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In order to tell the history of American Model Trains, it is necessary to tell the history of the S scale. This is the scale that is sold by the company today. They have staked their reputation on being able to create model trains in a sector, which is all but forgotten by too large a section of the model train industry. Getting to know this niche market may cause you to want to invest in an S scale model train today.

The S scale is about half way in between O and HO scale. It is characterized by a 1:64 ratio. The model is fairly large as far as model trains are concerned. Because of its size, it is fairly durable. It can handle being mistreated by those who not know much about model trains like children and beginners. The larger size allows the production companies to add more detail to the trains in order to boost the amount of realism as the train powers around the track.

The history of American Model Trains starts in Britain where the S scale first got its start. When it was created before the turn of the century, it was known as the H-1 scale in order to represent its size as half that of the #1 scale. The name was changed in 1937 when CD Models started marketing the track that would be suitable for use in the 1:64 scales. The last change in the name came when the American Flyer brand started selling steam-powered locomotives.

American Flyer Trains got its start as a toy model train company, which was bought by AC Gilbert in 1937. When the company first started selling the trains, they ran on a 3-gauge rail. In 1942, the company started producing a 2-gauge track that is pretty close to what is being used by the same scale trains today. The American Flyer Train business failed in 1967, but the Lionel Company bought the name in order to sell the same scale and using the tracks that the company designed. Lionel still sells the American Flyer brand in their catalogs and online.

The majority of American Model Trains which are produced today are made to look and feel just like the old American Flyer trains. This will bring back a lot of memories for those who remember the trains chugging around the track on Christmas morning. Even if you do not remember, the trains offer a great classical looking train you can enjoy as it powers down the track.

The train you buy today will undoubtedly have a lot of history attached to it. Seldom are the trains going to have such an American heritage as the American Model Trains do. No matter if you buy the train for the history or for the realism, you are sure to enjoy the way it looks as it rolls down the tracks. Make sure you buy the train, which will allow you to have the most fun. Having fun is the name of the game in this and any hobby.

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A look into the history of the Lionel Model Train is fascinating. Lionel trains got their start in 1900 when Joshua Lionel Cowen created his first toy train, the Electric Express. Joshua was already a successful inventor at the time. He created the toy train as a nod to his childhood growing up around the rise of Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines, which made America into a world power.

Once Cowen invented the Electric Express, it and the next train he invented after it became his main passion for the remainder of his lifetime. Cowen told people boys who had a Lionel Model Train would be better prepared for adulthood. Word of this led fathers to join their sons in becoming model train enthusiast. Soon after Lionel train layouts were in several American homes. This was especially true during the Christmas season when it became a tradition to put a Lionel train layout around the Christmas tree.

Later in the century when American’s began their love affair with automobiles and cross-country flying became the norm, people quit buying the Lionel Model Train. This is because when Lionel trains first hit the market; trains had become a symbol of American technology and travelling in sophistication. Later in the 1960’s the freight lines were starting to be shut down, as were some of major train stations. Around this time Joshua Lionel Cowen passed away.

Slowly Lionel trains were rediscovered by those who were looking for a piece of American nostalgia. Others had their imaginations captured by the possibilities of being a model train collector. Recently, America has begun renewing its own relationship with trains as a viable form of transportation. As more high-speed passenger lines are being created and historical landmarks such as Penn Station are being restored, American’s are rediscovering their passion for model trains such as the Lionel Model Train.

Evidence of the renewed relationship American’s have with the Lionel Model Train can be seen in the Lionel Store located in New York at the famous 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Rockefeller Center. Every day, the store is filled with tourists from around the world trying to get a piece of this bit of true Americana. The store’s offering of Lionel Model Trains is just as symbolic of Christmas in America as the ice rink located outside the store in Rockefeller Center at Christmas time.

Another chapter of Lionel Model Train history is being written as the company has increased its online efforts to serve the model train community. Now people looking for sound advice when starting to collect model trains can go on line to the Lionel website. Model train enthusiasts can also find the information they are looking for. They can find everything from different models for purchase, answers to questions, and current model train news. There is even an online club offered on the website called the Lionel Railroader Club. Here train enthusiasts can get subscriptions to “Inside Track” the official Lionel Train news magazine and get special offers on Lionel trains and accessories.

