Lionel, AF, Marx?

My folks bought us Lionel and didn't ask for our opinions.  They even had the nerve to go to the department store without us to buy the trains.

I also had a couple of Marx wind-ups, a Kusan battery operated set and a couple of wooden train sets.

Rusty

I'm with Rusty.  Santa brought me my first Lionel when I was three, and I never departed from it.

I did, however, admire the Flyer equipment.  What I didn't like about Flyer was that the company didn't produce such a wide range of motive power as Lionel.  Reverse loops weren't an issue, since I didn't have any anyway.

Marx was cute and colorful, but it never seriously attracted me; I was already a Lionel snob.  A number of my friends had Marx sets, though.  And my sister is a Marx collector today, so I do understand the appeal.

I was in Lionel postwar for a while, till I eventually managed to acquire all I wanted.  I run Modern 3rs now, mostly Lionel, but if that company keeps on heading higher and higher into the high end, I could find other directions.

Surprise!  My Marx 3/16th set appeared under the tree with no notice, although I was spending a lot of time across the road playing with my cousin's pre-war latch coupler Lionel set.  I may have pleaded for an "electric train".   I admired American Flyer two rail engines as more scale-like when I later looked at them in the stores, and two neighbor kids, the next year, received two rail Flyer Atlantic sets ((maybe to keep up with the Joneses (me)).   I thought Lionel had some weird (2-6-4) wheel arrangements and also thought some steam engines looked "fat" or chunky.   I was and remain much more impressed with the Flyer 4-8-4 than the Lionel Hudson, but due to zinc pest in the three rail versions, have not pursued one.    I have Lionel, and MTH today (but very little three rail, only,  and no two rail, Flyer), so I think Lionel fixed the problem.  Today I still have the Lionel station and water tower from my cousin's prewar carpet set-up, which set all of this off.

The AF 4-8-4 was not in the same league as a model with the Lionel 700E or its down-market offspring. The zinc issue is not universal, though important.

The AF 2-rail track was even uglier than the Lionel 3-rail 027, and almost as ugly as the Lionel O-31 stuff. All of it was esthetically poor, to say the least. I saw some PW AF 2-rail and some PW Lionel O-31 in a hobby shop the other day - the AF ties were as tall as those on the O-31, so looked even worse.

The Marx 3/16 equipment, especially the die-cast steamers (I'll include the 666), were pretty impressive and "realistic" to young hands and eyes.

The AF diesels were simply - and remain - unappealing. The AF steam, however, always appealed to me; I knew that it was more scale-accurate than most of the Lionel offerings, but it lost much of its appeal in person and upon close inspection. Some of it looked cheap. The tool-and-die work was not quite up to Lionel's standards. The AF rolling stock? Meh - good points (proportions), not-so-good points (warping; low-end looking, a bit).

Having said that, I still liked the AF and wished, as a kid, that it was "the right size". Also, I have an AF J3a Hudson and a PRR K-5 Pacific in my collection, along with some Marx 3/16 (and some not-so-3/16) things. I like them all. Always did. The AF Hudson and Pacific, in good visual shape, I ran across at an estate sale for $60 each. 

I had Lionel. Christmas 1955. 2055 Hudson; some set or other, plus a bit; a 4X8 layout; switches. But I still wished that those AF steamers could run on it. If I ever see a "cheap" AF 4-8-4...

I was born in 1947 and was raised in a Lionel biased home.  I still have my dad's Lionel Freight set, #1423 W,  which he bought in 1948 and it still runs great to this day.  I can recall watching television advertisements all throughout the 1950s for both Lionel and American Flyer but quite honestly I really didn't worry about whether a locomotive was scale or not.  When I was seven and if someone had told me that American Flyer locomotives  had superior scale dimensions as compared to Lionel I would have shrugged my shoulders and said who cares.   Lionel looked just fine to me and they always were reliable.  In 1959 my grandmother purchased a Marx freight set headed up by a die cast 666 locomotive for my grandfather.   The set ran reliably then and it still does now.  The engine is a superior smoker.  I didn't think there was anything cheap looking about that set.  However, if I had to choose today I would still probably select Lionel.  Old habits die hard I guess.   

