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Marx trains are certainly a part of model railroad history.   Their accessories were always affordably priced. As as a young kid with little money, if I got a couple of bucks for Christmas from a relative,  I would buy a crossing signal, gate, lighting tower or even a bell signal. Due to the overwhelming popularity of Lionel , Marx always took a back seat  and I've seen few Marx layouts. Marx trains are still not very popular today and you only occasionally come across them at the shows. Several years ago there was a company who was making Marx trains again but they seem to have disappeared.  RMT is still running some of the old Marx accessories.

As a kid in the fifties, I would frequent Kresge's on Cotton Ave in Northeast Philly.  They always had a fair amount of Marx and less of Lionel.  It goes with the five & dime store mindset.  Even though I could not afford hardly anything Lionel made, I looked down upon the Marx offerings, then.  Now I look at Marx stuff with a new mindset.  You have to give their designers some credit for emulating the higher end trains but making them affordable.      

Part of the Marx mystique is the robustness of their construction. So many times an old Marx loco is brought out of storage in a garage or barn or basement and covered in crud and/or rust, that with a little cleaning and oiling will run like new. Even today, well played with trains usually have all their pieces and parts still attached. At least the metal ones anyway. They were inexpensive, but not cheap junk. They may not have been perfect O scale, but they brought joy to a lot of kids over the years.

wow marx and kresge's that is two childhood memories.

I never had the marx electrics but I had a marx windup train's I think for 4 Christmases in a row as I always managed to over wind the spring!

we didn't know how good we had it until adulthood hit ahhh the childhood days many memories

 

thanks for posting this topic

 

Dan Padova posted:

As a kid in the fifties, I would frequent Kresge's on Cotton Ave in Northeast Philly.  They always had a fair amount of Marx and less of Lionel.  It goes with the five & dime store mindset.  Even though I could not afford hardly anything Lionel made, I looked down upon the Marx offerings, then.  Now I look at Marx stuff with a new mindset.  You have to give their designers some credit for emulating the higher end trains but making them affordable.      

That's very true.  I was a Lionel snob for the longest time, and sneered at anything made by Marx.  But last year I finally became interested, and, like you, began to appreciate the ingenuity of the Marx product designers.  Now, in addition to my small 3rs layout, I have an even smaller Marx layout.   But it's fun all the same.

The 5&10s in the small Pennsylvania town where I grew up were also where Marx was sold.  In addition to Marx rolling stock, they also sold Marx track and accessories, of which many of both went into our Lionel Christmas layout.  Wish I could get mint Marx trains for those prices today!

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