Cal Stewart Find, Marx Quiz

Obviously it's a rail of some sort.  My guess is it's for some unique accessory or track piece.   I don't have a clue.

Is it one of those "snap over" rails that Marx used to activate things like the signal bridge?

 

Part of a load of rails for tandem flat cars?

Jerry got it.

Pre war work train set 4177 came with a pair of tandem 6" flat cars that carries a load of 12 loose rails. Being as they look like a broken piece of track to mom and dad, most got thrown away making the correct rails very scarce. My nice boxed set has only 11 of the 12 rails. I will now be able to complete it and recoup my $$$$ selling of the balance of the set.

 

Steve

Awww... Jerry beat me to it! 

 

For those who are wondering what is so special about the rail, the giveaway that it is part of the flatcar load is that there aren't any crimped areas on the base of the rail.  A rail that was removed from a section of track will have 3 crimped areas on the base where the ties were located.

 

Steve, I tip my hat to you for being a truly dedicated Marx collector!  I love it that you bought the set to get the rail... 

For my set, it took me about 5 years to get the 11 rails, leaving me one short. This weekend I bought the one set and saw another set also with the correct rails. Soooo many in one place.

 

Steve

 

 

you see a lot of fake axle flat cars too. Nice find, Steve.

Here is the wheel car. All the removable wheels/axles are crimped. Also very hard to find like this.

This one is for sale.

 

Steve

 

 

were all the wheel cars mounted to red frames that are without the faux truck stampings? I have seen both.

 

Verrry interesting ... but couldn't regular rails be suitably flattened with some careful hammer work? I've salvaged some pretty rough track work that way, typically for custom-cut pieces.

Ace, generally I would not even care about leaving the crimps. This particular set I am trying to make as complete and original as possible.