Marx. More variaty

colorado hirailer posted:

Surprise!  My Marx 3/16th set appeared under the tree with no notice, although I was spending a lot of time across the road playing with my cousin's pre-war latch coupler Lionel set.  I may have pleaded for an "electric train".   I admired American Flyer two rail engines as more scale-like when I later looked at them in the stores, and two neighbor kids, the next year, received two rail Flyer Atlantic sets ((maybe to keep up with the Joneses (me)).   I thought Lionel had some weird (2-6-4) wheel arrangements and also thought some steam engines looked "fat" or chunky.   I was and remain much more impressed with the Flyer 4-8-4 than the Lionel Hudson, but due to zinc pest in the three rail versions, have not pursued one.    I have Lionel, and MTH today (but very little three rail, only,  and no two rail, Flyer), so I think Lionel fixed the problem.  Today I still have the Lionel station and water tower from my cousin's prewar carpet set-up, which set all of this off.

 

Not all prewar 3 rail 3/16ths O gauge Flyer engines are affected by zinc pest (or Dorfan's Disease© as I've named it).  There are plenty of solid pieces that exist, and they look awesome pulling a string of Marx 3/16ths O gauge tin lihographed cars.  The whole train evokes a sense of "What the hell is that - I thought Flyer was S gauge/2 rail?"  

My PostWar F3 looked huge to me as a kid........a 736 Berkshire did too.....now, not so much! I had no concept of scale back then......

Peter

I should have been more clear.  What I was writing was, if you  were a kid and saw these trains running, what train(s) would have caught your eye and you would have wanted that train because it was"bright and shiny" and wow.  Granted scale and all that stuff us adults "worry about" would be irrelevant to a kid.

Me, a 685 (have), a 1946 726, the 1666 (but not the plate version), some F3's, and that Marx 495 I have

As A kid, I wanted a Lionel train. Flyer had good smoke and chuff but not the car detail I liked. Didn't matter because my first set was a Marx 999. It was a rugged train but I was disappointed. Dad made up for it a couple years later with a 2025 passenger set.

So to answer your question I would have wanted the Lionel.

Lionel for me. Back in the 50's, I thought Marx looked cheap, Flyer  EP-5 & PA diesel open pilots looked broken (but I loved the steamer's "choo-choo" and still do). Lionel, on the other hand had all those great operating cars and accessories (but Flyer had the RPO car). I got suckered into the H0 scale thing later in my teens for a few years, but I kept my Lionels. One thing you can say for all three is that they worked then and still do. You think this new stuff will still be running in 50 - 100 years?  

American Flyer!! I got my first one in 1947 and still have it. I am just wrapping up 15 years in O gauge and have torn it all down and gone back to Flyer!

Gunny

artyoung posted:

 One thing you can say for all three is that they worked then and still do. You think this new stuff will still be running in 50 - 100 years?  

Ain't that the truth!   Can't get replacement boards for "old" stuff, so all can do is wire the motors and lights to the pickup rollers and play with the trains conventionally.  Yes I know you can buy the reverser boards but will those last 50-100 years??

Hello, My friends , When I was a child in 1950 in Florida my mother and dad shopped at Montgomery Wards for Christmas I got 2 Marx  Train sets for Christmas. Montgomery Wards sold only Marx Trains no Lionel or American Flyer in 1950 at least in Florida at that time. If wanted a train set it would have be a Marx train set. I was sure glad my mother an dad bought me Marx Trains for me those trains lasted me over 60 years and still have those trains and all still work fine too. For my money Marx Trains were the toughest toy trains ever made in the USA. I love those trains and will continue to play with my old Marx trains Thanks longbow57ca.

As a kid, I wanted HO scale.  The big trains were for little kids in my mind.

What, me worry?

Would have gone with Marx. That way I could get more of it 

Balshis posted:

Marx was cute and colorful, but it never seriously attracted me; I was already a Lionel snob.  A number of my friends had Marx sets, though.  And my sister is a Marx collector today, so I do understand the appeal.

 

I see that I wrote that back in February.  Must have been a flash of premonition, because just a month later, I went to a train show and, on a whim, picked up a nice Marx 999.

