Our '47 B, /49 A, and '51 A being tucked into bed about a month ago.
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Oh, oh.
I’m from a Case family!
In 1937, industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss was hired by John Deere to give its tractors a more modern look. This new look was introduced in the fall of 1938. Dreyfuss also streamlined the NYC Mercury and the 20th Century Limited.
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A visit to the John Deere Tractor and Engine Museum is well worth the time and effort
Rich
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According to Walt Hiteshew’s The Definitive Guide to Marx Trains, the No 555 6-inch 4-wheel BAR State of Maine Boxcar was only made in 1958. (The example shown here was remounted onto an 8-wheel frame with automatic tilt couplers.) The lithographed metal sheet with the BAR boxcar bodies numbered them from 4485 to 4500. (This particular BAR boxcar is No. 4495.) Some collectors try to find examples with all 16 numbers.
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Although they are somewhat uncommon, I was able to acquire a set of five 6-inch BAR boxcars on eBay that had been remounted onto 8-wheel frames, giving me enough of them for an entire train.
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Marx also made a 7-inch 4-wheel BAR State of Maine Boxcar which only was available with a single number 4484. (The example shown here was remounted onto an 8-wheel frame with automatic tilt couples which, IMHO, greatly improved its appearance.)
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Marx’s Seaboard Fairbanks-Morse diesel was made from 1955 to 1962 and was sold primarily as an A-A combination. (A Seaboard B-unit didn’t appear until 1962 and is quite scarce today.)
The Seaboard FM is one of the few Marx items to appear in Roger Carp’s 2010 book 101 Classic Toy Trains. (It is No. 81. Roger lists Marx’s Mickey Mouse Meteor 7-inch set as No. 16.)
The 2023 Classic Toy Trains special issue Great Toy Train Locomotives 50+ Favorites includes the Marx Fairbanks-Morse diesels among the 50 + favorites, and has a photo of a 4000 Seaboard FM.
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The Seaboard FM had a matching 6-inch 4-wheel caboose. (The example shown here was remounted onto an 8-wheel frame with automatic tilt couplers.) Unlike Marx’s Kansas City Southern and Monon FM diesels, the Seaboard FM did NOT have a matching 7-inch caboose and was apparently only sold with 6-inch cars.
BTW, the title “Seaboard Air Lines” on the caboose has nothing to do with aviation. Air line was once a common railroad term for denoting the shortest distance between two points (i.e. a line “as straight as the crow flies.”) By using air lines in its title, Seaboard was saying that their routes were shorter than those of competing roads.
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I always thought that it moreso resembled an Alco in many of its design elements.
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The whole New Marx thing is something that I wished was still up and running today.
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I agree, to me it looks virtually nothing like Fairbanks Morse’s cab diesels. It doesn’t seem to match any prototype, but is closest to an ALCo FA imho.
Compare the Fairbanks Morse ‘consolidated line’ diesel style with that of the ALCo FA:
-El
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They were elegant all right. I can’t think of a better description.
In the case of New Marx I think it’s safe to say the “students” exceeded the “master!”
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I can see where they were going with this one but it looks a bit awkward. In actual fact though I think a New York Central T-Motor paint scheme would be a bit more appropriate than a Pennsy one. This has a stronger resemblance to a NYC electric than a PRR one.
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I agree. As you noted it is more in line with a NYC motor. My guess is, since it is prototype, it is awkward (when you look at the underside you can see where they were changing/modifying this and that) and they were just using what was handy. If they had made it NYC would have been the litho treatment of choice.
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The more I see them compared, the closer they look. The “trucks” on the Marx unit, the design of the side window and door, the placement of the side vents (close but not quite the same, but definitely closer than to an F-M), and, most of all, the very distinctive Alco headlight. For whatever reason, the KCS unit didn’t have the Alco headlight. I once came close to buying a Monon engine, but wound up buying a 591 instead. Anyway, the real SAL 4000 was an EMD FT-A, the KCS 54 was an F3 set, and the Monon 81 happened to also be an F3.
What I want to know is who mixed up all the paint schemes at Marx–the SP scheme (seen on their small tinplate FT) ought to be on the plastic E7, the B&O scheme at least can stay where it is, and the SAL, KCS, and Monon schemes would have been better on the small FT!
Sorry for the short rant.
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I bet that if they were still around a lot of the trains would definitely be cheaper than most new ones!
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