Marx Train pictures

Well today I am pleased to show you something that I find a little bit extraordinary.  At our local train show, I found this Marx mechanical set from 1952 which, as you see the pictures, is in amazing condition for its age, now 70 years old (just 8 years short of me !) .  This set, designated by Marx as set # 965W was advertised in the Sears Christmas catalog in 1952 for the amazing price of $4.98 with a 176" cross over layout provided.  Except for some missing track, my set is pristine (OK the box is not perfect) and the cars look as though they have never been on the track.  So here is my "new" set .

First the set cover and top lid.  Not perfect but not too bad and very colorful

Here is the inside of the set.  Yes it still had its cardboard component sleeves to protect the engine, tender, and rolling stock from scratching each other.  I did have to repair part of the lower box that had been torn off.

Here is the main motive power.  The Marx "Mercury" whistling clockwork engine...yes it still works just fine!  The grey band type 51 lithographed tender is the first component of the train.

A front close up view of the Mercury and the tender

Here is the rolling stock.  A # 554 NP coal car, a # 738701 PRR high sided gon, and a #556 NYC caboose.

Even the track is shiny.  Its not clear anyone ever ran this outfit very much.

I checked the contents of this set with Greenberg's volume on Marx sets and its the correct contents fro the 965W which is stamped on the lid.  In addition, there is a picture on page 22 of that text showing a nearly identical set except with a box car instead of the coal car.  It shows the same box and the 3 carboard sleeves.

Note I did not get all the track and the 90 degree cross over, but hey, my 1952 Sears Christmas wish book says that track is only 39 cents per section and the cross over is only 59 cents!!

Well that is my "Find" for the moment.  I admit I am really excited about finding an old set like this in near perfect condition.

Don

My favorite, the Marx 1998  S-2 switcher.  The best running Marx and Lionel of all especially racing through an oval and figure 8.

Charlie

Well its over a month since anyone has posted here, so I thought I would try to get'er goin again.  Today I have sort of a mixed bag.  I recently acquired two "scarce" items from the Marx 7" series.  A C& O (brown) gondola and the KCS caboose.  Both of these items are relatively scarce and based on collector values I expect the caboose may be the most scarce of any of the 7" line.  The 7" line of trains was initiated in about 1950 and it was over by the late 1950's.  It was very limited in extent and except for the caboose, came in very few different variations.

Marx made 13 Diesel sets using the 7" cars but only 1 used the Kansas City Southern (KCS) #54 FM diesel.  That set #8965 was pulled by the #54 KCS AA or AB loco.  The AB version is more scarce as the B units of these diesels are all rather scarce.  However the #8965 was unique in another way, it held two other rather scarce cars from the 7" line.  The brown C&O gondola and the KCS caboose.  So here is set # 8965 from the late 1950's.

Here is the motive power, the Marx #54 KCS FM diesel and B unit.  A unit made 1956-1960 and B unit 1957-1960

Set #8965 full train showing box, 2 gondolas, and caboose.  Note brown C&O gondola

Another view of the entire train.

Departing view of train, showing C&O gondola and caboose

The #967 KSC caboose .  (this car can also display any number between 966-980)

Best Wishes Marx fans

Don

Happy New Year fellow Marx Trainers

It has been a while since this thread has been updated so here goes.

I have added a few more New Marx items to my small fleet.

The first is what I think is the most colorful of the New Marx. This is the CNW stock car.

Next is the New Marx generator car.

And last, but not least, is a lighted New Marx Pennsylvania caboose.

Let's see your Marx trains and have a great new year.

Dean

@PW53inVa- Dean, thanks for posting!  I am a Marx fan although I don't have much "new" Marx, I tend to track to the older items.  However these new cars are certainly beautiful and colorful.  Here is just about my full "new" Marx collection.

The MKT "Fruit and Vegetable" Express car.

