Post 3 5-20-2016 revised 1-6-2024
The Beginning - Childhood Layout
My childhood Marx 027 layout consisted of an oval and figure 8 utilizing four Marx 1590 switches on a ping pong 9’ x 5’ board on the floor for Christmas 1948. The train was a Marx 999 freight set. A Christmas later, about 1949, we got a tin plate Marx LNE 13079 Leigh New England coal car with four operating hopper doors. Later still, we got a Lionel 1033 transformer a big improvement over the cheap little Marx on that came with the set. The layout was on the living room floor after being installed on Christmas Eve with a Christmas tree in the plaster of Paris mountain with tunnel in right back corner. The layout was in two sections with a 1 x 4 frames, one having the control panel with transformer and controllers for four Marx switches, taken down a week after New Years and stored in the basement against a wall.
I had two friends that lived on my block in south St. Louis, one had a Lionel train with cattle car loader and milk car and platform. The other had American Flyer layout. Both had layouts on the floor with a single loop and a bypass or siding with a couple of switches and were down for two weeks at Christmas also. I had the Marx layout with oval and figure 8 with four Marx switches and we all liked to run that Marx 999 doing lots of switching with the figure 8 allowing reversing in both directions.
We moved to new house my Dad and his friend built for us in Afton, a suburb of St. Louis. Dad put the layout up in the basement, after we insisted, but later we never played with it for a year or so. When my brother and I were 8 and 10 or so, the train track and Marx switches were removed and the layout dismantled. My brother and I had gotten into building solid wood and plastic models, then stick and paper air planes, model boats and later 049 powered U control planes. We went into Fox 35 U control planes in junior and high school and I got into radio control (tubes & 67 v batteries !) boats. The Marx 999 trains set and tracks were in storage.
Charlie
Pictures of Marx 999 set with original cars
Marx 999 engine (set is original but engine is retired due to worn out motor gear, this is a replacement).
Tinplate Marx LNE 13079, Leigh New England coal car with four operating hopper doors
Marx Uncoupling section