I've been slowly acquiring Marx 3/16 freight cars since then.  And at a train show just last week, I picked up a beautiful Marx 333 locomotive and three matching Meteor NYC passenger cars.  Never too late, I guess.

I personally like them all. I don't have A.F. persay as I got a kitbash A.F. prewar motor in a tinplate trolley. I think I still would go with Lionel. I have a cheap Marx set and some of there tinplate buildings I think are outstanding and own a couple also. 

My first train set was a Marx wind up, then I was given a Marx electric freight set, I was about 7 then.  But when ever I went to the top department during Christmas, I was always drawn to the Flyer for the smoke and choo choo sound, and running on the rubber road bed took a lot of the noise away when on a wooden board.  My uncle had three Flyer sets including the Northern Pacific.  Now I have 10 Flyer engines and they all run sweet....

Marty

I was disappointed that I got a Marx 999 freight set for Christmas. BUT I loved that train and of course a couple years later a Lionel did arrive at our house.

I think that I'll jump in here again:

"what I didn't like about Flyer was that the company didn't produce such a wide range of motive power as Lionel." 

Uh - what? I always actually envied the Flyer steam selection, compared to Lionel. Now, diesels? Never had any - Lionel or otherwise - as a kid, and the Flyer diesels were just really...kind of pathetic-looking. Even the PA - that pilot and nose shape were just a non-starter with me. Flyer steam? Good - almost really good.

Kind of. It's sort of a cliche' here that "Flyer steam looked more realistic than most Lionel steam..." true - to a point. Flyer steamers, however, did not stand up to close inspection. Compared to the Lionel locos they were typically crude in detailing and had a bit of a "cheap" look to them. Some of those trailing "trucks"...just wheels. Flyer traditional track did indeed only have 2 rails (and low-profile, to boot), but it sat on ties that were as large as those on Lionel's 031 tubular, and wound up looking worse. It almost looked like a low trestle setup.

But - I loved Flyer, too. They were good-looking trains, better-looking than Lionel in some ways, less impressive in others. I don't remember being bothered by their being "little". Flyer was always a little "exotic" to me.

Marx? Secretly liked some of it then (the 666, for example), but I'm out of the Marx closet now. Planet Marx is cool.  

Lionel, because my best friend had it, and that is what I received for Christmas in 1955. I think I also liked the Lionel layout at Marshall Field's in the Loop. The younger kid next door had AF, and I liked it, but he was younger, so we didn't hang around with him.

When I was a kid the stores had Tyco, Life Like and AHM. I thought 3rail O-gauge was a silly toy and wouldn't pick anything from Lionel, AF or Marx. Not even sure AF was around then.

Today I'd take any prewar tin from Lionel, AF or Marx. Silly toys make me happy now.

As a kid I remember seeing many dept. stores with Lionel and American Flyer layouts at Christmas. Don't remember ever seeing a Marx layout though. I was four in 1948 when I got my Lionel 2026 freight set. A couple years later at Christmas I saw a set of American Flyer green passenger cars. I wanted that set so much. I didn't know it was S scale and wouldn't work on my railroad. The other set was in a dime store for years not far from our house. It was an American Flyer Circus set. On a high shelf our of reach. I looked at that set every time I went in that store. The price kept dropping every few months. Wish I got it even though I couldn't run it. Don

To me the track was the issue 3 rail versus 2 rail. When really young I was started on Marx then Lionel, most of my friends were in the same boat so to speak. Then we moved and two of the new friends I acquired provided new exposures one with American Flyer and the other's father was into HO. The 3 rail track became an impediment to childhood visions of realism at that point. This being several years before Lionel Super O, so my so-called fix came in a couple stages. The first was ties like HO had, so much time was spent slicing ties (not to mention finger tips) from quarter inch square lumber. Prying the metal ties off the tubular rails then gluing and using HO rail spikes to re-lay the rail on these quarter square ties set with quarter inch gaps between them. Not scale, which wasn't a thought, but that got the right look. The second part of the effort was to eliminate the third rail, but even then it didn't  take my kid's mind long to realize that removing, insulating, and reinstalling wheels was nearly an impossible task without adult help and tools. So alternatively, first came painting the center rail black which while better was not quite as good as it needed to be. Even today the same though is with me about the commercial blacked out third rail track. I have looked at Lionel Fastrac with a reflective center rail which picks up the tie and ballast colors and wonder if that isn't a better look than black? But onward to my own efforts which moved to removing the center rail replacing it with a brass brad every couple inches having a brass rod soldered to their tops, not a lot unlike the outside third rail practice. I got to like that a lot but still not quite there for realism but pretty decent. 