Just for your comparison to your new C&NW cattle car here is the Marx 3/16" Scale (O gauge, S scale) cattle car from around 1948, There is also a PRR Stock Car in this 3/16" series but it is so rare that I have never even seen one in 40 + years of collecting, and its cost is so high I likely could not afford it anyway.  

HNY to all, Best wishes, and Thanks for posting Dean

Don

Don - Your New Marx MKT car is a sharp looking freight car, great colors. I too have and like the ATSF stock car. Like you, I have seen the PRR stock car from time to time on the bay and they usually go for some serious money, more than I care to spend.

You have a fine collection of Marx and I always enjoy your photos. I also like that you share your knowledge of the history of the trains with your photos, thank you.

The only bad thing I have found about Marx trains is that they can become a habit. I have a few of the 8 wheel plastic freight cars and every now and then I get a few more. The common ones are pretty reasonable when compared to the price of some of the new freight cars by MTH, Lionel, etc. Marx trains are simple and toy like and that's the magic for me.

Keep on Marxing and take care Don.

Dean

Here are some of the Marx structures removed from my layout in the past year. The Girard station and the Grand Central are rare variations.

Steve

A friend sent me (for Christmas) a '2072' observation car to complete a NYC '2071' passenger set that I've been working on for a while.  I actually had one of those (2072 cars) already on hand, but the one I had was moderately scratched up and rusted on one side - well-loved, as some of the toy train guys like to say.  The 'new' one is in remarkably fine condition.  I worked the replacement into the consist and drove it around a bit yesterday:

Peace,

Sam

Steve - Thank you for sharing pictures of your unique and rare Marx buildings. Your collection of all things Marx is second to none. Your Maroon roofed Trucking/Freight Station, that you have posted pictures of before, is still the only one I have ever seen on someone's layout. Most of us have the more common green roofed one which is one of my favorite Marx buildings. The Trucking Station is a hard one to find room for on a smaller layout like mine.

Sam - Great looking layout and train. The black and white photos are very retro and look good. It would be nice to see a color pic of that Glendale Depot and the other tin building with the plastic cars parked in front. You mentioned you had a 2072 car that was rusted and scratched on one side and then found another better one. I know I have a few that were "well loved" too as you said. Better to have one that has one good side than none at all. Run the good side when it close to you and the bad side looks ok from far away.

Yesterday we put Christmas 2022 back under the train table in the basement. I did take a few last pics and video of the simple loop of Marx running for one last time.  For some reason the goalie on the pond is way out of position? Maybe he's a rail fan and wanted a better view of the train, or maybe just a bad goalie...

Dean

Happy New Year everyone!

@PW53inVa - (Dean)  Thank you very much for your complement and comment.  I won't kid you, your comments certainly did make me feel good.  Yes, I am afraid that the Marx plastic freight cars are habit forming...they just come with such great prices!! I just received my TCA bulletin and discovered the "Corvette" museum boxcar was for sale at $169! YIKES!! when I started in Engineering just after college in 1966, my pay was $186 before taxes per WEEK!  Some how I feel that this new Corvette box car will not be coming home to me.  

I also loved the video of your Christmas layout.  The "full Marx" theme is really great and that SP #6000 diesel set really sets it off.  One other thing I noticed, it seems that we have possibly another link.  I just acquired a  set of tin lithographed houses and purchased them too late for Christmas this year but I got 4 different ones for $4 each so they are in "next" year's bin.  I think you have some of the same buildings.  These appear to be biscuit tins of some sort but carry no product identification outside of the scene depicted.  I got them at an antique mall where my wife has a booth and the seller knew nothing of their history.  So if you happen to know anything let me know.  (see picture below)

@Steve "Papa" Eastman - Beautiful buildings Steve for sure.  I agree with Dean, your Maroon roofed Trucking / freight station is the only one I have seen.  I too have the green roof one, its currently at the edge of my layout as its so big I have no other place to put it.

