How To Use Marx Turnouts With Lionel Trains! Easy Mods For Smooth Operation

Today we're going to try something really crazy. 23.9, close enough. These are very close to true O scale. You don't want to try this with a modern transformer. So this is based off of a real V&O caboose. From 1916 up to 1938. That is not helpful. Now it is truth or consequences time. Part of the circuit is running through this wire arm here. Very simple but effective animation for the layout. Hello again, this is Mike with Toy Train Tips and Tricks. And today we're going to talk about Marx. No, not the crazy communist. We're talking about Louis Marx and Marx trains. And more specifically, the Marx 027 turnouts. The metal 027 turnouts, not the plastic. The metal ones that were in production from the 1930s up through probably the early 1960s. And I really like these turnouts for a couple of reasons. One, probably most important, is they are cheap. You can get a remote Marx turnout at most shows for $5, $6, depending on condition. They're very durable, another reason. It is often said that the only rare Marx train is one that won't work. And that seems to have been the case with Marx turnouts. I've got a dozen or so of them. I've never had any problems with any of them as far as the electronics and mechanics of them. And third, the design. If you are doing a lot of switching, the Marx turnouts has an advantage over Lionel in its design. And let's take a look. This is a manual Marx turnout. But what you see, and let's compare it. Let's start with the Lionel for comparison. Here we have our typical Lionel MPC era, but post-war is the same issues. Manual turnout. And if you're following along the rail here, right here you have what's called a frog. And there is a gap right here in the rail. And so there is a guardrail over on this side that is designed to try to keep the wheels, the trucks, from following this gap and derailing. And when you are backing a long string of cars like you would be when you're switching, the force, you know, with backing on the Lionel trucks from the truck mounted couplers, it tends to force the wheels to the outside. So there's a great deal of force riding against this spot right here. And sometimes this little guardrail isn't enough to overcome it. The flanges go through that gap and you have derailment. But with the Marx turnout, there is no frog. The entire set of points rotates from one side to the other. And so what you get on the outside rail is you've got, other than this minuscule gap here, continuous rail. So there's always something solid for those flanges to push against, and it minimizes derailments that way. So I really like that for switching. There is another feature with the Marx turnouts that I like. And if you are like me and you run several different manufacturers, several different eras, modern era, post-war, pre-war, whatever, you run into a problem with the Lionels and that. Let's take this Marx 400 here. Many Marx locomotives, and some pre-war Lionels as well, have what we call this fat wheel, that the gear is part of the wheel itself that makes this extra, extra, extra wide. And this extra wide part here behind the flange will not clear Lionel guardrails. You just hear it hitting right there. So these are totally incompatible with Lionel turnouts. The Marx turnouts, however, since they have no guardrails, obviously everything runs through just fine. So why don't more people use the Marx turnouts? Well, there's a compatibility issue on the Marx side as well. And it has to do not with the outside rails, but with the center rail. Now, if you'll notice, let's move back to straight, and let's imagine that you are a pickup roller, and you come right along here, and oops, there's nothing there. And so if you are a pickup roller, there's a very high probability that you're going to drop off the rail, fall into this gap, and get stuck, causing a derailment problem. Well, for that problem, there is a pretty easy and quick solution. And this has been around for a long time, and that is to use a track pin and place it strategically like I have already done on this Marx remote turnout. This is one of the few durability problems. Somewhere along the line, somebody stepped on this rail and bent it, and these are very difficult to bend back. So this is my guinea pig turnout. But you see here, it's hard to see because it's really corroded, but there's a track pin right here, and there's a track pin right here. So what you want to do is you want to insert a track pin here into the center rail, and you want to get it as close as you can to the moving part of the switch here. Leave a very small gap. Actually, if it's touching a little bit, it's not a problem because this center rail power, when this is in this configuration, this is also powered, and they're the same, so you're not going to cause a short. But you want to make it so that it's not interfering with the motion of the switch. Likewise over here, and again, this one's really corroded, hard to see. I did this years ago. And it comes right up here, and it's touching this part of the switch. So now I'm a happy roller, and I come along, and instead of falling into this gap that would have been here, right here on this track pin guides me to here and around, and I'm okay. And this works for most roller-equipped locomotives and cars, Lionel, K-Line, MTH Williams, whatever. But there's about 10% that for whatever reason, sometimes it's because of just the geometry of the truck or the length of the roller arm or whatever, that don't work. And this is one of them. And because of the particular geometry on this one, when you go this way, this roller, every time, oops, will drop off right here. On this side, when you're