The four stamped steel locomotives shown in this group photo - the lithographed 897, the Canadian Pacific 3000, the streamlined Mercury, and the streamlined Commodore Vanderbilt - represent the core of the steam locomotive types that Marx manufactured prior to World War II. By changing their colors and trim items, Marx was able to come up with a seemingly endless number of variations from them.
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Being totally unfamiliar with Marx before you started thus thread, this has been a real treat.
Rich
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During the 1950s, Marx was producing 300,000 toy train sets a year, about a third of which were sold by Sears. It’s probably safe to assume that more children were introduced to electric trains via a Marx electric train than any other brand.
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Cleveland is my home town, too!
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I love my Marx collection, metal and plastic items, all of them. One of my favorite videos:
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Matt, that is a neat little video and a real cool looking train. Is that a video you took of your own layout?
Rich
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It’s not me. It’s some fellow who has posted various YouTube videos under the name Ray L Roads.
A number of them are pretty good. He has a couple videos where he takes Marx 4-wheel plastic cars and cuts off the fake trucks, so they look like regular 4-wheel cars. Then he does some extra mods and the cars look great. If you get a chance, look at his other vids.
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Well, the video looked darned good. You need to take a video of your layout, or two, or three. 
Rich
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Oh my!
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I am typing as I am watching and I am cringing as you cut up that little caboose, or is that not you?
Rich
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Not me
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LOL. Sorry, I was momentarily blown away by your ultra-quick response to my request for a video of your layout.
Rich
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Heading up the consist of a Marx 7-inch 4-wheel Nickel Plate Road 5-car freight set is a 994 locomotive (the largest stamped steel locomotive Marx ever made) and a 7-inch tender nicely lettered with the Nickel Plate Road name. (A red 7-inch NKP tender was also made but in such limited numbers that it is extremely rare today.)
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The first of two “revenue” cars in Marx’s 7-inch NKP set is a Pennsylvania Railroad boxcar with working doors. The 7-inch PRR boxcars had consecutive car numbering on the lithography masters, with the numbers running from 37950 to 37959. (Some collectors try to find a complete set of 7-inch boxcars with all 10 car numbers.)
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The same tooling used to create the 7-inch NKP freight set was also used to create the Mickey Mouse Meteor, a windup train with colorful lithography featuring various Disney cartoon characters. (A Mickey Mouse Meteor is shown on page 102 in the Third Edition of Eric J. Matzke’s GREENBURG’S GUIDE TO MARX TRAINS Volume I.)
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I remember that! I was just getting back into the hobby but was primarily interested in N Gauge at the time. Even so I thought the Flynn’s New Marx trains were positively elegant! I probably should have bought a set but didn’t. Not the end of the world.
By the way, the Flynn’s have a YouTube channel, here’s the link for those interested. They’ve got some wonderful things! And the New Marx trains do show up from time to time!
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A video I made a couple of years ago showcasing some prewar trains running on a card table layout I built. Marx, Hornby, and Schilling clockwork, an electric American Flyer loco and 2 non-functional locos; a Hafner streamlined 1010 and a Bekh set. Plus 2 repro Paya trams and my Standard Gauge #8 with #35 & 36 passenger cars. Most of these were restored by me.
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