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Russia and the West had harboured mutual suspicions of one another since before the Bolshevik revolution. Russia had aggressively sought territory from European states during the long demise of the Ottoman Empire. In the mid-twentieth century the anti-Russian role that in the past been had played by Britain, France and Austria was now adopted by the US. The seeds were sown during the inter-war years – Western intervention in the Russian civil war and the view that had been adopted by many in the West that Nazism would be a bulwark against Bolshevism increased Stalin’s hostility to the Western democracies. What cemented this resentment was the fact that the West had dithered for so long to open a second front, leaving the Russians to face the full brunt of the Reich’s armies, indeed many considered it to be intentionally done in order that the Germany and Russia would destroy one another. In turn the West were deeply suspicious of Russia’s belligerent expansive policies and Stalin’s treatment of Poland caused this divide to open even further. Poor old Poland, if you look at a map of Europe over the past centuries you will see that it has moved about quite a lot, parts have been chopped off and parts have been added on. In the post World War II talks, Stalin insisted that Eastern Poland, seized as part of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939 should remain Russian territory, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed and compensated Poland with former German territories in the West. But Stalin also wanted the type of government that he chose to be in power in Poland, hence his refusal to help the Poles who rose in the Warsaw Rising in 1944. In January 1945 Stalin recognised the Communist dominated Lublin committee as the government of Poland as opposed to the elected body. Later that year at the Yalta conference it was agreed that the Lublin committee would be expanded to include non-communists in a Provisional Government. However, by mid-1945 all key posts were held by Communists and in a dubious election in 1947, the Communists won an overwhelming majority.

This process was repeated in other Eastern European countries and as the Red Army liberated Bulgaria, Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary communist governments were installed. Of course another bone of contention was what to do with Germany, the Allies could not agree over this issue, showing a tremendous lack of trust in one another. They divided up Germany so that East became moulded in the image of Russia while the West followed the West. Churchill was to define the climate of time and indeed the guts of the century when he famously declared ‘From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the continent’. No direct confrontation had yet occurred but that was all to change in Greece. During the occupation of Greece in the Second World War the communist resistance movement (EAM) trained a guerrilla army (ELAS) with the intention of achieving a communist revolution similar to Tito’s in Yugoslavia. After British forces liberated Athens in October 1944 the ELAS and the nationalist forces clashed, a truce was called in February 1945 which left some two-thirds of the country in the hands of the communists. However, the communists fared badly at the subsequent elections in March 1946, Stalin intervened supporting a Communist rising which resulted in a renewal of the civil war. Britain could no longer support the non-communist Greek government, they pleaded to the American administration for support, who at the behest of Under-Secretary of State Dean Acheson formulated the Truman Doctrine. It was not specifically related to Greece, it was so much more than that, it illustrated that the US was finally abandoning its isolation replacing Britain as the strong power in the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

The Truman Doctrine was not confined just to Europe, indeed American involvement in South-East Asia stemmed from the Doctrine. A consequence of it was the Marshall Plan which was enunciated by General George C Marshall, US Secretary of State with a view to stopping shortages of food, fuel and raw materials which he believed would make Europe an easy prey for communism. Although Eastern bloc countries were invited to partake in the Plan, it was only the Western European states that accepted, enthusiastically creating the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) to help in the administration of the Plan. It proved to be a major success, with industrial production rising by twenty-five per cent in two years. Despite the evident benefits of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Czechoslovakia, the only Eastern European country to have retained a democratic government, joined the Soviet Bloc in 1948. The Czechs were still disgusted with the West since the Munich sell-out of them in 1938, preferring to side with the Russians who had liberated them in 1945. However, the majority of the government was non-communist but the communists originally worked well in the system, initiating a programme of land reform and nationalisation of major industry thus making them popular with the masses. However, the communists began purging the police force of non-communists and taking over positions of power and the non-communist foreign minister Jan Masaryk was found dead in suspicious circumstances. Eventually, the communists launched a coup d’etat, seizing power and probing a long red finger into the heart of the Western democracies.

America swore that it was as far as communism would get, the Russians had other ideas, the scene was set for a show-down which was to be acted out in Berlin. By 1947, the Western powers had merged their zones of occupation, ended denazification, released prisoners of war, began a programme of central German government and relaxed economic restrictions on German economies. These reforms angered Stalin who viewed it as weak and granting an opportunity for the Nazis to rise again. The issue of currency reform was in many ways the straw that broke the camel’s back. The Allies had decided to introduce a new currency to end black trading and instigate an economic revival – it worked – production rose by fifty per cent in six months. The Russians responded by introducing a new currency in their zone, thus further widening the division. Subsequently, they blockaded Berlin on 24 June 1945. The Allies organised a massive air-lift to get supplies to their beleaguered zones in Berlin. Stalin realising he had failed agreed to reopen road and rail links in May 1949. However, the Cold War was to spread far from the European arena. Japan had annexed Korea in 1910, following the Second World War, the Americans and the Soviets agreed that they should occupy Korea. The demarcation line between the Communist North, under Kim Il Sung an the South under the right-wing President Syngman Rhee was the thirty-eight parallel. Both leaders desired to see the country united under their respective systems.

