The Marx 30982 and 80982 Wabash gondola is a colorful yellow gondola with lettering for a midwestern railroad. It was part of their short-lived 7-inch line, though it’s easy to convert to a 3/16 car if desired. The 30982 dates to 1949-1954, with the number switching to 80982 from 1955 to 1961.
The Wabash
The Wabash Railroad was a Class 1 railroad that operated in the mid-central United States. It served a large area, including track in the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Missouri and the province of Ontario. Its primary connections included Chicago, Kansas City, Detroit, Buffalo, St. Louis, and Toledo.
The Wabash merged into the Norfolk Southern Railway in 1982. Wabash cars would have been a familiar sight to Marx customers in the metro areas of Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis, all of which were still major population centers in the early 1950s when this car was produced.
Marx Wabash gondola
Marx’s 7-inch line featured only two freight car designs, a boxcar and a gondola. And Marx didn’t change up the numbers much on the gondolas, so there aren’t as many variations in the Wabash gondola as there are in the PRR and State of Maine boxcars. This makes the Wabash gondola an easy and common car to chase down. It’s also suitable for modification when that suits your needs. The frame is easy to modify to accommodate 8-wheel trucks to turn it into a 3/16 scale gondola if needed. I’ve also put other brands of trucks on it to use it with prewar trains. Even though the Wabash gondola is a postwar design, it looks the part with any other tinplate train with appropriate trucks.
Both variations of this car are rather common, so its going rate in reasonable condition on its own is generally in the $10-$15 range.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.