Marx steam freight train set 21336M and 21337M

Marx train set 21336M and 21337M are a pair of similar train sets from 1971 and 1972 sold through Montgomery Ward. Let’s walk through these sets, which featured a 2-4-2 steam locomotive with a slopeback tender pulling three freight cars and a caboose.

Marx 21336M steam freight set

The Marx 21336M freight set may have been lettered for either the New York Central or, more likely, its successor Penn Central. All of the cars have plastic tilt couplers on 8-wheel trucks. The box contained the following:

• Marx 1666 plastic 2-4-2 steam locomotive
• Unnumbered black plastic slopeback tender (catalog number is 961)
• 467110 B & O boxcar
• Erie flatcar with two tractors, tuscan
• 347100 PRR gondola
• caboose
• 10 027 curved track sections
• 8 O27 straight track sections
• 2 manual switches
• 50-watt transformer

It also contained a station platform, five plastic figures, a water tower, three high tension utility poles, and two billboards. It came with enough to set up a visually interesting train layout on a ping pong table.

This set dates to 1971, and Wards sold it for $29.99, the equivalent of $228 in 2024 dollars.

Marx 21337M Penn Central steam freight set

The Marx 21337M freight set is a shrinkflation special, essentially the same set with less track for the same price. We know this one was lettered for the Penn Central railroad and Montgomery Ward carried it in 1972.

• Marx 1666 plastic 2-4-2 steam locomotive
• Unnumbered Penn Central black plastic slopeback tender (catalog number is 961)
• 467110 B & O boxcar
• Erie flatcar with two tractors, tuscan
• 347100 PRR gondola
• 18326 Penn Central caboose, red
• 9 027 curved track sections
• 7 O27 straight track sections
• 1 manual switch
• track bumper
• 50-watt transformer

It also contained a station platform, five plastic figures, a water tower, three high tension utility poles, and two billboards.

This 1972 set was a slightly cut down version of the same set from the previous year, sold at the same price of $29.99. That’s the equivalent of $221 in 2024 dollars.

If you have one of these sets and you’d like to see it running again, I don’t blame you. Here’s some advice on setting up a Marx train set. I also have some tips on servicing the locomotive.

What was the Penn Central Railroad?

The Penn Central Railroad was the result of three struggling former rivals, the Pennsylvania Railroad, the New York Central railroad, and the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroads merging in 1968. The merger didn’t turn things around for them and the new company, the sixth-largest corporation in the United States at the time, filed bankruptcy on June 21, 1970. It was the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history at the time and is still the second-largest today, eclipsed only by Enron Corporation’s 2001 bankruptcy.

In 1973, the federal government nationalized Penn Central to save it, and in 1976, parts of Penn Central and several other bankrupt railroads merged into Conrail.

Although Marx lettered a number of steam sets with the Penn Central name, such as the 4351, 4965, and 9725, the Penn Central never ran steam locomotives. The Pennsylvania was the last of its predecessor companies to retire its steam engines, having done so in 1957. That means parents who bought Marx train sets 21336M or 21337M were buying them for kids who probably never saw steam engines in operation. Marx’s Mohawk set, number 41850, was a better depiction of what Penn Central actually ran.

Rarity

Although none of the train components in these sets are particularly rare, the sets are hard to find complete today. The early 70s were a tough time for the U.S. railroad industry and the days of train sets being a must-have toy were fading. Robert Whitacre documented these sets in page 89 of Greenber’s Guide to Marx Trains Vol 3, but hadn’t seen a complete 21336M set to examine.