My Marx

My Uncle's prewar Marx steamer chats with my recently bought Marx switcher. Hmm. Maybe that is why I like the New York Central.

Why Marx?

 My first introduction to Marx trains was from my Uncle Chuck. Chuck was a great enabler of my train hobby, helped along by the fact that he had a Marx outfit as a kid, in pre-Second World War days. He also gave me my first Lionel set in 1955. When he died in the early ’90s, my family made sure his few trains found their way to me.

In the postwar era, the Marx product line was a home for road names Lionel never touched, such as the Seaboard Air Line and kansas City Southern.

And imagine my surprise when, as an adult, I started taking a closer look at my boxed up trains, and discovered that all the track and switches and most of the accessories were made by Marx, not Lionel! So I have no prejudice against Marx trains.

Well, save for perhaps some of the later production with was a bit on the cheap side – even being sold as inexpensive children’s toys. Otherwise, my mind is fairly open about Marx gear. In fact, I think it deserves more respect than it gets!

Marx did offer cab units in the expected Santa Fe livery, but also in New Haven and Western Pacific. And when it gets down to brass tacks, isn't ALLSTATE a great name for a railroad?

 I’ve never had a buying strategy for Marx, but over time I’ve accumulated random pieces. Some equipment is from the recent Flynn-era of production. I’ve also bought some vintage rolling stock (some of the lithography is very neat). Again, no system to the buys, not even roadname choice. If I like it, I get it. I have this notion I want o get into litho color variations, but I’m fighting it.

 Couplers are a bit of a mystery over the history of Marx, and I have tried to standardize on the tilt couplers for the plastic cars and the tab/slot couplers for the tinplate, but that has been it. Until recently, I had never bought a vintage Marx locomotive. It was a tougher buying process than I’d expected.

The plastic era meets the tin era. Though totally different, the tin slab couplers are compatible with the plastic tilt couplers.

 I’ve never been especially enraptured with Marx steamers, even their better die-cast models. Their tin diesels though, have surprising flashes of color and their designs are clearly not copied from another train-maker. In the postwar era, where else could you buy a Kansas City Southern, Seaboard Air Line, or Southern Pacific diesel?

 As viewers of Bob’s Train Box may have noted, I have a string of Marx New York Central cabooses on my desk. So I decided that I needed to find a locomotive for them. Marx only made two NYC diesels: an E7 and the no. 588 GE 70-tonner switcher.

 I’ve never closed the door on non-Central road names, but I wanted to get a Central engine first.

 Point 1: I’m a tightwad and a lot of the Marx locomotives I’ve seen had “1990’s prices” attached to them. I wasn’t in a hurry, so I could wait till I the price got lower.

 Point 2: Completeness. This was a little more than just looks good. If it didn’t run, I at least wanted a cosmetically complete unit with motor, frame, and couplers.

 Point 3: Operation. I viewed this as a bonus. A shelf model would have been fine, but a runner was even better.

 Point 4: The coupler. Marx has a pretty curious evolution of couplers. Marx had something like seven different couplers over their corporate life with varying degrees of compatibility (or non-compatibility). The couplers on my Uncle’s trains all had “One-way automatic” couplers that used springs to secure the connection – incompatible with anything I own unless you used wire to secure them to the train.

 The Marx freight cars with the plastic knuckle couplers? Well, I’ve avoided those like the plague, because having a pseudo-realistic coupler on a Marx train seems out of place. Yeah, I know, count the rails.

 Interestingly, the coupler choice has stopped me from buying on impulse several times. I wanted the tilt couplers for the plastic Marx cars, but ended up buying a diesel with slot couplers.

Next time you see a pile of Marx at a train meet, stop and take a look. Just like Lionel or Flyer, same general shape, but not all the same.

 If you have never taken a close look, but the tilt couplers have a slot that allows you to mate equipment with slot couplers to them. Nifty. Is this an early example of reverse compatibility?

 The only heartbreak came when I placed the no. 588 on our test track and BAM! The gears didn’t like running through FasTrack switches. Oh, yeah. I thought that was just a problem with steamers.

Heartbreak. I only thought the Marx motor gear and switch issue was with the steamers! The no. 588 stops dead when hitting FasTrack switches!

 So in the end, Marx is a minor interest of mine, but it is also a product line I appreciate. One part unique design, one part creative use of what you have, and certainly the proletarian price feature helped cement its place in toy train history. And like so many of us in this hobby, my curiosity about Marx was nurtured by a relative who owned Marx trains as a kid.