While many believe the latter is more likely, since several U.S. companies such as Carlisle & Finch were producing trains to that standard, no definitive proof in favor of either theory has ever surfaced.
The boom of the 1920s made large toy trains affordable and Standard Gauge had its heyday in the mid-1920s only to virtually disappear during the Great Depression.
[7] This shows that Lionel invested in tooling to modernize Standard Gauge, but ultimately did not put them into production.
Lionel last showed Standard Gauge in their 1940 catalogs, ultimately only offering rolling stock, which suggests they were selling off existing inventory.
[6] Standard Gauge was revived in the United States in the 1950s by the small firm McCoy Manufacturing, who produced trains of original design well into the 1990s.
In 2002, Lionel would produce two new Standard Gauge sets, one based on the New York Central's Commodore Vanderbilt trainset and the Milwaukee Road's Hiawatha.
[8][9] A number of smaller manufacturers, mostly one- and two-person operations, hand-build and marketed reproductions of very early Standard Gauge trains.