USA Trains
Open-knowledge reference entry

USA Trains is a manufacturer of G scale model railroad products that started out as Charles Ro Manufacturing Company. They offer two different scale sizes of trains that use the same track; the "Ultimate Series," which is 1:29 scale, and the "American" and "Work Trains" series which is 1:24 scale. USA Trains claims to have the largest collection of G scale rolling stock in the world. USA Trains was established in 1987.
Charles Ro Supply Company
USA Trains started out as part of Charles Ro Supply Company, the biggest train store, as well as America's largest Lionel dealer. USA Trains is a family-run business, started by father and son Charles Ro senior and junior.
Lionel
Charles Ro Supply Company was established in and it started out as a beauty shop business of 4 salons with sixty hair-dressers but moved into the hobby business when Charles Ro, Sr. began selling used Lionel trains at one of the storefronts in Everett, Massachusetts. In 1972, Ro started purchasing directly from Lionel to sell them mail-order. By 1980, Ro had completed Lionel's first million dollar order.
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This entry incorporates text from “USA Trains” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.