Just plain pipe racks - a basic Electric Marx Marlines Freight Set
I purchased this set from its original owner back in the early 1980's. He was a co-worker of mine and I had invited his family over to see the latest reincarnation of my broadloom Ophir and Oblivion Railroad. Everyone was impressed and we spent a good couple of hours sitting on the living room carpet running trains. He mentioned he had his train from when he was very young and he told me none of his kids wanted the set. He wanted to know if I would like to see it and maybe purchase it. I went over to his place about a week later, looked over the set, and made an offer which was accepted. As we were putting everything back in the set box he remarked the one thing that had really impressed him with respect to my living room layout was the fact that all of my engines had operating headlights. He said when he was small that was the one thing he really wished his train had possessed.
I gave him a puzzled look and said, "I guess I don't understand - this train has an operating headlight." He said, "No, it doesn't." I pulled the engine back out of the box, turned it over and pointed to the empty light bulb socket on the inside and said, "Well, it does but it looks like you never put a light bulb in there." He looked at me like I had just shot him. He took the engine and turned it over to take a look. He looked so shaken that I said, "Hey, if you want to keep the set it's ok. I can tell you the front end of that engine coming at you in the dark is really quite a sight." He turned the engine over, sighed, and handed it back to me and said it was ok and he would really rather sell it.
The next year I invited him over to see the broadloom layout again and I made sure to have this set running in the dark WITH A FUNCTIONING HEADLIGHT! He was impressed and I again offered to give it back to him for what I had paid for it. He said he'd rather the set stay with someone who really was interested in giving it a good home...I have...and it still looks great running in the dark with the headlight showing the way.
