Great Info & Photos thanks for taking the time to share with us! I have some questions -
Anyone have some info on Marx Track? I’m wondering how to sort out my box of track it is mixed Marx 3 rail and Lionel o-27, I once read that the way the rail bottoms either fold up or down is a good indicator. Which is which?
Also I’d be lnterested in seeing some 50s battery powered or plastic wheeled cars with the punched in place tab & slot couplers, I have some of these cars but no loco, I’m wondering what would have pulled it? And how many different cars were available in this style? Anyone have some?
I have a Union Pacific tender & Caboose, a B&O Gondola (I was able to make the gondola from a spare parts body with a bad frame and a good plastic wheel frame I had) Did Marx ever make a yellow B&O gondola in this style car?
All my marx cars have 4 plastic wheels and Punched Tab & Slot Couplers…Can these cars be modified to run behind a Marx electric loco? They jam up & short out the center rail when it goes in reverse.
unfortunately the best way to describe Marx track is through pictures and i’m going to have to wait on that.
sounds like the collection of the Marx you describe is from the 1960’s which saw some of the last of the metal cars and clockwork locomotive sets. and though those plastic wheeled cars are metal, they were probably headed up by a #400 or #401 plastic shell clockwork locomotive which both came in numerous variations including color (grey or black), wheel type, w/wo siderods, etc with even some mechanical smokers (using a dry powder) and at least one battery powered model.
i doubt if an electrical short would be a problem with sliding tab&slot couplers, but you’re probably correct in anticipating a slight jam-up that might occur when a long string of sliding tabs is shifted into reverse. very slowly might be the ticket there. the upside is hearing all those couplers popping back into position as the train reverts to forward again.
there are at least 3-4 dozen 6" tin cars that were made with sliding couplers for clockwork sets with a good number of those bein
I have not seen many 7" Marx sets pictured on here yet, This set is a little rough & rusty, has no boxes but it is priceless to me it was bought for my Dad by my Grandfather in the 1950s. Must be one of the only marx locos that did not run with some oil in history, it had a stripped idler gear…I found it was caused by the side rod jamming up against a replacement motor mount screw that was slightly too long. I found a gear and all is well now, even the original light bulb still works! Anyone have more info on this set or a date when it was produced?
I did not appreciate how much work goes into taking photos & writing a post untill I tried it my self!
Thanks for all the hard work guys especially - Overlandflyer & James P!
there are a few different verified versions of the #4040 set, but all seem to be headed up by either the #400 or #490 locomotive and include 4 wheel plastic cars. a small, 25W #309 or #329 transformer was more than likely correct for any of these sets.
With a bit of trepidation, I will attempt a post on the forum’s new format!
Taking a bit of a break from my primary Marx obsession (windup locomotives), Gary’s previous post w/ the Red Litho Framed 6" tin got me to thinking about some of the 6" tin cabooses Marx produced. There have been several pictures of them posted in the previous pages - some of them of hard to find variations - but I’ll post a few of the cabooses, most of them very common Marx items. If you want to start collecting 6" tin on a budget, I recommend picking up a few of these!
First up, the not-so-common #694:
I wanted to start with the #694 because it is the earliest Marx caboose - of course, the Joy Line cabooses do predate it. The #694 with Joy Line couplers came out in 1935, with the change to Tab & Slot couplers happening in '36. The #694 changed again in '36 from a black frame with silver litho detail to just a plain black frame and produced into 1937.
Now, on to a few 556 cabooses:
A #556 with a red lithographed frame - these date from around 1937-'38.
