Some of those wishbook Marx, Happi-Time and Allstate sets were incredible! 
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Marx’s 62 Baltimore & Ohio F-3 diesel first appeared in 1953. Like Marx’s 6000 Southern Pacific F-3, the B&O F-3 had its own matching seven-inch lithographed caboose.
By the 1960s, most of Marx’s lithographed metal diesels had been phased out in favor of plastic diesels. The last holdout appears to have been the 62 Baltimore & Ohio F-3, which, according to Greenberg’s Marx Trains Pocket Price Guide, was still being offered as late as 1967.
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Maybe ‘cause it’s a good lookin’ train!
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Seriously, though, I really do like the paint scheme and lithography on the B&O F3
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Here is Marx’s 6000 Southern Pacific F-3 diesel.
Released in 1950 (the same year as Marx’s big 21 Santa Fe FT diesel) the mid-size 6000 Southern Pacific F-3 diesel’s lithography accurately reproduced its prototype’s unique combination of round and square portholes. According to Robert C. Whitacre’s Greenberg’s Guide to Marx Trains Volume III: Sets, the F-3 diesels were known to have been sold in sets containing six-inch cars, 3/16-inch scale cars, and seven-inch cars. The 1950 Sears Christmas Wish Book shows an SP F-3 diesel with a train of seven-inch cars.
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Those have an unusual shade of red, I think. When they are in good condition and not faded and everything, they can be really pretty. The matching caboose, too! 
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The matching SP caboose IS nice! It is also one of the few cars from the 7-inch line that was released with 8-wheel swivel trucks.
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The pride and joy of my Marx collection is this plastic Wm. Crooks locomotive and tender which were customized by Baldemar Manzo. When it turned up on eBay, I didn’t hesitate to put in a bid. (A year or so earlier, he’d offered one that was similar, but I’d been outbid. This time I was luckier.) It is only used for photo sessions and spends most of its time safely packed away.
As I’ve said before, Louis Marx would have been amazed if he could have seen this locomotive after being customized. Of course, businessman that he was, he would have looked at it in terms of how much it would cost to produce a locomotive like this one, and how much he’d have to charge to make a profit. Better to have something that could be mass produced and sold for a price that most families could afford.
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I could see Marx having done a litho steel version of the Crooks. They made that larger battery operated “Western” engine that they could have miniaturized to O Gauge to go with their litho’d cars. But I suspect that they had put enough money into developing the molds and as you say, they didn’t want to “overprice” the locomotive.
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I can see why, it’s stunning! Great custom job, if I saw it at a show I’d have to look twice to see if it was a Marx product.
I’ll tell you though this is why I’m doing my own custom paint jobs on less-than-perfect Post-War Lionel engines. With the less-than-perfects and low demand for the same there’s no reason not to indulge ourselves with the “might have beens.”
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That is a nice color scheme, and very well done!
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Shown here in a family portrait are examples of the three plastic locomotives that comprised Marx’s 400 series. They are, from left to right, a 400 , a mechanical 401 , and a 490 .
There were, of course, numerous variants for each of these three locomotives: some were windups, some used battery power, and some used electrical power. Some ran in reverse, others did not. Some puffed baking soda using an ingenious rubber bulb system powered by the movement of the drive wheels. Most of the wind ups had a ringing bell. The wheel action of some of the electrics tapped a flexible brass strip which made a “click clack, click clack” sound like train wheels on the track!
The 400 series has its own group of dedicated collectors who try to find examples of all the variants. (Fortunately, the 400 series locomotives were produced in such large numbers that they can still be acquired quite reasonably at train shows and through on-line auctions.)
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Three versions of the New Marx CNW stock car:
Prototype - top left
Production - top right
Embossed production - bottom
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Marx’s 588 plastic GE 70-ton switcher was made from 1958 to 1962 and was available in several different variants. In addition to being either black, maroon or gray, some 588’s could run in reverse and some could not. The 588’s were available with plastic knuckle couplers, tab & slot couplers, and automatic tilt couplers, which gives you some idea of the rolling stock they were used with.
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I like these because they are small.
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An absolutely charming video!
“The more you run it the better it runs.” Yes, I can vouch for the same on Lionel Post-Wars. The AC motors DO seem to run better when they “warm-up” a bit and the locomotive begins hitting its stride.
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