Running Marx

what about it?

Is there any other kind?  It always runs...vs. the various problems posted on here.

Once upon a time, there was a non-running Marx locomotive. It was very sad, as it had been neglected and put on the shelf high atop the rest in the hobby store, blending in with the Lionel postwar stuff, destined to be forgotten and relegated to the junk bin. One day, a bright (young or old) man came into the hobby store and spotted the locomotive. He was thrilled, wanting to see it run, despite the man from the store saying that the locomotive was junk and nothing but a toy. The man put it on the test track and try as the little Marx might, it would not run. This made it even more sad as it was trying its absolute best to impress the man that was examining it. The man plucked it up off the test rails and carried it around the store, digging and scrounging through various parts and clearance bins. "We need something for you to pull!" the man said as he patted the little locomotive. This made the locomotive happy as it knew it was going to be in good hands from now on. The man gathered some freight cars and went to the register to pay. Leaving the store, the little locomotive felt the wind and fresh clean air.

"It'll all get better from here" It thought.

Nothing runs like a Marx - or as long.  I suspect we will have functioning examples running as long as there are folks interested in running them.

You can burn out a Marx loco tho... I did it with a bit of carelessness at my MRR club when I foolishly bumped up a large MTH transformer to 18V on the throttle. {-Marx locos really don't like anything much above 12V to run on!!} The good news though was that I was able to easily remove the engine (two screws) and replace it with another 'new' old one.

Cost? -About $40... ;>})

Most Marx steamers, for the uninitiated, come with two types of motors... A single-reduction gear (SR) motor and a double reduction gears (DR) motor. The SR engined locos will not run on modern O gauge trackage as their "fat wheels" (geared drive wheels) will snag on almost any modern turnout made. (And this is also true of the older AF-O, Ives, and even Lionel too!)

However the Marx DR ones, with less prominent wheel gears, will run okay on newer trackage that's using Lionel and Ross turnouts.

Skip

Some of my clockworks leave the track at 0V

Steve

 

you must have been running on some big curves.

i find they usually leave the track at ~16V. 

 

 

Club layout with long curves, a long hill, -Plus I had too many cars behind a light Marx locomotive... Throttled up to18V, the loco stayed on the track, slip-slided and burped a few times trying to run, and then burned up and smoked out!

-Lesson well learned by me that even Marx is not invincible!

Skip

My 1st train was a Marx fat wheel steamer.  I ran it until it wouldn't go any more.  It got put away for years, found again and it ran a little bit, but mostly didn't.  This time it sat on a shelf until years later I got back into O and wanted it to run.  I tried it and it now only goes backwards.  So I took it to my LHS as they could send it to a local specialist on the old ones.  I asked them to lock it in forward since I had no need for it to ever go backwards.  Came back running like a top, but they wouldn't fit it forward since he got the E unit running right.  But the LHS owner did impart to me how the E unit works so that if it ever gets stuck in reverse again, I would now know how to unstick it.  I have run it many times since, some times flipping it over and manually switching the E unit.  It'll run for a while, get faster as it warms up and then as it gets even warmer, slows back down to a crawl, eventually stopping.

I managed to burn out the e-unit in my Dad's 999. Fortunately, replacement parts are easy and cheap to come by! Unfortunately, I accidentally bought a replacement for the 666 - it fit but was missing the lamp housing. Fortunately, I had just disassembled a wrecked passenger car and was able to transplant the lamp from that. Problem solved and locomotive back in action!

I'm still amazed that his 249E and the 999 both came out of 60 years or so in storage still working, including the light bulbs. Pretty sure that won't happen with my DCS locomotives.

Fred