During my senior year in high school Lionel came out with Super O track, but by then while the trains were still set up and played with now and then when out in the barn, life had moved on to hot rods, motorcycles, girls, and college prep so big efforts to replace track were certainly not on a priority list. It wasn't till about 20-25 years later when walking through the barn with my father and younger brother that dad says "what about all these trains?". "They and your (meaning my) old Ford engine collection have been taking up my space decades, don't you guys think it's about time to clean it out?" Taking the hint we took the next few days to take it all down and divvied up the loot between us. I boxed my share and sent it to my home in Seattle where I have a small basement room for a layout. However, for the most part when first put up I reverted to commercial blacked center rail track. I'm currently doing a major renovation to the layout and changing the track to Super O in the process.

Bogie

If we're talking about transplanting the 50's displays to the current era, I'd go with Lionel.  Admittedly I've seen very few AF or Marx display layouts, so take it with a grain of salt.  But the Lionel layouts (if the dealer spent the money) had a lot of action and were often loaded with the best operating accessories.  That action would sell trains today just as it did back then.

A Lionel steamer was likely the first toy I saw period. The love was there before shopping or *wanting"  happened. I saw catalogs before most folks, and Gramps was a huge collector, so a display seldom hAd something new to me on it anyhow.

. But.... I remember seeing a nice AF steamer and wishing that more detail was on my own trAins. Those whitewalls and handrails looked great. Proportions seemed better too. And they had heft. Impressed by looks, I had to ask to hold one. It was as nice as Lionel, but not better, and I had lots of Lionel by then, so I left satisfied Gramps had good taste.  Sears had great Lionel displays, sometimes a loop of AF, but that was to shed old stock as they were OoB recently.

A pal gave me a hard time about 3 rail later," My ho train and track look better; those are toys". Well it took a year or so of only playing with mine to get him to set his up when mine was put away for the summer. After an hour or so of rerailing that Tyco over and over, I thought to myself "and he thinks mine are toys?" Cheap plastic GP diesel, light enough to derail on a sneeze, plastic wheels, slow, awful looking couplers, no automatic couplers, and a pita; I thanked him and thought "yep, Gramps has good taste". Early on K Mart had ho and lionel displays. HO Looked good, but I was ruined by my experience at my pals. I'd rather have Hot Wheels or slot cars and knew my Lionels would be around for decades, Gramps presents would alwayz be lionel, and, so I asked for hot wheels and slotcars. (Aurora/AFX, because, in my mind Tyco was Japanese for "cheap junk" )(though later my best car was a Tyco, and my pal also had the monorail, which ran fine and I was very jealous of.....still here waiting Lionel

Marx at "the Monkey Ward" as we called them. Or maybe Woolworths 5¢ and dime? The cast Marx looked to be Lionels equal, but when I asked and heard,"no it doest smoke", and" no whistle" the deal was a wash. The War Bonnet had no horn?  "Youre kidding?". The tin War Bonnet and Commodore on the display looked good, price was right for me, but out of stock. I bought Major Matt spacemen instead. I was almost glad as some other Marx toys I had gotten was real cheap plasti and didn't last; the purchase would be a gamble at best anyhow IMO at the time. But that tin sure looked good on the Christmas display. No wonder they sold out.

So I'll give a top three for Wow on the first sight basis.

#3 . Marx Commodore Vanderbilt. .. simply made, simply beautiful.

#2. Lionels red War Bonnet ABA....nuff said about an icon eh?

#1. Lionel GG-1,..not on a display, but so different I was hooked the first time I saw one run and had the pantographs explained to me. "Why pollute" A revelation of sorts that still makes me wonder "why not everywhere".