coming through the curve, it'll drop over here, fall into the abyss, and cause a derailment. So what do you do about that? Well, just as the track pins are a quick and easy fix for the 90% or the 10%, what you need is this piece right here that I designed yesterday on my 3D printer. I've had this idea for many, many years. I've tried it before with doing things like plaster and such and filling it in, but by the time I carve away a path for the fat wheel, it becomes very fragile and it chips away. So what I needed was plastic and not having the skills to carve one out of styrene and make it nice. The 3D printer really works for this. So I made about six different versions of this before I found the one that works the best, which is this one. And here's all I have to do. I take this and line it up. You see it's got a hole there to go over the rivet that holds the swivel rails in place. Get a flathead screwdriver and just pop it into place and it holds itself there, no glue or anything else necessary. Friction will hold it in place once you get it down in there. There we go. And so what it does is it fills in that gap so that the rollers will not fall through. So if you look here, let me take... In the straight position, you get a better idea. Let's superimpose a piece of straight track. And you see, starting from this side, your roller's fine, your roller's fine. Oh, there's a gap here. Oh, but that's taken care of because of my track pen right there. That gets us all the way here where we pick up the curved rail again. And we're pretty good except for right here. But instead of having a complete gap, there is just enough catching that will catch right here and keep the roller from falling in until it can come back out the other side and get back on the center rail, or the curved rail, and work its way out. And ride through. Most rollers just happen to be about the same width as the tip of this screwdriver. So you can see right there, it picks it up there. And as it comes through, it's now resting on my plastic piece. And now it's back on the center rail, and we're good. For curved, and remember where the problem was with the K-line was right here in the middle. Superimpose my curve, and you can see that spot right here is where the K-lines have the problem. Look at how big that gap is between the rail and where it should be with the roller. And now we have our piece of plastic right here underneath. And there's no place for that roller to drop down. I've designed it with a gap wide enough that the fat wheels will go through with no problem, either direction. And we'll go this way. No problem. Your modern rollers get caught up there. Now what about pieces that, the lino pieces that have like this flying shoe for the special track pickup, like the milk car, like the cattle car, late pre-war automatic couplers. Do they have a problem? Do they catch? Well, if I can get the track lined up. No. No problem. Slides right through there. So here we have a universal piece to make this a universal turnout. It'll work with Marks, with lino, with K-line, with Williams. Should work with MTH. I don't have any of them to test. Not that I don't like MTH. It's just, I don't like their price. And so, so anyway, I'll be adding this to my Marks turnouts and I'll be able to run any era, any manufacturer, as long as I'll handle an 027 curve, they will go through this Marks 027 turnout. So this piece that I designed, I'm going to link to it on my Thingiverse page. This is a free download. So if you have a 3D printer and Marks turnouts, you can print your own or find a friend who has a printer and work out a deal with them. Again, public libraries, many of them have 3D printers for the public to use at a minimal fee. So there's lots of ways to do it, but this will salvage and help those Marks turnouts. And if you do a lot of switching like me, this is the way to go. So let's see what it looks like on the layout. Okay, so here we are on the layout. I have three Marks turnouts on this line that I have modified with the pin and the insert. And so I put together a conglomeration of different manufacturers with different roller types. We have Williams, Caneline, and this locomotive would not go through the Marks turnouts without inserts whatsoever. Here we have the flying shoe type with the milk car. We have the Lionel rolling sock pickup, another Lionel pickup, and Caneline. So Lionel, Caneline, Williams, and the flying shoes all represented. And let's see how it works on the layout. Switch number one, pretty smooth. Now, the sound that you heard was the train going through where my lift-off section is, the bridge on that side. It was pretty rough. So here we go. We are on number two here, and let's see how smoothly this goes. Now, this one should be pretty easy because it's straight, the path that we'll be going. Again, very smooth, no bumps, no clicks. And now the real test. This one is a curve. This is where it's trickier, and this is where the Caneline previously, oh, we're out of alignment. That's even worse. Okay. The Caneline would not go through this at all before. Let's see how it does now. Smooth as can be. So these inserts seem to work. Again, this is a free download. In the descriptions on the video, find my Thingiverse page where you can download these for free for both left-hand and right-hand turnouts, and you can turn your Marks turnouts into a universal turnout that'll work for both modern Marks, old Marks with the fat wheel, old Lionel with a fat wheel, and modern pickups of other manufacturers. A true universal 027 turnout. So again, thanks for watching. Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, like it, subscribe, and we'll see you next time on Toy Train Tips and Tricks.