. Something about how owning Flyer predestined him to be a Cubs fan and a conservative or something. A. C. Gilbert produced American Flyer, Erector sets, & chemistry sets.
Early electric trains had series-wound motors that were equally comfortable with battery d.c. or transformed house current. Rectification technology didn't develop to the stage that permitted cheap power packs until well after the second World War. Modern scale model trains run on D.C. They have permanent magnet motors that are allergic to alternating current.
The Erector Set, probably America's oldest building toy, was the brainchild of A.C. Gilbert, who was a toymaker, an Olympic gold medallist in pole vaulting and a Yale-educated doctor. On a trip to New York City in 1911, Gilbert noticed the girders used in the construction of skyscrapers. "I suppose the idea was germinating in my mind during several trips," he later said, "but that day everything came together." Back home, he cut out cardboard girders and rectangular sheets, and the next day he asked his craftsmen to duplicate the pieces in tin. He then sat down with a box of nuts and bolts and built a square from four girders, which immediately skewed into a rhombus. His Erector Set debuted at the 1913 New York Toy Fair. Buyers went wild over it, and on Christmas morning, so did fathers and sons all over the country. The Erector Set became so popular that Gilbert published a newspaper, "Erector Tips," [God, such an age of innocence!] a collection of construction ideas.
