Sask_Tinplater wrote: I love Marx trains! There is really something special about them. I collect prewar and postwar trains from a wide variety of manufacturers, but Marx is probably the company whose products I own the most of. My very first O gauge train was a Marx 4-wheel plastic set with a 490 steam engine. I haven't stopped acquiring Marx since. I now have 6-inch four-wheel, 6-inch eight-wheel, 7-inch, 3/16" scale, four-wheel plastic, eight-wheel plastic, Joy Line, Marx HO, Plastimarx (Mexican) and British Marx. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to post.marx3railer, Welcome to the forum! It's always great to have another tinplate guy! I must say that your collection is simply fabulous! You have a lot of really great pieces there. The one item that really stood out for me, though, was the very rare Canadian signal tower on your layout.
I love Marx trains! There is really something special about them. I collect prewar and postwar trains from a wide variety of manufacturers, but Marx is probably the company whose products I own the most of. My very first O gauge train was a Marx 4-wheel plastic set with a 490 steam engine. I haven't stopped acquiring Marx since. I now have 6-inch four-wheel, 6-inch eight-wheel, 7-inch, 3/16" scale, four-wheel plastic, eight-wheel plastic, Joy Line, Marx HO, Plastimarx (Mexican) and British Marx. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to post.
marx3railer, Welcome to the forum! It's always great to have another tinplate guy! I must say that your collection is simply fabulous! You have a lot of really great pieces there. The one item that really stood out for me, though, was the very rare Canadian signal tower on your layout.
Hello SaskTinplater. I am glad to share my collection with others. I have a few more rare items of interest. I was very glad to find the Rare Canadian issue of the Switch tower. Here are a few more of my rare and Hard to find pieces. I just wish I could do them more justice and maybe have a small Museum someday.
Enjoy
autocad wrote: My MARX in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0jRxV9g-zo and the kids next door helped....!
My MARX in action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0jRxV9g-zo
and the kids next door helped....!
Oh how I love to see those Marx in action.. And we have to keep the kids involed for all of our sakes..
Well done and they were having fun too!! Isn't it a great feeling to spread the joy of toy trains?
North of the 49th
Hi Ken
I wish we had more sales around here, We have one train show a year and it is hit or miss if I have that weekend off, so I do most of my buying eBay. I like the openspoke 999 very nice find.. I was lucky enough to fine a Blue Rivet NYC tender a few weeks back. Right now I am trying to fill my one wall with all the different Marx Canadian Pacific engines, right now I have about 15 differernt models but I heard there are around 40-50. I best straighten up the train room our Grandson is coming out for the weekend and soon as he gets in the door he heads down the hall to the train room.
marx3railer wrote: Hi KenGerald here from Northern Alberta. How have things been? Got to love those Marx.. Have you all of them.. I would like to have more of the New Marx Ameritrains but am limited by so litte room. Also I have half a dozen other collections. I like the simple beautly of the older Marx 6 inch tin, very colorful and easy to maintain. Sometimes I will sit with my Granson and just watch them roll around the track for hours, we both find it very relaxing.
Gerald here from Northern Alberta. How have things been? Got to love those Marx..
Have you all of them.. I would like to have more of the New Marx Ameritrains but am limited by so litte room. Also I have half a dozen other collections. I like the simple beautly of the older Marx 6 inch tin, very colorful and easy to maintain.
Sometimes I will sit with my Granson and just watch them roll around the track for hours, we both find it very relaxing.
Hi Gerald:
Lost all my email addresses around Christmas (coutesy of the tech help at sympatico but we won't go into that). Went to a train show southwest of Buffalo NY 2 Sundays ago and scored big. There wasn't much Marx at it and my buddy and I were getting dejected. The last table we say in the far corner kept him happy though. He got a rivetless 7" scale metal gon in the box. About 5 minutes prior I scored even better - an open spoke pilot 999.
My grandson out in Kelowna had one of my M10005 tearing around the tree this Christmas. You're lucky to have your Grandson close to you!
Ken
Every Christmas my Mom would take me down to Eatons & Simpsons in downtown Toronto to see Santa. The biggest attraction to me were all the operating train displays of which Eatons had the best. Lionel, Hornby American Flyer and of course, MARX. Money being hard to come by I really had no hopes of every receiving one of those steamers. In 1947 I hit the jackpot at Christmas and received a Marx CV windup which I still have. My Dad set it up on a piece of homosote and I spent hours racing that set around the track - running over Britains soldiers and evading cannon fire from the Britains cannons which actually fired projectiles (my favorite was pieces of pencil lead). Since then I've amassed many Marx and even branched out into Marx plastic which I have now slowly eliminated as my true love in Marx is tin tin tin! My precious layout was 2 levelled - Lionel on the bottom and Marx on the top. The next one will be much the same.
I have some of the New Marx tin made by the Flynns before they sold their company and plan on getting more tin from the new manufacturer of "Marx" called Ameritrains. For those who don't know about them and their trains which are Made in the U.S.A.check out:
www.marxtrains.com
I'm mainly a Lionel/MTH/K-Line guy but I've got a lot of Marx O and HO. Marx HO engines run better than Lionel HO engines.
They say old tooling never goes away...both the Marx O and HO tooling is still around and is still being used. I've converted a lot of K-Line S scale cars (made with the old Marx O tooling) to Marx trucks and couplers. I've also got a lot of the Model Power "Heavyweights" (made with the Marx HO tooling). I use the Model Power version of the Marx Santa Fe F3 to pull my Lionel HO Santa Fe streamliners (both with and without stripes). It's a better runner than any Lionel FA.
