A Lionel 'universal' motor has a wire wound field. What an E unit does, is reverse the polarity of the field with respect to the armature to make the motor reverse. If you ran a universal motor without an E unit on DC and switched the track polarity, the engine would still NOT reverse, because you're switching the polarity of both the field and the armature.
Unlike a permanent magnet motor, where the field polarity is 'permanent' (duhh) and track polarity switches the armature only. THEN the motor reverses.
Or am I wrong? (I don't think so....)