Train Models Lovers

A toymaker in Chicago, William Hafner, developed a clockwork motor for use in toy cars in the 19th Century and by 1905 began making toy trains using that clockwork motor. With a friend, William Coleman, and using a small hardware manufacturing business known as the Edmonds-Metzel Hardware Company, Hafner began producing toy clockwork trains around 1906. These trains produced by Edmond-Metzel sold so successfully that Hafner and Coleman decided to adopt the brand name The American Flyer for marketing purposes. By 1910, due to the success of their model train, the name of the hardware company was changed to the American Flyer Manufacturing Company. The American Flyer trains continued to prove very popular, selling widely. Their popularity was partly due to the fact that they were lower priced than other makes popular at that time and also because their detailing made them more realistic than other low budget model trains available at that time. After Hafner l...