I bought a Marx 999 Locomotive and tender for $11 at a sale on Saturday. There were also a few pieces of very rusted and damaged track with the loco. I was so happy to make the purchase sinces its the first Marx train I’ve come across in my area for a while. The loco and tender seem to be in pretty good condition, but I’ve not had the chance to test and see if it runs yet. Either way it will make a nice display beside my Marx 666 [}:)] and 5 car train.
Assuming there is nothing wrong with the motor a good cleaning of the wheels and a bit of grease on gears it should run very well ran mine last night it took off like a bat out of #&!! after a few laps.
Not sure if it is 999 or 666 that has 3 virations to the cow catcher which are solid, embossed and open spoke.
Types of 999s, in order of scarcity: Solid cowcatcher, embossed cowcatcher, open spoke cowcatcher, and rarest of all, any 999 that doesn’t run.
But in all seriousness, the slotted variation is rarest. It wasn’t as durable as Marx would have liked, so they revised the design twice to address the fragility.
A 999 for $11 is a nice find. The Marx motor is extremely robust and practically indestructible. The reverse unit is more problematic but often responds well just to some contact cleaner.
Congratulations on your “new” 999.
They are very nice locos, and will pull a fair size train.
I have 2 so far, one needed a little TLC, but both run like the dickens.
Have fun with yours.
Great find! You can disconnect the reversing unit so it runs in one direction. The reason I stated “one”, if you turn the unit over, it will run the opposite direction. Turn it over again to return to the previos direction.
Had a club member whose favorite Marx saying was:
“Think big! Run Marx on O-72!”
Enjoy!
Wes
Congratulations. The unit will make a nice display when cleaned and lubed. It you run it, it will set land speed records… again. Didn’t CTT have a contest sometime, where the 999 took away speed honors? Not that I ever run trains faster than the typical 1’ = 12" folks! [;)]
Thatsa great find for 11 dollars!