New guy with old train....56K beware.

[Smitty908]

Hey folks!

I found out about this site because I posted on some other hobby forums, about an old train my wife and I found, and someone referenced your site.

I thought some here may have info on this set, or enjoy seeing it.

As my wife and I were digging through old Christmas decorations in the in-laws garage, check out what we stumbled upon!

It is an old model made by 'Marx Toys' from NY.

Her father said it was a Christmas present to him back in the mid-fifties. It looked to be in excellent condition, considering it had been in a wooden box in a garage for nigh on half a century! It has all the cars, and a whole bunch of track (I'm not sure what scale it is, but it is big.) All of the track 'risers' are there and the car de-coupler track piece and the crossing bars and signs.

It even still has the original bottle of oil to make the locomotive smoke!

I always wanted a train going around my Christmas tree, so we pulled it out and blew off the dust. I hit the contact rails with some fine sandpaper, and the train contacts with a wire brush, plugged 'er in and away it went! Even the 'smoke' works!

Pics to follow...we also found some old 'Caterpillar' earth mover toys, that he said he thinks are even older than the train..

Train pics:
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train1.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train7.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train6.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train2.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train9.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train10.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train11.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train4.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train5.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/train8.jpg

Caterpillar pics:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/cat1.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/cat2.jpg
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e314/Smitty908/miscellaneous/cat3.jpg

-Tim S.

[Boston&Maine]

Hey folks!

I found out about this site because I posted on some other hobby forums, about an old train my wife and I found, and someone referenced your site.

Welcome to the forum Tim! It is cool to know that people are referencing us... That is a nice train you have there... To me it looks like it is O scale model... Measure the distance between the two outer rails... If the distance is one and one-fourth inches then is is indeed O scale, but if the distance is greater than that it is Standard scale...

Those old CAT pieces are great looking too :thumbsup:

[T-Man]

Hello Tim

I can't believe the condition! They look mighty fine! I would say O scale . Find a good Marx train site to determine the production date. I am not sure when they started in plastic trains. They did produce various military figure sets in the later 50's. I sense the 60's. What brand are the cat's. I would guess 60's. Auburn rubber was king of the 50's. I could be wrong but the plastic doesn't strike me as that old. I viewed enough Xmas books to know. No internet then.
Great photo's. Is the boiler plastic?

[Boston&Maine]

I just did a quick search on eBay and came up with a set just like yours; check out this auction (http://cgi.ebay.com/MARX-666-FREIGHT-SET-NICE_W0QQitemZ280295596506QQihZ018QQcategoryZ19147 QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)...

[Smitty908]

Thanks for the info, guys!

T-Man, the locomotive is metal in this set, the other cars are plastic, though.

I could not find a brand name on the CAT toys..:confused:

-Tim S.

[T-Man]

I did find out the Marx 1666 is plastic and the 666 is cast. I couldn't tell by looking because yours is in really nice condition. The cat toys are a mystery.