Marx Trains

[Anonymous]

I see a lot of Marx Trains on ebay.  Will they run on MTH real Trax, I have read they have problems on Lionel tracks.  I am just looking to fix/play with them, not to run all the time.

 

 

[phillyreading]

If there are any problems with Marx trains and Lionel Fastrac or MTH Realtrax it would be at the switches because the Marx may have deeper wheel flanges than the new Lionel locomotives and this would cause a derailment, not sure on this.  The new track looks like it is not as high as the old O gauge tubular track.  I think that the old Marx track was a variation of the 027 track type.

Lee F.

[otftch]

All of the freight and passenger cars will work fine.Some of the locomotives have the gears all the way to the flanges on the wheels.these will give you problems on turnouts.Someone else may be able to tell you which ones will give these problems.I just dedicate one track with no turnouts for these and the smaller lionel locos and have no problems.

                                                                              Ed

[Bob Keller]

As Ed notes, some older Marx trains may have gear issues - where the gear on the drive wheels is as deep as the flange. They run through Marx switches fine, not so with Lionel (compatibility with the competition wasn't high on anyone's agenda back in the day).

Check out the Dec 2005 Q&A (page 35) for a photo of this.

[Buckeye Riveter]

My Marx Engine will not run through my MTH RealTrax switches. 

[Bob Keller]

Kelly was able to dig out the image and Q&A and posted it online:


http://www.trains.com/ctt/default.aspx?c=a&id=911