A Marx Photo Album

Those Jim and Debbie Flynn New Marx trains were positively elegant, especially the Canadian Pacific inspired ones. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up a couple but at the time my head just wasn’t into trains like that. What are you gonna do?
Maybe most of you know this but for those who don’t Jim Flynn has a YouTube channel and it’s a real charmer! Sometimes his New Marx trains make appearances as well.

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Bought from Jim before: they’re decent people!

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When the Flynns produced their line of Modern Marx trains, they had access to the original Marx tooling for the Canadian Pacific-type locomotive. The original Marx Company made at least 50 different variants (with both 2-4-2 and 0-4-0 wheel configurations) of this one locomotive. The Flynns alo produced a number of variants with both 2-4-2 and 0-4-0 wheel configurations. Shown here are just a few of them.

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Marx’s lithographed tunnel was produced for many years and is easy to find. (Obviously intended as a toy, it displays best with Marx’s less expensive trains; the kind that any child could afford.)

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The colorful lithography shown here dates from the 1930s. Different lithography was used later on.

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A detail of the earlier tunnel lithography.

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I have a lithographed tunnel, with some really nice graphics on it.

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Although I am not a big fan of Marx’s plastic 1095 Santa Fe diesel set (its “war bonnet” paint scheme is not nearly as nice as the one on the earlier lithographed metal 21 Santa Fe FT diesel), it did help to introduce many children (whose parents couldn’t afford the Santa Fe diesels made by Lionel and American Flyer) to electric trains and model railroading.

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The 1095 set came with a matching B-unit. Note the stairs hanging down at either end. Because these were toys intended to be played with by children, finding a plastic 1095 set with the stairs that haven’t been broken off is not easy. The Robert Grossman Co. (a good source for Marx parts) used to sell replacement plastic stairs for 1095 locomotives and B-units. When mounted properly, they are hard to spot as replacements.

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The dummy A unit. Making the engine shell out of molded plastic did allow for the incorporation of a great deal of detail. And unlike a die-cast shell, when the plastic shell was removed from the mold, it didn’t require any further “clean up” work before it was ready to paint and assemble.

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Sold along with both passenger and freight cars, a train headed up by a 1095 A-B-A diesel combo was long and impressive looking. Sears alone sold a lot of them, many of which still survive today in various grades of condition.

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My particular favorite from among Marx’s Fairbanks-Morse lithographed tin diesels is the Kansas City Southern.

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Sold in both A-A and A-B combinations, my set came with the B-unit.

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I arranged to have the two 7-inch freight cars in my KCS freight set remounted onto 8-wheel frames with automatic tilt couplers. (It was necessary to have the B-unit, which originally came with a plastic knuckle coupler, fitted with a tilt coupler as well.)

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I also arranged to have my set’s 7-inch KCS caboose remounted onto an 8-wheel frame which greatly improved its appearance.

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I like it! :blush:. Yes, the nose looks almost like a graffiti artist painted it, but it all adds up to give her her own mystique. I just wish they were a little bigger :wink:

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I’ve seen a lot of graffiti with far more finesse than the nose of a 1095! I think I could forgive Marx if the ‘herald’ actually met with the yellow stripe down the nose, but that was probably not possible (or simply more complicated) to do without adding more steps to the painting process.

And Marx was the king of cost savings…

-El

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It looks like it was a one piece mask, possibly flexible. That would account for the misalignment of the “herald oval” and the nose stripe not to mention the paint bleed. I’d be tempted to add decals and striping but I know it would be better to leave it all original. :wink:

Here’s a side by side.

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