Adriatic: Loved the story about the Marx CV...although I don't have a story anywhere near as extreme, my experience is that Marx motors and locos are very hard to "kill". I picked up a set a few years ago where someone had broken the boiler on a plastic 490, then fixed it with that black shinny electrical tape, drilled a new hole for the retaining bolt, and put an extra long bolt down through the frame with several nuts on top. It was about the sorriest 490 I ever saw. But you know what, I took that set home (it was from the early 60's) put that 490 on the track and...AWAY SHE WENT! Pulled her little consist without a hint of trouble.
There is a classic story about Marx...it seems in the prewar days of the NY toy fair, Marx took one of his new locomotives to the show and told his men to run it continuously. After about 6 days of 24 hr running the loco finally stopped. According to the story, Mr. Marx called his engineer "on the carpet" and asked why the loco stopped. The engineer replied that it had worn completely though the brushes. Mr. Marx , according to the legend, told the engineer..."Build better brushes!".
By the way Gerry - I strongly support Adriatic's advice to use new track if you intend to build a layout. It doesn't have to be the more fancy (but realistic) track available today but you can get brand new tubular track from either Menards or MTH. I have used both on my new layout and am very satisfied. I have also chased a short and / or a dead section around until I found an old piece of track that was defective...you don't need to have that experience.
Buco- I admit to not knowing much if anything about Buco trains, but I am a "Tankaholic" and you have quite a collection of bright and colorful tank cars in your pictures. Are they Buco? If not who is the manufacturer or are they customs you made yourself. Oh yea, what are all the little green boxes with buttons? thanks for the info.
Don McErlean
