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The custom of putting a christmas train set beneath the holiday tree goes back to turn of the century. The inventor of the toy train was a 19-year-old enthusiast named Joshua Lionel Cowen who crafted a tiny locomotive constructed from a small motor that he appropriated from an electric fan. The train was made of wood and was set up to chug around a thirty-foot circle of track made of brass.

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Cowen took his new toy to a novelty shop in New York that sold the christmas train set for $6. Soon he was getting orders for his Christmas train and on Sept 5, 1900 he formed the Lionel Manufacturing Company. By 1921 more than a million Lionel Christmas train sets had been sold to Americans.

However by the time the great Depression came along, Lionel's electric Christmas train was proving to expensive to market to families. He then made a deal with Walt Disney to produce a wind up version of a christmas train that featured Mickey and Minnie Mouse that only cost a dollar.

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In 1937, Lionel Cowen invented his most famous christmas train. The Hudson was a miniature locomotive with a steam engine. It cost about $75, which was about the price of a new refrigerator in those days. Today this christmas train set is worth about $1,100.

By 1955, the Lionel company was the largest toy company in the world and the only one listed in the New York Stock Market. Since then the Lionel train company has produced hundreds of kinds of different kinds of trains, cars and accessories including a little pink christmas train that was intended for girls.

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