Marx - Marxville Accessories - Pt 17

While continuing our series on Marx 3-rail O-gauge train accessories, occasionally we're just gonna repeat ourselves, like with the tin-litho #390 tunnels which we did way back when the blog started and which we've been looking at again recently. Today's featured tunnel with camouflage pattern is the rarest of the three. As a matter-of-fact, the mine scene and farm aren't rare at all and Marx kept pumping them out almost to the very end. The camouflage one on the other hand was offered in the 1930s as part of several military sets and then just faded away. I'm not sure exactly when they stopped making them but I believe by the Post-war er they were gone. One today in good shape could fetch a couple of hundred dollars.  I'm also showing the tunnel as it looked when set up on an old portable train layout I had in the '90s. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

TRAIN TIME: Marx Marxville Accessories - Pt 15 #390 Tin-litho Tunnel - Mine Scene

Okay, normally I do TRAIN TIME on Thursday's but my schedule is so out of whack I'm goin' to do it today. I posted this tunnel back when the blog was first started but decided to re-post as part of the TRAIN TIME series. Marx made their tin-litho tunnel with three different motif's: Farm Scene, Mine Scene, and Camouflage. The artwork is the same on both halves of the piece but the way the two halves are joined differ. Earlier versions were held together by a wire clip while later versions were held together by a screw. The tunnels first came out in the '30s and had some unnel openings which couldn't accommodate some of the taller rolling stock pieces made in the '50s. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Two different style boxes. The box with the nice artwork would have been a separate sale item while the plain box would have been included in train sets

Marx - Marxville Accessories - Pt 15

Another Toys and Stuff journey back in time...

Today's Marx post will differ from past posts in that we'll only show one accessory, and only one variant of that accessory. We covered all three versions back in November of 2010 but I thought it would be nice to revisit them in the context of the "Marx - Marxville Accessories" series. 

The #390 was first produced by Marx way back in the '30s in three different schemes: farm scene, mine scene, and camouflage. The farm scene and mine scene versions were pretty much in production nearly until Marx's demise in the 1970s while the camouflage scene didn't last much past the 1950s. As a matter of fact, I'm really not sure when Marx offered it last. The tunnel was made in two interlocking sections with the identical artwork showing on each. In earlier versions the two halves were held together by a simple metal clip, while latter versions used a screw. The tunnel we'll feature today is an earlier version. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

Details showing the clip

On my layout the tunnel is raised by placing it on 'stone' embankments. Why? Because the tunnels were designed in the 1930s for the 3-rail O-gauge train sets then available. Later on Marx would add engines and rolling stock to their line which were too tall to fit under the tunnel. The same thing happened with Marx bridges and trestles - the openings were too small to fit all of the rolling stock offered!