TRAIN TIME: Custom Marx Army Commodore Vanderbilt Clockwork Train

A couple of months ago I latched on to this custom painted 3-piece Marx Commodore Vanderbilt (CV) set which included the engine, tender, and caboose. The paint job was nice enough and the person who redid it looks like he used a homemade rubber stamp for the US * ARMY lettering. The three piece set was very reasonably priced so, what the heck, I took the plunge. I went from being anti-clockwork a couple of years back, to grudging respect, to being fully on-board with the whole thing. I finally realized that trains like this were at the low end of the price spectrum and often times were the only trains some families could afford. It represents a simple pleasure from days gone by and I now accept it for what it is. As I was playing with this I toyed (pun intended) with adding cars, but hey, watch the videos and see for yourself. 

This portion of the old train board is just big enough for an oval of track. For this video I pulled out vintage Army toys from Ideal, Auburn, Marx, Tootsietoy, Triang Minic, Renwal, and Payton. Oh, and BTW it wasn't 'til after I was finished filming that I noticed the tender was on backwards - DOH! Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Three unit train

Four unit train

Five unit train

TRAIN TIME: Work Progresses on The 'Edge of Town' Layout and Marx Wind-up Commodore Vanderbilt w/6" Tin Cars

I have been busier than a bear in a honey bee farm photographing toys. Lots of the toys are being sold and posting them to eBay just takes a long time. Then there's the photo editing and, for many, posting here on the blog. So anywho, back in January I pulled out a couple of wind-up Marx engines I wanted to sell and then got a bug up my backside when I finally decided to work on the backdrop for the small layout I call The Edge Of Town Layout. I reutilized old backdrop panels from the large train layout torn doen a couple of years back. The panels were made of painted foamcore so they were easy to cut down to size. One panel was only about an inch or so longer than I needed for the back so a quick trimming was all it took. The other panel was cut into two and trimmed so the pieces would fit on the left and right sides of the layout. They look awkward now with the leftover painting from their last location but I did manage to go out and buy some paint. Now it's just a matter of finding time to re-paint them.

After piddling around with the backdrop I pulled out one of my Marx Commodore Vanderbilt wind-up engines to test run prior to selling it. I haven't been a big fan of wind-up's but am s-l-o-w-l-y turning that corner towards fandom. Let's see what happens. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

The back panel was just a tad too long

TRAIN TIME: Running My OLD Marx Commodore Vanderbilt Wind-up

During one of my 'me' time sessions a couple of weeks back I pulled out this Marx Commodore Vanderbilt wind-up (aka clockwork) engine and a few 6", 4-wheel, tin-litho cars and gave it a few runs around the Edge of Town Layout. I'm not a big fan of wind-ups and have sold nearly all the ones I had. I'll probably keep one or two behind so the grandbaby can play with them, but otherwise I'll stick to electric. I've seen a lot of really nice layouts using strictly wind-up and I know there is a small but passionate fan base out there so I'm not gonna diss them because they do have a charm all their own that is undeniable. That being said - Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

This particular piece probably dates from the 1930s and with a little grease and oil ran fine - if not for long

These three cars were enough for the engine to pull around the small Edge of Town layout without causing the train to derail. One less car and it would have run too fast, one more car and iit would not have run as far (which isn't saying much)

In defense of the engines pulling power, the layout does slope downward giving any engine a noticeably hard time pulling in the counter-clockwise direction.

A short film I did of the running session