@CurlSnout - Great pictures of the 2071/2072 series NYC passenger cars they are a great set fine example of the Marx 6" "Bogota" design.  I have an interesting set , a full (2 Pullman/1 obs) set of these cars PLUS in the same set box a 6" freight set...both trains pulled by a 400 series plastic loco (set 4345).  Your pictures also show your beautifully crafted wooden buildings---great work. I wondered if the one station does not model (or at least resemble) the beautiful "art deco" terminal in Cincinnati?

My "new" tin houses.  The scene depicted is different on all 4 sides.

Well everyone, here's to you having a very happy Marx rich New Year!!

Best Wishes

Don

Don - Glad you liked my little under the tree layout. The red diesels and caboose and green Great Northern boxcar are very much the colors of Christmas.

Your tins are made by Harry London Candies. We bought ours years ago, maybe 2015 or 2016, online at QVC. They came with some very tasty candy. I think the 5 buildings were somewhere around 60 or 70 dollars. We have the Post Office, Town Library, Village School, Harry London Chocolate Shop, and Posh Paws shop. I keep looking for these new every Christmas season but have not seen them for sale new since we purchased the set we have. If you look on the bay and search for "Harry London tin buildings" you will find sets like yours for sale along with other sets of these. At 4 dollars a piece you got a very good deal. They seem to work well with Marx Trains. Mine have gone back on my little upstairs office/bedroom layout.  The Harry London tin buildings also have raised details, maybe called embossed, which makes them a little nicer than some of the other tin buildings I have.

That 169 dollar Corvette Museum Boxcar sounds interesting. If you have a picture or link you could share I would love to see what this $169 boxcar looks like. Not my cup of tea but no harm in looking. At our local hobby shop I enjoy seeing the MTH/Lionel Engines with the remotes and sounds and crewtalk. Very nice stuff and fun to watch run just not my thing. I guess I"m just a toy train guy at heart. It's all good.

Have a good evening.

Dean

@PW53inVa- Dean, thanks for the info on the buildings.  They seemed a rather high quality product to me, especially for what is essentially a product box.  I will try the web site you mentioned, maybe I can find some more.  Mine do have the "embossed" details that you mentioned.  OK, here is the advertisement for the box car.  I realized that I mispoke, it was not the TCA bulletin but the LCCA bulletin where they are advertising the Corvette car.  By the way, it is a striking car, the basic body is white while the decorations / flags etc are in red and black.  Here is the picture.

OBTW, what part of Va are you in?  Wife and I lived for several years in Fairfax when I had a work assignment in DC.

Best wishes and it's been great texting with you.

Don

I'm still "Christmasing".

Getting ready for Sundays meet.

Steve

Bogart - Great video and good looking Christmas layout. I was born, raised, and lived in Indiana for a large part of my life so I have a soft spot for the Monon. Your Marx Monon is a favorite. Thanks for sharing.

Don, thanks for the info on the Corvette boxcar, very unique. I live in mountains of western Virginia outside of Roanoke Va. Roanoke was a great train town as it was the home of the Norfolk & Western. We still have the O Winston Link Museum and the Virginia Transportation Museum but Norfolk Southern has moved their corporate offices to somewhere around Atlanta Georgia.

It has been great talking trains and Marx with you and look forward to your future posts.

Take Care

Dean

@Steve "Papa" Eastman - Wow that is quite a bundle of Marx.  The turquoise PC 4000 E7 both with and without the white stripe is a true rarity.  Are you getting out of Marx?  Will you try to sell any of those sets on E-Bay? or even the forum?  

Don

@Bogart - Neat layout.  You really have the Monon FM running smoothly.  I have an A-B-B-A Monon using both the 4 wheel and 8 wheel "B" units.  I like the FM's quite a bit, however they were always "toy" like hence tended to get some rough play.  Your looks and sounds like its really in great shape and has been well cared for.  Thanks for posting.

