Marx 3/16 trains

Looks great! Come over and join us in the tinplate forum!

George

A few drops of oil in a few places, clean the wheels & they run LOL! I still have the set my father got me for Christmas when I think I was 8, still run like they did when new. I have parts of the box and the price was $10.95 from the local Sears store, a steam engine similar to the 1 in your picture, a diesel, 2 caboose & 8 cars. I'm 64 now and still enjoy running them. HAVE FUN!

Good idea George S.  The 999 runs but it needs some grease and a little oil.  Not bad for $41.00 including the cars behind it.

They are some of my favorites. I also have converted a number of the cars to S gauge so as to have an S gauge train unlike all the others.

Clean the engine gears, armature and axels with CRC electronics cleaner or RC car electric engine cleaner first. Then, wipe off any grime you can and run it a bit before it dries. Clean one more time and let it dry a bit. Then oil and grease. She should run great then! Don't run it at over 14volts or you will burn out the motor.

I bought a Marx set at a train show several years ago for $75. Mine was an older litho set with 7" cars. It is so much fun! I don't know what it is about it. I have fancy, MTH Premier scale engines, but the Marx gives me a bigger thrill. The acceleration and lack of speed control is actually a ton of fun. The colors of the cars and the fact that it is more toy like than real is what I like. Funny, because when I was a kid I studied and admired the highly detailed scale models in Model Railroader magazine. 

George

For Marx litho that is shinny, I use Maquires cleaner polish. Most 3/16 stuff is satin, so no polish. I use a mild dish soap.

steve

Thanks for the advice.  These cars definitely have a satin finish, I suppose Marx was striving for a more realistic look.  Mild soap it will be on the cars.

I bought my Marx 999 on impulse, at a train show; the ingenuity of its design appealed to me.  After consulting some Marx web pages for guidance, I disassembled it, cleaned the commutator and brushes, lubed it and put it all back together.  Ran like a new locomotive!

That was the start of my Marx interest.  After that, it was a Commodore Vanderbilt, two prewar Streaminers, then a 333 with lithographed passenger cars, then a 666 (best smoker of all)...  You get the idea.  Even the plastic freight cars are colorful and well worth collecting and running.  And with each new locomotive, I gained new experience and skill in diagnosing Marx-specific problems, replacing worn parts, fabricating new ones and rewiring where necessary. 

I still have my 3rs layout, but the Marx (and prewar Lionel) tinplate runs on a small second layout, with O34 curves and turnouts.  It's fun stuff, historically interesting and always a great crowd-pleaser to run.

Marx is no good. Stop buying it. Your driving up the prices on Marx I want to buy.

I have two 3/16 Marx sets; #999 and freight cars, and #333 and NYC passenger cars. All great stuff.

Jim 1939 posted:

Marx is no good. Stop buying it. Your driving up the prices on Marx I want to buy.

Same for me cept just don't buy any of that crappy junky Marklin stuff

 The Marx trains can be addictive , back in the mid 1970s we purchased our first Marx train at a TCA meet in Indianapolis Indiana , at the time we were like every one else Lionel Postwar crazy F3s 6464 boxcars all the things dreams were made of .

 We past by that little 500 Marx Army train several times that day , always stopping and looking the gears turning in our minds , Then it happened we bought it , and the older gentleman warned us that we were on a slippery slope and if we weren't careful tinplate will have won us over and it would be like a monkey on our backs lol  

 He was right , for years most of the Lionel o and standard gauge has been gone but the Marx remains'

Gary NQDY 

Once you get your first 999 then you have to go after all the variations of the pilot!

Marx trains including a 999 loco in the garden

Regards

Fred

It's amazing how well built and rugged Marx engines are. They weren't the fanciest or most detailed engines out there but will run forever will very little care. I have several of them and they are great runners and easy to service the motor.

IMO, Marx went after the more affordable toy market; Lionel Included the hobbyist in its offerings. It wasn't until late in the game that they added plastics to its toys. I view Marx trains as mainly collectible toy items and today there is a small but very active following.

I have no use for the Marx stuff myself......

One thing to note about the Mark locomotives like the 999 is they have fat driver wheels ( the wheel gear comes to the outside diameter of the wheel) and will not pass through most Lionel switches.  The Marx 1590 switches will pass the 999 and other Marx steamers.

That and the fact that I had some Marx 1590 switches from the childhood layout and the fact that the Marx 1590 switches are cheaper and easy to find lead me to use them on my layout.  It has 31 Marx 1590 switches.

Picture of Marx 027 1590 switches from post 5 of the topic below.

https://ogrforum.com/...ra-027-layout?page=1

Charlie

How robust?

My CV was buried in dirt for decades when I unearthed it (likely since the 40s or early 50s.) Washed, wire brushed, oiled, and ran it. And it's still running 30+ years later. Some of the sets cars were literally rusty dust, some were nice.

Back in ‘57-‘58, grampa bought us a Marx set. It had a 666 locomotive, no white trim, a eight wheel plastic tender (Santa Fe) with the small wheels on it, a brown plastic stock car, a gray gondola, and a Santa Fe caboose. All metal trucks. Also that long shoe box type station with the battery in it. Does anyone know what number set this would have been? Looking for another one in the box. Loved that set and played with often on a layout gramps built. Wish I still had it.

When l got back into tinplate in the 1980's and set out to see what had been made in Marx 3/16 l never had as a kid, l did not find it unappreciated then, and competition was fierce.  Unfortunately, now some of the major players are gone....Bob Whitacre who wrote the Greenberg Marx set book, and others....from the postings above, it looks like it is still well appreciated.

@Choo Choo Charlie posted:

Charlie

There's a local rail historian who has zero interest in model trains and has only 2 examples on display in his vast railroad library: a G scale Shay (of course: this is Oregon, after all!) and the same set as shown above. He got it for Christmas when he was about 8, I guess, in the mid-'50s...(?)

Mark in Oregon

It was stated here by someone that the Marx 666 has the fat wheels. It doesn’t, my 666 runs over the Lionel 0-27 switches no problem.

No 666 or 1666 should have fat drivers unless someone swapped motors.

Steve

Well before I decided to buy a Marx engine, I looked it up on Marx sites because I wanted one that would run on my Lionel 0-27 track and switches:..,and the 666 was listed as a reduction gear motor and was compatible.I even looked it up on Marx history site and every eBay 666 engine that had pictures showed the wheels as not being the fat wheels.