The Marx diesel freight train set number 9639/9607/9608 was an electric train set featuring a plastic diesel locomotive pulling 6-inch tin passenger cars. It dates to 1958-1961, showing that even in the 1960s, even though tin lithography was becoming a lost art, it wasn’t dead in the United States just yet.
Marx diesel type electrical train set 9639/9607/9608
The Marx 9639 passenger set was a five-unit train lettered for the New York Central, a common choice for Marx. All of the cars have plastic knuckle couplers. The box contained the following:
- 588 New York Central GE 70-ton diesel switcher locomotive, black
- New York Central mail car, blue, number from 5010-5026
- (2) 557 Pullman coaches, Bogota or Montclair, red
- 558 Observation car, red
- (8) O34 curved track sections
- (2) 10-inch straight sections
The blue mail car is the least common item in these sets. The sets came with a transformer, varying in size from 50 watts to 25 watts depending on the year and the price point.
The nice thing about these sets was the wide track. If a child received a windup set in a previous year, the oval that came in these sets was big enough to set up around the windup set. Then both trains could run at once. Marx often reserved the O34 track for higher-end sets.
What was the New York Central?
The New York Central was a railroad that served the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It connected New York City and Boston to Chicago and St. Louis via cities like Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Rochester, and Syracuse. Most of the major population centers in the late 1940s would have recognized the New York Central.
The New York Central existed from 1953 to 1968. Today, most of what once was the New York Central is now part of CSX.
Marx lettered a lot of trains for the New York Central. In the 1950s, railroad merchandising wasn’t the big business it was today. Marx approached several railroads early on asking for rights to use their names. New York Central was one railroad that agreed with few conditions. Marx didn’t want to pay royalties and didn’t want to commit to giving the railroad a bunch of sets.
Age and value of Marx diesel train set 9639/9607/9608
The 9639 set cost $9.99 in 1958. Sears lowered the price to $9.39 in 1959, then raised the price again to $9.84 in 1960 and $9.97 in 1961. Adjusting for inflation, it cost about $100-$110 in 2024 dollars. In 1958, Marx also offered an optional 45-piece terminal set for $5.81 additional.
As for the pricing, there was a catch. The way they cut the price was by changing the transformer from a 50-watt unit in 1958 to a 30-watt unit in 1959 and a 25-watt unit in 1960-61. This allowed them to avoid shrinkflation, unlike certain early 70s sets.
The set number varied slightly from year to year. The 1959 model had set number 9608, and the 1960-61 model had set number 9607. I have also heard there was a 9609 model with the same consist, but I haven’t been able to pin down what year Sears and Marx sold that set. Marx diesel train sets 9639, 9607, and 9608 were documented in Greenberg’s Guide to Marx Trains Vol 3: Sets by Robert Whitacre on pages 130 and 131.
The value of these three sets today is a bit harder to pin down. According to the 9th edition of Greenberg’s Marx Trains Pocket Price Guide, the value of the individual cars and locomotive on their own is over $200. So I would estimate the value of the complete set as more than $200. That makes the set worth more today than it cost when it was new, when you adjust for inflation.
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.
I enjoy your silicon underground archives Marx toy train posts, as I believe they are more accurate
than many previously written articles in toy train publications and or price guides. Seeing your
posts has caused me to to appreciate Marx for trying to make a more expensive toy more within reach of hard working families of modest means.