History of American Flyer Trains

Early American Flyer Founders

• Chicago toy makers William Hafner and William O. Coleman were the grandfathers of American Flyer trains in 1910. Partners in the American Flyer Manufacturing Company, they produced toy trains based on Hafner's clockwork motor and ran them on an O-gauge track. Originally, "Chicago Flyer," the first American Flyer electric train was introduced in 1918 with a windup model that featured an electric motor.

  American Flyer did well in the 1920s with its 2 1/8-inch wide gauge electric trains, survived the Depression and the decline of the wide gauge in favor of the more economical O-gauge trains.

American Flyer Moved to Connecticut

• By 1938, with American Flyer a second-rate company barely surviving, Alfred Carlton Gilbert came on the scene. Well-respected in the toy industry for magic sets and Erector Set construction toys, A.C. Gilbert bought nothing but the name "American Flyer" from W.O. Coleman Jr. and took it to New Haven, Connecticut, with plans to redesign the line "from track to transformer."

A.C. Gilbert Innovations

• Gilbert pioneered the S-scale, a 3/16-inch to 1-foot scale for O-gauge three-rail track and a totally new look. Well-received by the buying public, American Flyer locomotives and cars ran on the track customers already owned. More compact, they looked like real trains and ran well without derailing or jumping the track on curves. Gilbert, father of new, improved American Flyer trains, created his own refined look and developed more equipment until WWII brought a halt to manufacture of non-essentials like toys.

  In 1946, A.C. Gilbert returned to toy train production and introduced significant realism--the first S-gauge trains running on two-rail tracks. Although always the No. 2 brand to Lionel at the high end of the market, the 1950s peak in toy train manufacturing produced some of the most colorful and sought-after American Flyer items at that time and among collectors today.

Decline of American Flyer

• By the 1960s, with the rise of discount retail and cheap fad toys advertised on television, toy train popularity dwindled. Caught off guard, trying to compete, train manufacturers introduced inferior quality lines. Collectors and hobbyists took offense to the "cheap junk," and the death of A.C. Gilbert in 1961 compounded American Flyer's problems. Finally, after a majority sale to a holding company and the death of A.C. Jr., the A.C. Gilbert Company stopped train production altogether in 1966. With the declaration of bankruptcy, rival Lionel bought the American Flyer name and tooling. Within two years, Lionel also declared bankruptcy.

American Flyer Trains in the Twenty-First Century

• The American Flyer and Lionel brand names have moved through a series of company sales and transactions. Most recently, The American Flyer brand name survives under the guidance of Lionel LLC, now owned by Wellspring of Chicago, with toy train buff and rock star Neil Young a minor investor.

  Most of the American Flyer-brand products sold by Lionel LLC, are reissues of A.C. Gilbert's 1950 designs, refurbished tooling, decorated in traditional road names and paint schemes used by Gilbert and marketed to a small market of Flyer collectors.