On 25 June 1950, the North launched a surprise attack that swiftly saw the capture of Seoul, overrunning nearly all of the South with the exception of the important port of Pusan. The UN found their hands were tied because of the Russian boycott so the vast majority of troops rallied to defend the South were American. The American offensive was highly successful, regaining all territory by October 1950. They pushed on invading the North causing the Chinese to enter the war who succeeding in rolling the American forces all the way back into the South and capturing Seoul. The war now settled into a battle of attrition, peace talks began in 1951, an agreement reached in 1953 settled on the 38th parallel dividing North and South and thus returning everything very much to the way it was before the war. To achieve this over four million Korean citizens had perished. Similarly, at the 1954 Geneva Conference Vietnam was divided along the 17th degree of latitude with the North been under the control of the communist Ho Chi Minh government. It was seen universally as a breakthrough and a series of conferences were held throughout the rest of the fifties which led to something of a thaw in the Cold War. However it was far from a total melting as the Russian invasion of Hungary and the invasion of Suez by Britain and France attested to. The thaw completely ended in May 1960 when a US spy plane was shot down over Russia, the crisis escalated into the Russian premier’s demand that the Allies completely withdraw from Berlin, which the Allies regarded as an attempt to incorporate the entire city into East Germany. Indeed, the situation in Berlin had become worrying for the communists as tens of thousands of people arrived in reception centres in the West during 1960.

This had the effect of disgracing the supposedly socialist showpiece of East Berlin and clearing it of vast numbers of skilled personnel. Reacting to this, the East German army closed all crossings from East Berlin to the West on 13 August 1961 and in subsequent weeks erected the now infamous Berlin wall. Paradoxically, the Wall contributed to a peaceful co-existence as it removed Berlin from being one of the most dangerous issues in the Cold War, the conflict once again moved to different arenas, one of which was Cuba. In 1959, Fidel Castro’s communist forces overthrew the dictatorship of Batista. In an attempt to kick-start the economy, many American owned industries were nationalised, a move which seriously aggravated the US. They refused to purchase Cuba’s main export, sugar which was in turn bought by Russia, bringing Castro closer to Moscow resulting in Russia building missile sites in Cuba which could threaten American cities. On 16 October, American spy planes procured aerial photographs showing ballistic missiles with atomic warheads which were on their way to Cuba. US President Kennedy ordered a blockade to prevent the ships arriving reaching Cuba, after a tentative stand-off where the whole world was held in the balance, the Russians eventually withdrew, the world had come to the brink of nuclear war. Throughout the sixties the Cold War was marked by the Soviet Union and the US doing their utmost to retain their respective spheres of influence. In 1965, US President Lyndon Johnson landed troops on the Dominican Republic with a view to preventing what the US administration styled as another Cuban revolution. In 1968, the Soviets crushed the Prague Spring of Czechoslovakia. Again in 1965, Johnson sent troops to South Vietnam to bolster the faltering anti-communist government becoming embroiled in the region for a decade. From the seventies there was an easing of tensions, a détente between the two old foes. The rise of China, Japan and Western Europe and the rise of African nationalism coupled with the disunity of the communist alliance augured a new international politic.

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Viewpoints about the system of Reiki and its past are numerous. On our new website we have many pieces about the history of Reiki and its teachers as well as modern teachers and their teachings. But let’s look at a potted version of what has happened to the system since its beginnings in the early 1900s.

1860-1915

In 1865 Mikao Usui was born to a samurai family descended from the Chiba clan. He studies martial arts and reaches a high level called Menkyo Kaiden within the art around 1890[1]. Mikao Usui marries Sadako Suzuki and they have a boy, Fuji and a girl, Toshiko. He becomes a lay Tendai priest[2].

