Well, the family traveled back to Texas yesterday from our family Christmas gathering in Georgia. If ever I yearned for a comfortable, plush Pullman berth it was yesterday. Crammed into an Aluminum tube, due home at 0930 arrived at 1600, jammed into a seat more suitable for one of Santa's elves, enjoying a lunch of a prepackaged biscuit and a can of soda. Oh my what we the traveling public have given up!!
Oh well, to celebrate that long ago Pullman experience, here is a tail end of some "Oldies" for you. These are 1934, Marx short wheelbase Pullmans with the silver lithographed frame. Named Bogota and Montclair and still equipped with Joy line couplers these cars represent the earliest of the Marx 6" 4 wheel line that would extend eventually (in many variations) until the end of Marx in 1980- quite a run for cars that when I was a lad you could buy at Woolworth's for 25 cents. So here to celebrate 2023 is a "tail end" from 1934 or just about 90 years ago.
Here they are, in a train pulled by one of Marx's earliest Commodore Vanderbilt locomotives from the same era.
OBTW in case you might doubt the reliability built into toys by Mr. Marx, this little train after nearly 90 years with just a bit of oil on the drive gears of the loco and on the journals on the cars, runs like a top around my layout.
Happy New Year everyone!
Don
