Who said that adults can’t have fun playing with toy trains?
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I have fun with mine!
Replacing the pressed steel 994 0-4-0 locomotive with a Marx 333 die-cast 4-6-2 locomotive greatly improves the appearance of Marx’s 7-inch Nickel Plate freight set. (Remounting the 7-inch tender, freight cars and NKP caboose onto 8-wheel frames further improves the appearance of this set.)
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By the time the centennial of “Toy King” Louis Marx’s birth occurred in 1996, the once-mighty toy company he had founded was only a memory. Even so, Marx-brand tinplate electric trains were still being manufactured in the United States under a licensing agreement that James and Debby Flynn had negotiated with the owners of the Marx trademark. The Flynns’ New Marx trains were made using original Marx tooling and new lithography.
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One of the highlights of the Flynns’ New Marx catalog was the Louis Marx 100th Birthday set released in 1996. Headed by an updated version of Marx’s popular Canadian Pacific locomotive, the 100th Birthday Set featured nine seven-inch, 19th Century-style boxcars each of which had lithography that paid tribute to a particular line of toys that had once been made by the Louis Marx Company: character toys, action toys, military toys, tinplate railroad toys, rural toys, etc. Bringing up the rear was a matching seven-inch caboose with the famous Marx trademark displayed prominently on its sides. It was a set that the “Toy King” himself would have been proud of!
Produced in limited numbers, the Louis Marx 100th Birthday Set is now eagerly sought after by tinplate toy train collectors.
Since the boxcars had different lithography on opposite sides, to see everything, both sides of the train need to be viewed from trackside as it passed by. Here is the first pass-by. (Images of the train’s opposite side will be posted here tomorrow.)
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Eric,
Very nice, and a valuable research source. So far I have two of the cars.
There is a great video on Youtube produced by Dave Hess on his daveclarklumber thread. The engine can pull all of the cars produced.
Northwoods Flyer
Enjoying the World’s Greatest Hobby
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The climbing monkey toy shown on the first boxcar was actually one of Marx’s first big selling toys. It had already been around for a number of years when Marx acquired the tooling from its original manufacturer. By sprucing up the lithography, he reintroduced it and sold a gazillion of them, earning himself his first million dollars.
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That Marx CPR engine is downright elegant! I’m surprised it didn’t make the list.
If I remember correctly the “Jubilee” type was one of the Marx engines Jim and Debbie Flynn reproduced in their New Marx line and it was a hot seller!
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