Mersenne6
Welcome back! It is so good to see you here again.
Great photo and I know it is a foretaste of things to come.
Enjoying the World’s Greatest Hobby
Northwooes Flyer
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I have used ebay for about 20 years. The number of times I have been disappointed or run into difficulties with a transaction are fewer than the number of fingers I have. Most of the time the disappointments occur because I didn’t pay close enough attention.
I would say that is pretty good for almost 1900 transactions. But if you don’t want to take the risk don’t. You have to trust the vendors you deal with.
Enjoying the World’s Greatest Hobby
Northwoods Flyer
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I agree. And living in a location where opportunities for face to face sales are minimal, you gotta do what you gotta do
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I have used ebay here and there in the past. had a number of good experiences and a few bad ones- generally if you go through respectable, put together sellers who know what they’re selling and how to ship it, you should rarely have a problem.
I always check what people have to say about their experiences with a seller- if they have negative or neutral feedback, I read it. Then I make a judgement call, based on what I’ve read- is this one or two people making a fuss out of nothing? Or is there a pattern of a seller not doing right by their customers? If it looks like the latter, I steer clear, even if they might be selling something I want.
Recently eBay rolled out new terms of service, with a forced arbitration clause, and I’ve been thinking about if I should give up on eBay or not. The short of it is that this clause allows them to revoke your right to sue them- if eBay were to experience a data breach, you wouldn’t be party to a class action lawsuit. Nobody except lawyers get rich off of those, but they are important- why would a company protect your personal information if they aren’t going to face consequences for leaking it? It’s the principal of the thing.
A lot of companies have started doing this in the past 15-20 years- by continuing to use their services, you agree to their arbitration clause. It’s getting harder and harder to avoid using services that have arbitration clauses, unfortunately- consumer rights aren’t really the thing they once were.
-El
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Maybe it’s just because of how far away everything is from the camera, but those litho pieces look so nice I’d believe you if you told me they were all brand new.
Though I never understood why collectors called them ‘Fairbanks Morse’ diesels, since they really don’t look like a fairbanks morse design to me. They look more like an amalgum of an ALCo FA/FB and maybe a little influence of the EMD F unit. None of the details particularly resemble the FM ‘Erie Builts’ or the C-Liners.
-El
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Welcome back mersenne6! And that’s a incredible Marx collection!
Obviously you take being a Marxist VERY seriously!
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Hey Ellie, no-one knows where the term “Madison Car” came from or how and why it stuck either, it just did. Who knows why these things happen?
Actually, I believe that that pertained to the fact that one of the original cars had the name Madison.
Where it probably came from seems easy- “Madison” was one of the names that appeared on the sides of the cars starting around 1947 or so. The ‘why’ is harder though, since when they were introduced in the pre-war era, they all were lettered ‘Manhattan’ or ‘Irvington’, and when they returned in 1946, they were all lettered ‘Irvington’. ‘Madison’ was the least established car name, and yet somehow became ubiquitous.
-El
Compared to Marx’s (overly) detailed 400 and the 490 plastic locomotives, the 401 is more basic in appearance. Perhaps that’s why I like it. (My 401 locomotive and it matching plastic tender are gray rather than black, which I also like.)
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Maybe I should have been a bit more specific. Certainly “Madison” was the name of one passenger car but how and why did it become common for the whole family?
I guess that’s a question with no answer.
Kind of like the Pre-War “Stephen Girard” cars. How many people even know who Stephen Gerard was? The only reason I know who he was is because I looked him up and even then I have no idea why Lionel put his name on a passenger car.
One thing’s for certain, I’m not going to lose sleep over it!
I just thought Stephen Girard was a green paint color 
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Thanks for the compliment El_Fixes. Actually, most of the equipment is in like new condition. It’s the reason it has taken more than 15 years to assemble this many. I’m still missing a few car numbers for the PRR, SOM and Pacemaker so the hunt is still on.
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Agree on all counts!
Pretty much my experience, too.
Welcome back aboard mersenne6!
ALL of the cars in the original set were named “Madison”. Lionel’s use of it on all three cars in the set may have fostered the idea that they were the name of an actual passenger train or even a competitor of Pullman that kids had never heard of. The “Madison Avenue Special” wouldn’t be far fetched for the name of a Pennsylvania Railroad overnight flyer between Chicago and New York. Or maybe more appropriately a northeast corridor daytime limited owing to the GG-1 being a puller of Madison cars.
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Perhaps…
The Plasticville Block Signal is, IMHO, rather nicely made. These are apparently not as common as, let’s say the Plasticville Freight Platform or the Signal Bridge. I had a rather hard time finding a set of two on eBay and they weren’t cheap. (But well worth it to me.)
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A Canadian Pacific 3000 locomotive and matching tender. The rather interesting water tower was made by Plasticville.
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