Marx Questions for Marx Trivia Buffs...? Lots of Clues for 'dating' Marx

[pgtr]

Hello,

Some year date type questions if anyone knows...

What years did Marx produce the 'full size' tin lith F diesels? The longer ones that were 12ish inches? Were these typically sold with tin plate rolling stock?

What years did Marx produce the plastic F7 (or were they F3?) diesels that I presume replaced the above? Were they sold as AA, AB or ABA in sets or individually? Did they have silver or black trucks or did that vary by road name? Were they all lighted? What all road names besides SF?

What year did they switch from tin plate to plastic rolling stock?

What year did they switch from the 'painted' (silver/black) rolling stock stamped metal trucks to the black only metal trucks?

And what year did they switch from stamped (black) metal to plastic trucks?

I'm thinking the plastic tilt couplers came with the plastic trucks if they switched to plastic couplers earlier - what year?

Did 'any' Marx ever come with a horn or whistle?

Thanks

[Dave Farquhar]

Tough questions. I know the tin litho diesels were sold with tinplate rolling stock, yes. They put the same 3/16 cars on taller trucks (the ones that were used for the later plastic cars) to make them look a little more proportional with those big diesels, although Lionel 6464-sized cars would have looked better.

I have lots of Marx cars with the stamped metal trucks but a plastic coupler. The plastic "deluxe" trucks came later, but I believe production of the stamped metal trucks continued until the very end. The plastic trucks had more detail, so Marx used those on its higher-end sets, and the stamped metal trucks on the mid-range sets.

The Marx Girard station has a whistle, and the Girard station has a horn. Marx never put the horn or whistle in the locomotive or tender itself. The whistle on my Girard station sounds almost exactly like my Lionel whistles.

I know Marx made a green Western Pacific A-B-A set. It's really snazzy looking. I know they made WP, New York Central (of course) and Santa Fe (of course). I think there were a couple of others but I don't know them offhand.

[Anonymous]

Some further information on Dave's post.  To correct a typo of Dave's, the name of the station with the diesel horn is Oak Park.  On the outside, it is basically the same as the Girard station, the main difference being that it has yellow walls, while the Girard has red.

The plastic diesels were actually E7's, not F units.  The roadnames they were available in were Santa Fe, New York Central, Western Pacific (available in green or grey), Rock Island, New Haven, Union Pacific, Allstate (a made-up roadname for Sears) and Penn Central.  The NYC and PC were the only ones not to have B units.  Depending on the set, these may have been available as just an A unit or in an A-A or A-B set.  As far as I know, ASTF, WP and Allstate were the only ones ever sold in A-B-A sets.  The ATSF and NYC units had silver trucks and the others all had black.

Some of the E7 diesels were sold with tinplate rolling stock.  Tinplate passenger cars were made for NYC, ATSF and WP, which were still being made after the 3/16" tinplate freight cars had been discontinued.  Marx never made any plastic passenger cars.  The NYC E7's (one of the first roadnames produced) were sold in some sets with the same tinplate freight cars that the tinplate ATSF F-units came with.  The other E7's were never sold in freight sets with anything but plastic cars, however.

[tintrax]

  This is a test to see if I can post a reply - lately I have not been able to do this - or even Log In.

On the subject of Marx  thought I should mention there is an egroup (on Yahoo Groups)  specifically

on the subject of Marx trains, and there are very knowledgeable people there.