Tinplate photos 📸 and videos 📽

A long time ago in France, you could have played with a high voltage model from Edobaud and received an operational tank car with opening valve for emptying it..... only the most responsible boys have survived.... 110volts plus water seems a little strange in regards of today security labels of all sorts....

It was not better in Germany, Marklin has done the same thing from gauge 1 to O gauge.....

Lionel has been more carefull as all the tanks cars are dummy !!!  Now I have to check the British productions.....

Take care and all my best wishes,  Daniel

@FRENCHTRAINS- Daniel what a great post!  Today we sometimes forget the primitive way our hobby started...and dangerous as well.  Just to let you know that Europe was not the only place that dangerous methods were used for trains, Lionel once included instructions with their trains on making a battery in a open top glass beaker with lead plates and a solution of sulfuric acid!  I bet Mom really liked that on her carpet!!

Glad to see you posting again Daniel, glad you are back!

Don

Hello Don @Don McErlean

Interesting fact, the same has been done in Germany, France and some other countries. I have never tested this system.... just because I do not have the things to do it... Of course if you are very careful it must work very well.

No many news in the collection that is why I do not post very often.... Latest acquisition is a nice Lionel set from 1939, I would say semi-tinplate as the loco is die cast. A nice 224e in gun-metal with a set of passenger cars which was in sad condition but with the help of Hennings trains all is now restored with original parts and in great condition.

So from this

To the finished model

All my best wishes, Daniel

The 224E in gunmetal is a lovely thing...nice job on the repairs.

PD

Daniel - what a great set, a classic pre-war passenger set.  The gunmetal pre-war 224 with the die cast 2224 tender is the most rare and collectable version of this loco / tender pair.  The tinplate passenger cars are like wise really good looking.  Did you know that Lionel chose the 224 to lead its very first train set to come out after the war in 1945?  I have the post war version and it pulls the same passenger cars (green/cream tinplate) but with postwar trucks and couplers.

Best Wishes

Don

Picked up a box of tinplate track at the local indoor flea market this past Saturday:

I was primarily interested in the two-rail track, presumably Marx, enough for two ovals, a tough find around here. A few sections of Lionel three-rail, together with an old O-27 uncoupler section and controller, all for three bucks.

PD

Hey @pd I am not trying to state the obvious, but before you go to the trouble of laying out the track for some Marx (always 0 gauge) ovals, did you check the gauge between the main rails?  That 2-rail track could be American Flyer, post war, S gauge track .  The distance between the main running rails on 0 gauge should be 1 1/4 " whereas for S gauge it is 7/8".  Sorry if that's an obvious thing you already did but that track looks a lot like some Flyer track I mistakenly bought to do what you are trying to do and didn't discover my error till I got home from the train show, luckily I only spent $2 so it was no big deal.

Best Wishes

Don

Thanks for the note, Don, but definitely O-gauge, about 1-3/8" from top-of-the-rail to top-of-the-rail (S-gauge would be about 7/8" from rail-to-rail). It's funny you ask; while I was walking around at the market a couple of folks asked where I got the Flyer S-gauge track and was there any more. Explained to them that it was two-rail tinplate O-gauge. I don't think they believed me.

I don't have any tinplate trains, but below are photos of some of the colorful tinplate accessories on my layout:

@pd- great news glad you didn’t get fooled l  like I did. Best Wishes. Don

Love the prewar accessories, Arnold. They look great!

PD

Arnold : Great accessories...I love the crane and the coal loader.  Those are still absent from my pre-war collection...but I keep looking.  Thanks for posting your layout looks great.

Don

@pd posted:

Picked up a box of tinplate track at the local indoor flea market this past Saturday:

I was primarily interested in the two-rail track, presumably Marx, enough for two ovals, a tough find around here. A few sections of Lionel three-rail, together with an old O-27 uncoupler section and controller, all for three bucks.

PD

PD - Are you building a layout with it?  If so, make sure you post pictures here!

I pick up any 2-rail Marx track I can find for a reasonable price at the train shows, or anywhere else for that matter.  It's usually cheap, because so few of us want it!  The curves are relatively plentiful, the straights less so, but switches and 90 degree crossings are harder to come by.  Of course, some 2-rail shows up on the 'Bay once in a while, with pricing all over the place.  Lionel also made 2-rail tinplate O gauge track, but it isn't nearly as common as Marx.  Pretty much all other brands of tinplate 2-rail O gauge has larger rails compared to the small O27 rails of Marx & Lionel.

I use a lot of original 2-rail Marx on my windup layout, but also use modern O27 style Lionel O42 & O54 curves with the middle rail removed where I need broader curves than the O27 Marx:

No layout for the wind-ups here, James, but sometimes they get a chance to stretch their legs on the basement 3-rail layout and the wife has used them with a loop of 2-rail track on our Christmas display:

We have a small collection of Bing, Hafner, Hornby, and Marklin clockworks that see service.

The idea of taking the third rail out of some wider-radius track is intriguing; I hadn't thought of that. One of the problems with the wind-ups is their tendency to run like banshees, making derailments on 27-inch radius curves a problem.