RaleighTrainFan wrote:My MPC set was a Sears set, too. The Nickel Plate Road 2-4-0 with the CN hopper, Wheaties (!) box car, Republic Steel (blue) gondola, and Union Pacific flat car, tailed by a NP caboose. Still have them all and use them regularly, though the engine is a little beat.
Mine was the 8020 ATSF Alco, a Burlington 9041 gondola, the Wheaties Boxcar (very common in those years), a 9300 PC log dump car, a 9011 GN hopper in Royal or Dark Blue (at one time held to be a very rare and very expensive car by Greenburg's guides--can you imagine $160 for an MPC O27 hopper with plastic trucks and wheels?), and a 9061 ATSF caboose. The track was a figure 8; the transformer was the blue 4090. Some of the track has been lost, but I have everything else. That train has spent a lot of time on the rails over the years, and it still runs like a champ with normal maintenance.
I really enjoy all these photos. I'd rather look at these than photos of the latest new scale innovations. It's amazing how MARX did so much to capture the look, feel, and detail of real trains on flat tin without having any real detail and without being to scale proportions. I still admire the artisan workmanship that went into their lithography.
My personal preference is towards newer 027 over the older tin lithographed trains. Maybe if the litho trains were as available and practically priced.... who knows. I do really like the early K-Line stuff, much of which had origins with the MARX tooling. I love the K-Line shorty box cars and the K-Line Alco S-2 is my favorite loco. I do have a number of actual MARX items that I got as beaters or in junk boxes, and have fixed them up and repainted them. The MARX 2-tier auto carrier is one of my favorites.
Despite the name association in the hobby with Lionel, countless times I have read stories in the train mags and talked with hobbiests who say their first set was a MARX one. Sometimes the little guy, who gets no respect, is the one who makes the biggest impact. MARX may have the appearance of being cheap, and yet MARX used simplicity and elevated it to an artform without ever losing quality - considering the price.
Put that into current terms, RMT may be the little guy on the block - but I think RMT products like the "Beep" and "Buddy" stand a very good chance of making a big impact on the hobby. In some ways, they already have. And more is on the way, which looks good to me. Affordable products like MARX in their day and RMT today, will have the biggest long term, long lasting benefits for this hobby.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
RaleighTrainFan wrote:Amazing. How old are you? I received a Marx set, battery powered (I still have some of the cars only) when I was four. When I was six, in 1973, I received my MPC set, which I still have. I am 39, incidentally.
Amazing. How old are you? I received a Marx set, battery powered (I still have some of the cars only) when I was four. When I was six, in 1973, I received my MPC set, which I still have. I am 39, incidentally.
42. The Marx set is from '64; the MPC set from '72. Both came from Sears. In fact, the Marx set was bought on 12/26 since the HO set that Grandpa had put under the tree failed to run but smoked too well on Christmas morning. Naturally, I have the story from my mom because, at only 7 months of age, I was pretty oblivious to most of the morning's festivities.
As a footnote, many years later my mom wanted a train under her tree. I happened to find a boxed Marx set just like mine (my box hadn't survived all the intervening moves) and gave it to her. She was delighted, and I added an oval on a board with a bridge to it and then more cars and some buildings over the years. It all came back to me, of course, when she died.
So many memories tied up with my trains. . . .
palallin wrote: My first set was a Marx received on my first Christmas, and I still have it, and the thing is still a speed demon. It's a plastic 490 with plastic, 8-wheel cars, and plastic handshake couplers. It rules the rails every year for a short time at Christmas, sharing only with the MPC set I recieved seven years later.
My first set was a Marx received on my first Christmas, and I still have it, and the thing is still a speed demon. It's a plastic 490 with plastic, 8-wheel cars, and plastic handshake couplers. It rules the rails every year for a short time at Christmas, sharing only with the MPC set I recieved seven years later.
marx3railer,
Welcome to the forum! Great pictures. I have a soft spot for Marx also.
Jim H
I have a few pieces of Marx. Got the 2002 handcar and some accessories as well as a set of passenger cars and loco set. While there are a few guys really into Marx on this site, I don't think it would be a stretch to suggest that most have at least a piece or two. They really are whimsical. I believe it was 2005 that CTT had a great article on a Marx layout that was very well done. Also, I have seen an episode of "I Love Toy Trains" that has a whole layout on Marx and they also have a Christmas layout of the owners of the Marx tooling.
Dennis
TCA#09-63805
I have a fair bit of Marx, probably more 6-inch tin than anything else, although my last purchase was a late postwar 3/16 scale set headed up by a CP locomotive.
I like Marx a lot because it's relatively easy to find, most of it is very affordable, and the Marx motor is extremely reliable and easy to work on. Plus it has a lot of charm and character.
Dr. John,
I'm GREEN with envy!! Love those locos!
Jim
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
While I collect primary Lionel postwar, I have a soft spot for Marx. Here's a few of mine (some custom painted):
I found a few more older pictures of part of my collection. I even run some of my rarer pieces because they look better on the track than sitting on the shelf. Here is one more picture of my little protoge Aidan Grey.
Hi all, this is my first post on this forum . I have been collecting Marx trains for the past five years. I am not sure but I must have a few hundred Marx trains mostly the 4 wheel 6 inch tin. This is just a fraction of my collection and I really enjoy sharing it with my two year old Grandson Aidan. I will try and round up more pictures latter.
Lots of fun to collect. Reasonably priced. very colorful.
Some of mine -
Edit - Oops this is American Flyer
Heres a Hafner - Really colorful with great litho - cheap too!
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