1915-1920

Suzuki san, Mikao Usui’s cousin, studied with Mikao Usui formally from 1915 until 1920 (and communicated with him informally until his death). She states that the first teaching to his students (12 of whom are claimed to still be alive) were the precepts. He also gave meditations and mantras for his students to practise. She said that during this period he became well known as a healer even though his initial teachings were based on strengthening one’s spirituality rather than direct healing. Mikao Usui used a reiju that was in fact a ‘spiritual blessing’ for his students. This was the forerunner to what is known as an attunement today. The Reiju was not created to attune/empower or transform someone, it was merely intended as a spiritual blessing. What was taught at this time appears to have been based strongly on traditional Japanese cultural and religious mores without it actually becoming a religion.

1920-1926

A group of nuns, two of whom were called Tenon in and Yuri in, worked with Mikao Usui from 1920 until he died[3]. In 1922 Mikao Usui climbed Mt Kurama and practiced an austerity training culminating in a deeper or different understanding of his spiritual practices[4]. The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai is created by Mikao Usui one month later in Tokyo[5] and is set up to cater to naval officers and other lay people. The symbols are introduced to the system to help those who had difficulty sensing the energy within them and in 1925 Mikao Usui moves to Nakano outside of Tokyo. A number of healing centers are set up[6]. Chujiro Hayashi, a retired naval officer and surgeon, studies with Mikao Usui in 1925. It is guessed that he may have written the first hand position manual for Mikao Usui. Some of Mikao Usui’s students become well known such as Toshihiro Eguchi and Kaiji Tomita. In 1926 Mikao Usui died of a stroke.

1927-1933

Chujiro Hayashi practiced under the auspices of the Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai until 1933 when he opened his own centre. The Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai continued to practise in quiet and still exists today. Some modern researchers have said that Chujiro Hayashi never had time to finish Shinpiden (teacher level) and he and the other naval officers merely emulated the reiju used by Mikao Usui.

1933-1938

It is believed that Chujiro Hayashi began the first actual commercial centre where people would come for healing and practitioners would work on them. Chujiro Hayashi wrote that he had taught 13 Reiki Masters by 1938. From 1936-1938 Hawayo Takata, an American born Japanese woman studied with him and became one of these Reiki Masters. Other students of his were Chiyoko Yamaguchi (whountil recently taught in Kyoto with her son Tadao), his wife – Chie and Tatsumi. We understand that there are other practitioners trained by him alive in Japan today. Chujiro Hayashi’s teachings were from the latter period of Mikao Usui’s life and may have been adapted by him to suit a more technical and clinical approach to the system rather than a spiritual one.

1938-1980

Hawayo Takata took the system of Reiki back to Hawaii, US and set up the first non-Japanese Reiki clinic. It seems that what she taught technically was in line with her teacher’s teachings. She did not teach the chakra system and neither did Chujiro Hayashi. Instead, her diary relates that she knew of and taught about the hara method. Her historical knowledge of the system on the other hand varied according to the time and occasion it was told in.

Chujiro Hayashi died in 1940 and his wife continued teaching in his place.

By the mid -1970s Hawayo Takata realized that she needed students to pass on what she had taught. She trained, in total, 22 students to teach the system of Reiki, as she knew it. Hawayo Takata died in 1980. During this period there were still people practising in Japan who were taught by Mikao Usui and his students. These students/teachers appear to have had no inclination to contact the strands of the system that were being practiced in the West.

1980-2003

After Hawayo Takata died her students began to set up their own practices and create Reiki groups and associations. Debate began over what was the true system of Reiki. A group called The Reiki Alliance standardized the Western system and taught what they called Usui Shiki Ryoho. Hawayo Takata’s granddaughter was their head and the term ‘Grandmaster’ was created to reflect her position. This term had not been used in the system of Reiki in either Japan or the West previously.

Barbara Weber Ray, another Reiki Master of Hawayo Takata, began her system calling it The Radiance Technique and claimed to have the only true teachings. These teachings appear to be influenced by her New Age beliefs.

Other students, including Iris Ishikuro and her student Arthur Robertson, drew more New Age concepts into the system of Reiki during the 80s. It was at this point that mythological Tibetan teachings entered the scene. People began to channel information from spirits and guides and the system of Reiki took on a new life quite different from its Japanese origins.

The Westernized version returned to Japan in the 1980s and these modern, western teachings became very popular there – just as they had in the West. It was not until the 1990s that research began to provide the fascinating facts that early teachings of Mikao Usui and his students were still being practiced in Japan. The new millennium has brought with it a gradual opening up by the Japanese. Amongst some of these older teachings that have come to the light are:

The traditional Usui Reiki Ryoho Gakkai has a member, Hiroshi Doi, who has taught Westerners branches such as Usui Reiki Ryoho and his own Gendai Reiki Ho.