We typically use Marklin track on the displays, as it features an interlocking device between sections that keeps the loop together. I've been collecting the Marx track with the idea of possibly adding a second loop.

Ironically, my first childhood train set was a Marx clockwork made in the early 1960s (almost unbelievable that there was a market for wind-ups at that late date). This was replaced by a second-hand electric Flyer Mountaineer set a year later, so the Marx was soon languishing in the bottom of the closet. Today I have no Marx wind-ups, but I should probably look for a few. The one I had was made out of stamped tin; most of the late production ones I see at York and elsewhere are plastic.

Anyway, thanks for the pic of your layout; it looks sharp. Wind-ups are pretty fascinating.

PD

PD, the Christmas display looks great.  The Marklin track with the built in locks is a good choice for a temp layout - I have used small rubber bands around the end ties to hold Marx track together as well.

If you received a stamped steel Marx mechanical in the early 1960's, it would have most likely been a 533, the windup version of the electric 591 (assuming it was a steam loco).  I do see them at train shows once in a while, and of course, they are available on the online auction site as well.  There are quite a few variations of it, including a battery version powered by two D cells in the boiler.  Yes, it's surprising how late the market for clockworks trains lasted, Marx sold them until they went out of business in 1975.  Durham continued selling O gauge windups (under various brand names) for many years after that.

Here are a few 533/591 variations - I've documented 11 mechanical & battery powered variations all together:

@pd and @WindupGuy- Hey fellows, how about a few more pictures of those 2-rail Marx wind up layouts for the rest of us Marx fans (like me!)...great posts and really interesting.  Oh yea...when we are talking "wind up" don't forget about Hafner (all wind up) and several of the European brands (Hornby, French Hornby, and JEP for example).

Don

James, thanks for the loco number...that should make the searching a bit easier

The Marx set I got was similar to this, only with the stamped-steel locomotive:

It was definitely UP livery, and I'm pretty confident it had this same Seaboard gondola. A couple years later, one of my younger brothers got the same set and we combined the track to make a bigger loop and slightly longer trains. Add in the Marx Fort Apache playset and a couple of stick-n-clothespin rubber-band guns and we thought we'd died and gone to heaven. Some epic fun, for sure.

Don, here are some pictures of my clockwork layout in its current form... I'm afraid it isn't very photogenic, lots of background clutter!

First, this is the north loop where the enginehouse, water tank, and coaling tower are located, as well as the north yard:

Heading out of the north loop, the tracks come together for a short section of double-track mainline.  It's also where one of the crossovers between the mainline tracks is located.  Since it is a central location of the layout, it also happens to be where I keep keys for winding up the locos... you can see some of them at the edge of the layout:

The double-track mainline splits again at the right side of this picture to go around the south loop.  There is a small yard area within the south loop, and most of the industries are located inside the loop.  The trackage also includes the other crossover between the mainline tracks:

Another view of some of the industries inside the south loop:

Finally, an overall view of the south loop/yard/industries.  It's a little different than the view I posted earlier - I've made a few changes and this is the most recent arrangement:

I tried to use as many vintage metal/litho buildings and accessories as possible for the layout.  Since the tracks are 2-rail tinplate, there isn't any power to them - trains are mostly clockwork, although I have a few on-board battery locos that occasionally run on the railroad.  As stated above, the mainline is mostly O42 & O54 Lionel (O27 profile rail) with the middle rail removed, and all other track is either vintage Marx or Lionel 2-rail tinplate.  The layout uses both Marx and Lionel 2-rail switches.  The roadbed is 1/2" MDF cut to shape, painted with gray primer, then painted with stone textured spray paint.  The "grass" is indoor/outdoor rug from Lowes - used to be Ecorug, now they changed brands but it is very similar.

This is a trackplan of the layout, although it doesn't show a few of the extra tracks that are in the yard area... I put straight pieces of track down between the yard tracks for extra display area.  You can see that the crossovers allow the train direction to be reversed... it allows for some interesting "operation" with multiple trains:

And that's it.  I don't get a lot of time to work with the trains nowadays, but still enjoy them.  Hope to devote more time to the hobby once I retire!

PD, that is a Marx #526 set with the venerable #401 plastic body locomotive.  I received that set in 1972 - my very first train - and I still have it, although it is much worse for wear.  Here I am opening it up for Christmas:

But, I digress.  Marx sold the #533 in a number of different sets, and I have it in a similar set (without box), although the tender & caboose are NYC and the gondola is yellow.  Pictured below is another set that included a boxcar as well.  You probably won't find them listed with the #533 loco number since that was used in-house, and not put on the engine itself.  Good luck with the search!

That is a lovely set, James. "Sparkling" is a great descriptor!

I have one of those little B&O gondolas in yellow that I run behind the 999 when it gets out on the layout with a four-wheel NYC coffin-style tender:

I don't recall where I got it, but it had plastic wheels on it at the time. I think plastic wheels were used on the rolling stock for the Marx clockworks. Anyway, I swapped those out for a set of metal wheels. The barrels came with it...no idea if those are original Marx or not.

That's a brilliant layout, man - quite extensive for wind-ups, I think. Louis Marx would be impressed!

PD