Don McErlean

@Don McErlean posted:

@Steve "Papa" Eastman - Wow that is quite a bundle of Marx.  The turquoise PC 4000 E7 both with and without the white stripe is a true rarity.  Are you getting out of Marx?  Will you try to sell any of those sets on E-Bay? or even the forum?  

Don

I always go with my buddies first, then meets. A buddy was over today and took 2/3 of the sets. The rest go to a meet Sunday. I will keep a little Marx, but selling most of it.

Steve

Some of those embossed tin buildings were available from Big Lots about 4 or 5 years ago.  They were $5 each and were filled with cookies.  Naturally I wanted the tins.  The birds got the cookies.  Haven't seen anything similar in a couple of years.

The Silver Crane Company makes lots of tins suitable for layouts.  The trick is finding them at a reasonable price.

Well I have been trying to assemble a full passenger train of the Marx Seaboard 4000 line.  I had previously found a power A unit, a single Bogota coach and the matching 6" caboose (for freight use).  Recently I obtained the 6" green/ yellow observation car and just last weekend received a dummy A unit to match my power car.  I am still looking for the Seaboard "B" unit (this my be a holy grail as my reference lists it as the most scarce of any piece of the FM line) and a green/yellow "Montclair" coach.  But here is where we stand today:

Here are two views of my new dummy A

Here is the full train, as it stands today.  The matching freight caboose is not shown.

Best Wishes

Don

@Don McErlean posted:

Well I have been trying to assemble a full passenger train of the Marx Seaboard 4000 line.  I had previously found a power A unit, a single Bogota coach and the matching 6" caboose (for freight use).  Recently I obtained the 6" green/ yellow observation car and just last weekend received a dummy A unit to match my power car.  I am still looking for the Seaboard "B" unit (this my be a holy grail as my reference lists it as the most scarce of any piece of the FM line) and a green/yellow "Montclair" coach.  But here is where we stand today:

Here are two views of my new dummy A

Here is the full train, as it stands today.  The matching freight caboose is not shown.

Best Wishes

Don

Well, now you will need another power unit to pull your caboose.  Then you will have to find the other freight cars/gondolas to add to it . . .

@RLH - Ah Yes!  That is always the way.  Thanks for the comment!

Don

British Marx CV with corridor coaches. Things to note, the T shaped brake lever, windup screw key is on the opposite side, drivers are hardened rubber. The bell is unique, a wire coming from the side rod rocks the bell back and forth.

Very cool Steve!

Bob

@Don McErlean posted:

Always fun pics in this thread.

The above pic of Don's new (to him) Seaboard FM again impressed me at just how good Marx was a creating colorful litho tinplate trains. Those Seaboard FM's nicely illustrate!

Andre

EDIT: Typo. Typed "Don't" instead of "Don's". Duh. Corrected now.

This stream has been pretty dormant most of  this year.
Marx 1305 bridge variations. I have 22 more variations not shown. Variations can be subtle.
The last photo, the black PRR is a rare very early rubber stamped.
All are for sale

Steve

Wow Steve, some what 30+ variations of what is more or less the same bridge.  To me, this illustrates the real marketing genius of Louis Marx and why he controlled the low end market.  Take a bridge this this, put on a new color paint, and some new decals and "Boom" you had a new product for essentially zero additional cost.  I have a couple of these and a hand cranked lift bridge that uses the same basic bridge but adds a lifting mechanism.

Very Belated:  Steve that British CV with the details that made it unique as compared with ours was fascinating.  Moving the key to the other side (well they drive on the wrong side as well right! ) but the bell ringing mechanism off the drive rod that was a real eye opener, I had never seen that before

@laming - Thank you for the nice compliment on my Seaboard FM units, I just missed this back in January and am only now getting caught up.  Thanks for the comment.

Thanks for posting everyone.

Don

Oh I forgot that way back in January, I was still looking for that Seaboard Montclair Pullman since I had the Bogota Pullman and the observation car in the green / yellow livery.  Well since then I have found it.   So now I have the full Seaboard FM train except for the Seaboard "B" unit, which I am told is the single most rare piece of the FM line, so I don't hold out much hope of finding it.  But I will keep looking...after all, if you follow the "tinplate" post, Fatman just found a bunny loco for the Marx Animal Express and you can't get much more rare than that!!

