HISTORIC LIONEL LAYOUT
. The Lionel Corp. maintained showroom train layouts at 15 East 26th St. in New York City. Their 1949 layout was disassembled in 1954 to make room for a new “Lionel Super O Track” layout and was stored in pieces somewhere in New Jersey. The beloved 1949 showroom layout eventually disintegrated in storage to a point that it was impractical to repair and it was eventually trashed.
. In 1991 a group of Lionel LTI employees at the Mount Clemens, MI corporate offices, built – on a volunteer basis – a train layout that evoked the classic design of the 1949 showroom layout. It featured a 14-foot by 40-foot train table with seven running trains and 37 operating accessories. The Lionel Visitors Center Layout opened to the public on Feb. 19, 1992 . . . . . . . . . it closed its doors on June 20, 2008.
Lionel Visitors Center Layout at Chesterfield, Michigan – 2009
. In February 2009, volunteers from the Railroad Museum of Long Island went to the shuttered Lionel Visitors Center at Mount Clemens to determine how to disassemble and move the 1992 layout to Long Island. On April 7, 2009 the RMLI received an official letter from Lionel LLC, donating the layout to the Museum for the purpose of its continued exhibition to the public at RMLI’s Riverhead Museum.
. Survey Crew – February 2009
L to R: Bodek, John Peck, George Faeth, Bob Mintz, Rich Feggler, Al Schwartz
. RMLI purchased a forty feet long shipping container, loaded it with sixty-eight 8′ 2X4s (for construction of shelving) and all the tools and equipment needed to carefully disassemble the layout and bring it back to New York in fifteen pieces. In early May, the RMLI Team went back to Michigan and accomplished the task in three days. The total weight of the layout was just over seven thousand pounds!
Sharon Freeman cuts the ribbon, opening the “Freeman North Exhibit Hall”
and the Historic Lionel Layout at Riverhead, April 9, 2011.
. “The Magic Lives On . . . . . . ” On April 9, 2011 the Museum opened the Historic Lionel Layout within the renovated Freeman North Exhibit Hall at its campus in Riverhead, NY. A cadre of dedicated volunteers continue to maintain and upgrade the layout, keeping it in top operating condition for people from all over the World to view and enjoy. Today eight O Gauge trains, one S Gauge train, one N Scale miniature park train and two trolleys run on the layout. Eighty-seven accessories are operated from push buttons along the edge of the layout.
