the author as a child

W HY MARX? It all began on Christmas Day, 1969, when as a six-year-old I received a Marx BIG RAIL WORK TRAIN set from my parents. I spent many enjoyable hours as a child running this train on the floor (photo). I vividly remember just watching the train go around (and around and around) the single loop of track on the hardwood floor. I would lay my head on the floor and watch at the end of the straight for the train to approach and pass, and then I would turn the lights off and do it again, all the while smelling the aroma of hot electric motor and smoke oil.

As an adult I did the grown-up thing and moved to scale model railroading. I built a small n-scale layout, and spent lots of money on locomotives and rolling stock, and then I tore up that layout and built a better one. But, somehow, through it all I could still hear my Marx 1666 locomotive patiently calling to me, asking me to return. Eventually, I realized that Marx O-27 toy trains was where my love lay, and the n-scale layout and rolling stock were soon relegated to storage and construction of a Marx O-27 layout was begun. I haven't looked back.

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