I receved this old cabinet card from a friends estate…it reads… “Compliments of Wellington Adams as operated at St Louis Exposition 1884” Click on photo to enlarge.
Need any info on this.
Great photos!!! Thanks!
underworld[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]
Don’t know anything about it, but those pics are absolutely stunning! Never seen anything like that. [:O]
- Clint
Hmmm… looks like real plants and water… a Garden style Railway!
Interesting to remember the fascination with ‘modern’, ‘clean’ electric traction back then. Very nice shots.
I can say without any hesitation that this is one of the most amazing things anyone has ever posted on the forums! Thank you so much for sharing it! You made my day! Being one of the first electric trains ever, the historical importance of this photograph cannot be overstated. I know I have seen a reference to this train somewhere, but with no real information other than the fact that it existed. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this is the first such photograph to come to light. I seriously think that you should contact CTT with this as it definitely deserves publication. A truly amazing find!
Found a couple of links for court case of Adams Electric Railroad Co. vs Lindell Railway Co. Could make one speculate that the Adams Electric Railway system was a real traction co that produced a display for the exposition. So a question could be if that is a toy train that was in production or simply a one-of-kind model. Regardless it is pretty interesting.
Go to item 52 and look at the items listed.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d8069s3.htm
Another link for the same court reference in the Missouri Railroad Records 1837 - .
http://www.umsystem.edu/whmc/invent/2358.html
Here is a Lindell Railway Co. link for a Mr. Bagnall
Here is another link that seems to put the railway in Washington state. “Adams” may be a mountain, if not a person’s name, or perhaps both:
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~westklic/wsman.html
(Note that it’s always “Railway”, not “Railroad”, in all these cases.)
Here is a reference to something entitled “Evolution of the Electric Railway,- Its commercial and Scientific Aspect. By Dr. Wellington Adams.- Eleclrical Enineer, Dec., r884.” in the archives of “The Tech”, the MIT student newspaper:
http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_004/TECH_V004_S0126_P009.txt
Here is a garbled OCR transcription from 1892:
I have I think unscrambled all but a few words:
Our contemporary the Safety Valve evidently does not place much confidence in the scheme of Dr. Wellington Adams of a two miles a minute electric express between Chicago and St. Louis, which of late has occupied a considerable share of attention in electrical circles. Apropos to the Adams propositions our contemporary blows off his superfluous steam miter the following vigorous fashion.
One mile in 36 seconds. Bmmhm! Where is an electric road that is making the half of this speed, to wit, a mile a minute? or 50 miles an hour? or 40 miles an hour? or anything like it!
Let this electrical genius who claims to be equal to the astonishing feat of producing 200 horse-power with a weight of 6,000 pounds in a motor going at 500 revolutions, build an electric motor that will make 50 miles an hour in actual every-day practice. When he has accomplished this, and we are sure that it can be done, though not at all sure that he could do it, we will be warranted in talki
Very interesting. I didn’t know trains existed prior to Lionel
Maerklin began selling toy trains in 1891.
Adams’ Electric Railway System 1884: Still looking for info on this train. Anyone?
FJ and G,
Lionel was not the only company selling model electric trains in the U.S.A. In the 1930’s there were; Ives, Dorfan and I think Voltamp. Lionel was the most recognized though!
Not too sure when American Flyer started making model trains however they made some O gauge trains before going to S gauge and closed up in the late 1960’s.
Lee F.
American Flyer was formed in 1907 by William Coleman and William Hafner (who left the company in 1914 to make trains on his own), initially starting out with just low-end wind-up trains in O gauge. Eventually came electric trains in both O and Standard gauge. In 1938, American Flyer was bought out by the A.C. Gilbert Company, who by the start of World War II had completely revamped the product line. Gilbert’s prewar trains were S scale, but ran on O gauge track. After the war, their new trains ran on the proper S gauge track.
Lionel wasn’t the first American manufacturer to market electric trains either. When Lionel trains came onto the market, they faced stiff competition from companies such as Carlisle & Finch and Knapp, among others.
The earliest American manufacturers making “real” toy trains that ran on track (i.e. not floor toys) were Beggs and Weeden-Dart who made live steam sets as far back as the 1880’s.