https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Kiddie_City
Thus, it is a matter of opinion, but it seems to me that while there was a period of time that the train line and the Corporation were separated; that separation ended in the mid 1990's when the Lionel Corporation was merged back with train line when the assets of the Corporation were puchased by Richard Kughn.
Merged? How can you merge a company that's defunct? The context of what you're angling at is the trademark of the name, not the company. A close analogy to this is the "Delorean Motor Company" that is headquartered in Texas. They own the DMC name and company logo, they repair Deloreans, they own the surplus of original parts from the Belfast, Northern Ireland manufacturing plant, and are even starting to build and sell "build-to-order" Deloreans using existing leftover VIDs but it would be far from accurate to say it is the original company founded in 1975 and has been in existence ever since.
