Although The American Flyer model trains were at their peak of popularity between the 1940s and the 1960s, they actually had a long history before that, and their popularity seems to be on the increase again today William Hafner, working as a toymaker in Chicago, developed a clockwork motor for use in toy cars in the very early part of the 19th Century and by 1905 was making toy trains using that clockwork motor

Over the past 100 years several methods of controlling electric model trains have developed The first and simplest method was the use a simple variable transformer as introduced by Lionel in 1906 to lower the Alternating Current [AC] voltage from the wall to a lower, safer value and allow the user to control the speed of a model electric train by changing the amount of AC power applied to the track