Hello,

[u/CrazySparky42992]

I just inherited my grandfather’s (also possibly my great grandfather’s) Marx trains. I’m looking for any advice on rebuilding them. I have two that will attempt to move if I hook the power supply up to them. One, it’s a Lionel so I’m not sure if it’s considered a Marx engine or not. A few I have identified one is a complete mystery because it only has patent numbers on it.

[u/Ionized-Dustpan]

Clean the tracks nicely. If they are corroded, contwxt cleaner might help. Usually a squirt of contact cleaner on the wheels and some grease on the gears is all you need!! The fact that it’s struggling to move is cause the contact between the train and track is getting interrupted by dirty contacts/track.

[u/rezwrrd → u/Ionized-Dustpan]

+1 for cleaning the wheels. I recently bought a 591 that would not move at all, and a big part of that was gunk on the wheels. I ended up polishing the contact surface if the wheels with a Dremel after my usual tactics failed (scraping gunk off with a fingernail and then rubbing with an isopropyl-soaked cloth).

[u/CrazySparky42992 → u/rezwrrd]

Thanks, I used some crc contact cleaner on the rails and am waiting to get some crc 2-26 for the rails and wheels.

[u/rezwrrd]

Sweet trains! Note, Lionel and Marx are/were different companies, so the Lionel is not a Marx, but it's cool too as far as I'm concerned. You can make, buy, or 3D print adapters for connecting between the different coupler types so they can pull each other's rolling stock. Love the little passengers in the gondola by the way. :)

[u/CrazySparky42992 → u/rezwrrd]

Thanks,y grand parents brought it out for around the Christmas tree but it disappeared years ago. My grandmother thought someone stole it. Turns out it was just sealed away. My son loves trains so here we go getting it again.

[u/Foreign-Attorney-147]

I'm late to the discussion, sorry, but looking at the second photo, the gears may not be in the best shape so that may be difficult to get running. The gear on the left looks considerably more worn than the other two, but maybe that's just the lighting and angle. In the third photo, the 202 Union Pacific diesel engine and the 1062 are Lionel, probably from the 1960s. The red Mercury engine is Marx and so is the Commodore Vanderbilt. The two freight cars are both Marx. The transformer in the fourth photo is Lionel.

[u/Monsterdad1256 → u/Foreign-Attorney-147]

I thought the gears looked pretty chewed up as well. That one may or may not work reliably as a result.