Here is an early #556 caboose on a black frame with riveted Slot & Tab couplers. One way to tell if a #556 is early is to look at the door on the end – the early ones have a slot underneath the door, a holdover from the #694 with Joy Line couplers. Later cabooses did not have the slot under the door. This example would be from the 1937-'42
I have a photo of the Brown Frame version of the Union Pacific Caboose pictured above that I can share,
Does anyone have any tips on how to post photos in the new forum yet? I tried to follow the instructions in my flickr account but all it posted was the html junk, Now I cant figure out how to go back into an old post & edit it. Is there a FAQ or something I am missing or is it just glitches in the forum?[:$]
Click on the “Insert Image” icon at the top of the text box when posting. It is seventh icon to the left of the smiley face, and resembles a polaroid picture with a + on the lower right corner of it. If you hover your cursor over it, it will display “Insert Image”. When you click it, it will bring up a box that will prompt you to paste the url into it. Then click insert and viola:
I have found a few bugs in the new forum, but I’m sure they will get sorted out. This type of thing happens everytime a forum changes or updates their software. My previous post lost a couple of pictures and some text that I had to edit back in!
Looking forward to seeing your brown-frame UP caboose - that’s one I don’t have in my little collection yet.
Hey thanks for the help with posting the photos! You guys are the first in any forum to take the time to help me understand what you have to do…not just “Use the search function” I appreciate it!
Lets see if the photo lesson works- WHOO HOO! It did.
Here is my partial set with the the brown frame UP caboose, it has sliding slot & tab couplers and plastic wheels (well 3 good ones and 1 broken one anyway [:(] ) I hope to complete this set with the proper track, Loco & wheel by digging for bargans at the local train show.
I edited my previous post above about the 7" Tin set so that the photos post correectly Check it out…anyone have any more info on that set or when it was produced?
apparently there was a bug in the posting software that would balk on “~” or “%7E” (hex for ‘~’) in the URL. if this was affecting anyone besides me, it should be fixed now.
Back when I was visiting collections and taking pictures of trains I visited a collector who had a couple of the Marx factory prototypes. This car is a factory hand painted sample with a lady standing on the rear platform waving with a handkerchief in her hand. Her arm is coupled via a wire to an eccentric on the axle of the rear wheel. As the wheels turn her arm moves up and down.
Based on Matzke’s first edition of Greenberg’s Guide to Marx Trains it would appear that Marx made at least two versions of this R&D concept.
From pp. 44 “Bye-Bye Observation: This has to be the cutest model of all. A woman’s figure lithograhed on metal (the car above, including the woman is hand painted), with a moving (articulated) arm, holds a tiny handkerchief in her hand which she waves from the observation platform. The arm is activated by a link to the U-shaped rear car axle to produce reciprocating movement in the link. The model is made from a standard six-inch red lithographed observation car with black and white detail mounted on a red and white frame, model year 1938.”
Given that the above car is larger and completely hand painted it might be that the car described in the Matzke book was the next step in an attempt to move the car to production.
this is a very interesting car as it seems to be the frame described in the newer Greenberg/ Matzke Vol I, page 40…
“… A group of passenger cars exhibited swivel trucks fastened to the car frame, similar to the six-inch, eight-wheel cars. Instead of two axles and four wheels per truck, each simulated truck had only two wheels and one axle…”
these cars were said to have been made to compete with the Unique Arts trains of 1949, so if this was an animated car, it was developed long after the red lithographed frames were out of production.
by the tie spacing of the track piece in the photo, i’m making this car out to be 9" (!) long. quite a monster compared to most Marx, but this is what the 7" freight cars that were finally decided on were all about. in that head to head battle with U.A., size is what mattered most.
would have been a great animated car, though.
cheers…gary
The second car I photographed was this hand painted UP boxcar. It is the same car that is pictured on page 45 of the first edition Greenberg’s Guide to Marx Trains. The text, at least in the first edition, is incorrect with respect to the the construction of this car. The text indicates there were two versions of this car (which there were) and that both were made of wood with one of the cars sporting hook and slot couplers (this one) and one sporting automatic couplers. The error is in the description of the construction. This car is all metal whereas the car with automatic couplers was made of wood.
