Lionel in Europe

Several hunderds of European toy train enthusiasts prefer North-American toy trains over European ones for a manifold of reasons, to name a few:

• Scale. Most (recent) European toy trains are in scale H0, N, Z or G. A large fraction of the American toy trains are in 0. Zero (1:43.5) is a much nicer scale to hold in your hand and play with. It is just the right size for a toy for humans. Europeans that admire scale 0 can either collect expensive old or modern European toy trains in 0 or join with the Americans: much cheaper and much more choice.
• Design. Streamlined steam engines and classical diesel engines like the F3 belong to most nice looking trains this planet has withnessed. Since many American toy trains are also the best looking engine models they have created, it is pleasure for the eye. Obviously, there are many exceptions to this opinion and we have occasionally also observed some nice looking engines here in Europe, still the golden age of good looking trains was the 30's - 60's in North America. On top of that, in those days there were many competing railroad companies and they painted their engines in bright colours (well not all, but many in comparison to Europe, where competition between railroad companies was not an issue). The Santa Fe Warbonnet paint scheme on an F3 is one of the most attractive ones and that is probably the reason why so many of these engines were in starter sets.
  
• Great options. Many modern American toy-trains are dressed up with horns, whistles, crew talk, realistic train sounds, etc. It is very impressive to hear and see such a realistic toy train run through your house.
• High quality. Many early American toy trains are highly detailed. They simply look so much better than their European produced counter toy trains. Furthermore, it is easy to see that several classical Lionel trains are very well produced, resulting in very robust, stable products that show little wear. Also the old pre-war and postwar electromotors are easy to maintain and keep on running. Similar quality from European producers is simply much more expensive.
  

Globalisation speeded it up. Nowadays, it is getting much easier to import your own trains than a decade ago. Paypal, Ebay, Internet and many on-line dealers in combination with the low USD/EUR exchange rate make them much easier attainable. Paypal is important as Americans work with strange things like cheques and money orders and Europeans remit money directly with IBAN and Paypal made intercontinental money transfers between individuals much and much easier. Obviously the mailman and sometimes also the customer officer need to get paid, but still the total price remains small in comparison to European scale 0 trains.
The power issue (100V / 60 Vz versus 230V / 50 Hz) slowed it down. Because, importing these toy trains is one thing but getting them to work with all the modern electronical gadgets is another. If you want to have a full train show at home, you will need to generate 110 V / 60 Hz in your own home. There are few AC current converters on the market that do a decent job, but depending on the power required it remains a few hunderd Euro's extra. A German shop sell a converter with enough power for one train, but if you need more, you will need a bit more stout equipment. Several European Lionel train enthusiasts have developed their own solutions to deal with this.