Williams Electric Trains was an American

model railroad Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are Model building, modelled at a reduced Scale (ratio), scale. The scale models include locomotives ...

manufacturer, based in

Columbia, Maryland Columbia is a planned community in Howard County, Maryland, United States, consisting of 10 self-contained villages. With a population of 104,681 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the second-most-populous community in Maryland ...

. Williams was sold to Kader via their subsidiary

Bachmann Industries Bachmann Industries (Bachmann Brothers, Inc.) is a Bermuda-registered, Chinese-owned company, globally headquartered in Hong Kong; specialising in model railroading. Founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the home of its North American headq ...

in October 2007, and is now identified as "Williams by Bachmann." It was founded in 1971 by Jerry Williams as a maker of reproductions of vintage Lionel and

Ives Ives is both a surname and a given name. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Alice Emma Ives (1876–1930), American dramatist, journalist * Burl Ives (1909–1995), American singer, author and actor * Charles Ives (1874–1954), Ame ...

Standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the ...

trains. Williams had acquired some of the original tooling from the original Lionel Corporation after it sold the rights to the name to

General Mills General Mills, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded ultra-processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in ...

in 1969. In the 1980s Williams acquired tooling that had once belonged to Kusan, an obscure Lionel competitor from the 1950s, and its product line shifted to

O scale O scale (or O gauge) is a scale commonly used for toy trains and rail transport modelling. Introduced by German toy manufacturer Märklin around 1900, by the 1930s three-rail alternating current O gauge was the most common model railroad sc ...

. Williams eventually discontinued its tinplate offerings, selling the old Lionel tooling to the company that later became

MTH Electric Trains MTH Electric Trains is an American toy train and model railroad designer, importer, and manufacturer. A privately held company based in Columbia, Maryland, MTH is known as Mike's Train House. Early career MTH's founder, Mike Wolf, started assem ...

. Although today Williams is often considered a maker of reproduction 1950s-era Lionel equipment, Williams' offerings are distinguishable from the Lionel originals because Williams sometimes adds details that were not possible using 1950s manufacturing methods. Unlike most other O scale manufacturers, Williams never added electronics such as

Trainmaster Command Control Trainmaster Command (TMCC) is Lionel, LLC, Lionel's electronic control system for O scale 3-rail model railroad, model trains and toy trains that mainly ran from 1994 to 2006. Conceptually it is similar to Digital Command Control (DCC), the industr ...

or Digital Command System to its

locomotive A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...

s. This decision gained Williams a small but devoted following among those hobbyists who want a more "traditional" train layout reminiscent of the 1950s but who want to buy modern equipment. However, this decision has also allowed companies such as MTH and

K-Line K-Line Electric Trains is a brand name of O gauge and S gauge model railway locomotives, rolling stock, and buildings. Formerly the brand name under which Chapel Hill, North Carolina–based MDK Inc. sold its products, K-Line was then acquired b ...

to eclipse it in size in spite of being an older company.

External links

* http://www.bachmanntrains.com/ American companies established in 1971 2007 mergers and acquisitions Model railroad manufacturers Companies based in Columbia, Maryland Model manufacturers of the United States {{model-rail-stub