Chiyoko Yamaguchi, a student of Chujiro Hayashi, teaches today, as does her student Hyakuten Inamoto.

Chris Marsh is slowly passing on Suzuki san’s knowledge of the early teachings to the West as well.

All in all it is an exciting time to be involved with these teachings and to know that as practitioners we can continue to learn and upgrade our knowledge and personal experience.

[1] Suzuki san, born in 1895 and a cousin of Mikao Usui’s wife. Suzuki san is still alive today according to her student Chris Marsh.

[2] Mariko Suzuki

[3] Dave King claims to have had contact with Tenon in and supplies this information.

[4] Memorial Stone of Mikao Usui in the Saihoji Temple, Tokyo.

[5] Memorial Stone of Mikao Usui.

[6] Frank Arjava Petter’s research

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Model railway trains have been produced ever since the first train started rolling along the tracks in real life. These giant, powerful creations captured the minds and attentions of the children, which created an industry for toy makers. Adults bought these toys for their children and helped them to set them up in the basement and other parts of the home. There was not much realism in the models at the time, but there did not need to be. The idea for the children was more being able to control the train as they sent them around the track.

More and more, parents became involved in the model railway trains their children were playing with. They sought out more detailed models to purchase for their own displays. New manufacturers emerged which started making models that looked very realistic. These models did not start out with any kind of standardized scale, so it was impossible to buy track from one manufacturer to use with the train from another. Standardization did not come along until much later. This posed a problem for people who already had a train and wanted to buy a new car from a different manufacturer.

Most of the major manufacturers of model railway trains were located in Germany. When WWI started up, it caused a disruption in the production and distribution of model trains in the United States and Europe. This opened up the door for many manufacturers like Lionel to get started in the United States. Lionel is a brand still known to model railroaders today as a good starter for those new to train modeling. The details are good, but not as detailed as many of the other trains that are available. This makes their price low, and sales high.

One of the big innovations in model railway trains has been in the material used for the tracks. A very big issue many encountered when setting up their model train was making sure there was proper grounding. Many times, the track would get shorted out because it was made completely of brass. When plastic rail ties became a common base, it made it possible to put the track in more places including a tabletop. The material of the rails themselves changed over the years from brass to the more common aluminum and stainless steel. Many still prefer brass for it’s easy to maintain quality in all weather.

An issue many model railroaders have encountered over the years has been the issue of controlling their trains. In order to control multiple trains on the same track, it was necessary to have several junctures at which the power was connected to the track. You would then have to switch between these junctures in order to control the individual train. There was a switch in which you could reverse polarity so your train could go in reverse. These days, there are computers, which will effectively control every train on the track remotely without incident. There are sure to be many more innovations in the years to come.

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Hornby are the UKs leading producers of and N gauge and 00 Gauge trains. Hornby have been producing model railway items since 1920 although it was 5 years until they produced their first electric train and not until 1938 just prior to the war that they created what is now the standard size train in the UK 00 gauge. During the war production ceased and but the development of Hornby trains as continued over the years with Locos and building becoming more and more detailed as production methods improved. Technology has also helped to add further realism to train sets with the introduction of Digital layouts which can program up to 99 trains for use with just one controller. All points and lights can be operated from one simple to operate system. Other features are lights can stay on even if the train is stationary, engine acceleration can be preset as to the deceleration, Speeds can be kept constant even when trains are climbing or descending in heights on multi levelled layouts, this helps keep trains running constant and on time. Even if this is not the case in the real world….

Further improvements to the 00 gauge trains are the introduction of Live steam trains that create real steam from the trains. The live steam tracks do have to be operated from a separate controller and can be expensive to purchase in the first place but buyers will not be disappointed with the extra effect of the smoke on your layout. Other recent advances are the Sound locos, these Hornby trains are available as steam and diesel. Although the trains are digitally fitted they can be operated on the old style analogue layouts, not all features of the sound will work, the general speeding up and slowing down of the train remains correct when in operation on a analogue track.

Taking up Hornby trains as a hobby may not be cheap but with well built products and a wide range if items available there is so much to keep you entertained for many years. This is the principal that Hornby has made its success. With train sets being passed down by generations. There is no reason why this process will not continue in the future.

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