The car is hand painted on both sides and the hand lettering is such that the sides are a very close match to one another with respect to lettering size, style and location on the car body.
it seems like Greenberg corrected this in the 1989 ed. (Vol I) picturing both UP boxcars and stating one was made of wood and the other (the one you shown above) as all metal construction with tab&slot couplers. in the book, the wood version is shown with prewar one way automatic couplers.
This couldn’t get anymore ironic. I just read that book for the first time the other day, and was amazed at the amount of R&D prototypes pictured. I have been doing a lot of research to find more about some of them, but it would appear that the information is right in front of me! I must ask, do you own one of the three GG1 prototypes? I would love to know why they never put it into production. My other favorite is the 7 inch Marlines gondola with the cow on the side. I could imagine what they intended to put in that car. Milk cans? Tin cows?..
one of the first uses of the Marx Canadian Pacific type locomotive was in the role of heading up an actual CP passenger train offered as both a clockwork 4-wheel and an electric 8-wheel version.
#5895W Canadian Pacific Passenger Set (electric)
four wheel clockwork sets were headed up by the same CP 3000 locomotive that was shown in an earlier posting in this string and was essentially the same livery as the electric version which usually showed up as a 2-4-2 versus the 0-4-0 windup version.
#3000 CP locomotive w/ 8wh tender
with the standard single reduction motor, larger sets came with a weighted locomotive to help with traction.
8-wheel (elect) and 4-wheel (clockwork) CP tenders
for a prewar tender, the CP types had a bit more shape than the ultra-plain CV tenders.
but probably the most unusual feature of these sets was the number of different cars available. unlike their more common three car consists, the CP passenger sets had eight different car names/ numbers.
Trevor, I’m sorry to disappoint but the two cars pictured are the only two R&D prototypes I ever had the chance to photograph. These cars, like most of the “trains” I have are nothing more than photographs. Way back, before the Greenberg books, I started putting together a photo reference library for myself with the main focus on pre-war American Flyer (hence the large number of posts over on Northwoods Flyer’s Pre-War American Flyer thread). If there were non-Flyer items in a collection that caught my eye I would ask for permission to photograph those items as well. These two happened to be in a large general collection of pre-war everything-made-for-the-American-market which I visited almost 15 years ago.
When the Greenberg books started coming out I quit taking pictures since I assumed there would be periodic updates of the references - that was a bad assumption. Within the last year or two I’ve gone back to taking pictures but I haven’t seen anymore Marx R&D items.
Besides the Greenberg book the only other pictures of Marx R&D models that I’m aware of were some pictures of the Martin and Osterund collections which were briefly featured in the October 1993 TCA Quarterly both as an inside article and as the wrap-around color cover.
This goes to show that a whimsical toy-like layout can be set up in any amount of space. This is on my basement floor, and is pure Marx (even the track). It also demonstrates the usefulness of 3 and 5 tie track and they can be mixed to make track plans not possible with Lionel’s track.
hokey smoke, Bullwinkle! a whole month without a Marx posting!
…got to do something about that!
after Marx got rid of the inherited Girard Toy Company stock, the first truly Marx trains started to appear in 1935 with simple single color w/ black detail/lettering lithography and sitting on 4 wheel black frames with silver (though in most lighting appearing as white) details. except for the #552 gondola, all cars had sliding mounted “Joy Line” couplers.
there were only about a dozen of these early car types and few are considered rare, but due to their short life of not more than a few years of sales and considering they were the first and oldest, to find them in better conditions can be a challenge. here are some trains i’ve managed to piece together.
Silver Litho Frame Passenger Train - ca 1935
many of these first cars had body styles and graphics that would persist, but the numbering system in this first round of 6" tin cars was a bit different than the standard numbers that would follow in later years. among those was the first three-car passenger set which in
I cannot believe it, but this is the 100th post so far. I would have never thought that so much information would have been added here, but I’ve been proven wrong. I’d like to thank Gary and James for sharing so much knowledge and so many pieces out of their collection. I think this is just a start a though, and there is so much more out there to be learned.
