It’s Reefer Monday

As we in American emerged from the austere 1930's , Marx observed Lionel and American Flyer's success with "scale trains"  Marx felt he had to compete and started to develop a scale train line in 1940,41 and early 42.  It was ready at Christmas 1942 and the first marketing of this line appeared in the Spiegel and Ward's catalogs for 1942.  These were an interesting compromise.  They were "S" scale at 3/16" to the foot of the prototype however, Marx did not want to re-tool all his other trains and track so they remained 0 gauge.  I am told, in their day, these rather handsome lithographed cars attracted American Flyer fans enough so that they changed the trucks and couplers to run then with the rest of their Flyer trains. That is just hear-say of course as I cannot confirm this.   The cars were all metal and lithographed with excellent detail.   Of course the US Government suspended any metal toys from manufacture after 1942 to conserve metal and support the war so these cars didn't really enter the market place until 1945 and they continued until 1957.

The cars used what came to be called "low" scale freight trucks which can be observed here.  There was some very limited use in the late 50's and early 60's of some of the cars using the high, more common Marx toy train trucks.

Best Wishes, Don

Ron;

Looks like there were at least 2, both from Ashtabula… from the Friendship Train of 1947 website:

”Despite the inclement weather and the relatively small population of Ashtabula, enthusiasm abounded, and 3,000 turned out in to see the Friendship Train. Both train and city officials spoke at the ceremony. The Ashtabula donated two refrigerated cars of canned milk.
From there the train went on to Erie and cities in northern New York and Trenton, New Jersey, ending its journey in New York Harbor where the ships waited”.

@Apples55 posted:

Ron;

Looks like there were at least 2, both from Ashtabula… from the Friendship Train of 1947 website:

”Despite the inclement weather and the relatively small population of Ashtabula, enthusiasm abounded, and 3,000 turned out in to see the Friendship Train. Both train and city officials spoke at the ceremony. The Ashtabula donated two refrigerated cars of canned milk.
From there the train went on to Erie and cities in northern New York and Trenton, New Jersey, ending its journey in New York Harbor where the ships waited”.

@Apples55  Thank you.  I need to thoroughly read Dorothy R. Scheele articles on the website.  Wish she had photos.  I have two books.  Boxcar Diplomacy, Two Trains That Crossed The Ocean, focused on individuals that were affected by the train (Americans and Europeans), has stories on some of the artifacts that the French sent on the Merci Train, and politics.  The Friendship Train of 1947, America's Christmas Gift to Europe is fiction per the author's own admission.  Basically a made-up family during the time of the FT. 

I wonder if both of the Ashtabula cars were decorated the same?  The poor photos of the one car do not show another one next to it.  I based my decals on the HO model.

It’s Reefer Monday 11/25/24ets see your reefers! I’ll start it off with this yellow Carnation Milk reefer carrying all the different milks for the  recipes used on Thanksgiving.