Best Wishes

Don

Just started collecting Marx after I was given the SP 6000 set. Shortly after that I picked up a 666 side smoker set for $35 off Craigslist . Hoping some is knowledgeable about a Marx AllState set with a Union Pacific S2 switcher. Anyone know if that S2 had diesel roar?  Don’t know the set number. Thanks

I was told from Don McErlean that this beauty could be from the 40s/50s

@Sitka posted:

I was told from Don McErlean that this beauty could be from the 40s/50s

Nice Aerotrain Mark! I have a children's book that features it, but I can't find the book to give you the title.

This is a wonderful topic. I'm starting to love that colorful Marx tinplate. Must... resist... temptation... to buy... Strength fading... Getting weaker... by the minute...

@johnstrains's trains -  Hey come on in...the water's fine .  The challenge with collecting Marx is that unlike Lionel or American Flyer, Marx never produced an annual catalog so finding out when an item was offered can be a challenge.  On the + side, Marx made more trains than the other two combined, so there is lots of items available on the collectors / operators market.  In addition, he started later, about 1935 compared with Lionel and the original Chicago Flyer that started in the early 1900's.

@Sitka - that red/silver streamliner was designated the Union Pacific M10005 and while it was available from 1936, the silver / red version is mostly post war.  It was offered from 1948-1950 with some pieces hanging on a little longer.  It was made in both clockwork and electric and in trains that had (as yours does) 2 coaches and an observation to trains that had an RPO, 5 coaches, and an observation.  It came in 4 color schemes, green &cream, brown & tan, green & white, and your red& silver.  The green / tan scheme seems to have been more popular in the pre-war period and the silver / red in the post war.  Note that later in the 1950's Marx sometimes used the M10005 power car to pull low end sets of 6" 4 wheel lithographed cars.

Best wishes all

Don

@Bill Swatos posted:

Nice Aerotrain Mark! I have a children's book that features it, but I can't find the book to give you the title.

Thanks Bill how are those projects coming along?

@TrainFam posted:

show off some pictures of YOUR Marx plastic trains!

                                         Trainfam

Here are some pictures of my Marx collection. This all started by buying a set off Craigslist for my Grandson. I was so impressed with the 666 set that I started collecting and I am planning a layout.

@dandeo50- Hey great to have you aboard!  You have some fine pieces there.  The Marx 21 lithographed F-3 was the largest diesel Marx produced and sadly they never duplicated it for any other railroad.  They did however make some fine models of the EMD E-7 in plastic and modeled a number of different railroads and liveries, including a repeat of the Santa Fe warbonnet.  Your Santa Fe #1998 Alco S-3 switcher also came in several different liveries including Santa Fe (black / White), UP (yellow/brown) and Rock Island (dusty red/black) among others.

I think you will find that Marx locomotives have a well deserved reputation for reliability and most if not all will RUN regardless of appearance.

Good hunting, keep posting as we follow your progress

Don

Thank you and I can’t stop adding to my collection.  I will be building a shelf layout around the garage walls.

Well its been awhile since we updated this thread with some new posts, so I thought I would use my new acquisition that I also put on "tail end Tuesday" here as well as Marx folks would be interested.  This car # 4588 (not on the car) Tuscan, ALLSTATE, work caboose with searchlight, was made one year only 1955.  The Allstate label and a single year of manufacture makes this car somewhat scarce.

Well sorry to duplicate postings, but I thought that this specialized audience would also like to see the car.

Best Wishes

Don

Nice find indeed. Here are some photos of my attempt to resurrect a Commodore Vanderbilt to its previous glory.

@dandeo50 - Nice Job!  She is really looking good.  Did you do the tender also?  It looks good as well.

Best Wishes

Don