Marx No. 2 Plastic and Tin-Litho Wind-up Tank

Let's see if I can do sumthin' besides trains for a bit. Work does progress on my my diminutive train layout but other collecting remains active as well. I got this nice hybrid plastic and tin-litho Marx wind-up tank a few weeks ago. Measuring 5 3/4" (14.60cm) L x 3 1/2" (8.89cm) W (hull only w/o the key sticking out) x 2 5/8" (6.66cm) H, the key is integral to the mechanism and can't be removed. My sample works quite nicely. A note on the photos: while the photos look like the plastic is full of dust there's actually a lot of little scratches and nicks in the plastic. I had cleaned this a couple of times thinking it perhaps dust but further inspection revealed a bunch of tiny scratches. Overall though the piece is in good shape. I would have thought this piece to be immediate Post-war, but a facebook group member remembers this quite well as a toy he had in the '60's! So okay, a little bit later production than I had surmised. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

TRAIN TIME: The Edge of Town Layout Gets a Makeover - Pt 12 New Vehicles, Another 'New' Buildings, and Scenery Around the Lake

Hmmm, it's been kinda tricky keeping track of where I am on this project so that I can show what's happenin' in chronological order. But let's see: new track, new hill, Plastic Freight depot done, most of the cardstock buildings replaced. Yup we're gettin' there. After many years of collecting I finally started to get in some Prewar Marx stamped steel vehicles. They generally cost far more than I was willing to pay, but of late a bunch have been available for more-or-less reasonable prices. Got lots of stuff done of late. Enjoy! Opa Fritz

The Milk truck is a repaint but very nicely done.

Got in some rolling stock. Of interest were the wreck cranes. The smaller crane with plastic cab looks nice on this small layout but the top of the boom 'taps' the tunnel portal when passing through 

The larger diecast crane has issues with the boom swinging out and knocking stuff over.

More scenery work being done. By this time work around the lake is proceeding. This set from Woodland Scenics has some nice items in it.

This set of O-scale cattails from JTT Scenery is great but the bottoms are pointy. Apparently they were made to stick into holes drilled into the scenery. But here's the rub. My tiny lake (or pond) is a piece of rippled plastic sitting on top a piece of blue cardstock. I know, if I start drilling holes, sawdust will make its way between those two layers and muck everything up. Sooo, I cut off the bottoms of the cattails with a scissors and Super Glued them to the top of the piece of plastic!

I'm okay with this but i'll need more 

The EoT has a new track gang :-)

TRAIN TIME: The Edge of Town Layout Gets a Makeover - Pt 11 New Buildings, New Hill, Running Trains

Wellll, I'm now in a 'work-from-home' status due to the COVID-19 spread and although I'm at home my overlords expect me to account for my time every day so there is really no extra hobby time to be had. I do a LOT of posting on facebook in mt free time and unfortunately that means the blog has suffered but though all of this I've still managed to work on my small train layout, the Edge of Town.

Here's what's happened since the last update:

The cardstock grocery store has been replaced with a new production (vs. vintage) Plasticville Roadside Stand. Here it is shown assembled but not glued. Also, vehicles are being swapped out as whim dictates just for fun.

Enjoy! Opa Fritz

Pulled out a Marx Commodore Vanderbilt and cars and ran it

I cut two pieces of 2" thick Styrofoam cut into a rough 'L' shape, glued them together and  glued them to the back corner

I bought a second set of rustic fences for the rustic cabin area

There's not much room on the siding. In an attempt to eke out as much space as possible I bought these Atlas bumpers which half the size of the Marx bumper they're replacing

Replaced the cardstock service station with my Littletown station for now. I kept the cardstock sign up for now

Ran more trains

TRAIN TIME: The Edge of Town Layout Gets a Makeover - Pt 10 Casters, New Buildings, Scenery

I've been getting a lot of work done on my small Edge of Town layout. I put casters on the legs which makes it easier to roll around and do work on - don't know why I didn't do this when the legs were first installed five years ago DOH!

Next the corner hill had a layer of patching plaster applied and, lastest but not leastest, the Plasticville Freight Platform project is 'done'. Wellll, there's a couple more things I'd like to do on it but overall it looks finished. More updates below. Enjoy! Opa Fritz 

 

Withe the help of my grand daughter the hill now looks like a proper hill