The Marx steam type train set number 4822 is a mid 1950s electric train set with a basic steam engine and 7-inch freight cars. It’s an attractive set and a very good example of post-war tin lithography. Marx eventually switched from lithography to plastic. This set was part of Marx’s transition period from lithography to plastic.
Marx stream line steam type electrical train set 4822
Marx lettered set 4822 for the New York Central railroad. The five-unit set consisted of the following:
- 400 locomotive, 0-4-0, with light and reverse, double reduction motor
- Unnumbered plastic New York Central tender
- Pennsylvania Merchandise Service boxcar, any number from 37950-37959
- Wabash gondola, yellow, number 80982 or C&O gondola, brown, number 36000
- New York Central Pacemaker caboose, number 20115
- 1239 50 watt transformer
The powered engine had both forward and reverse. All of the cars have plastic knuckle couplers. The 1239 transformer was a basic transformer with no accessory posts. The example I observed had 4 O27 curved track sectons and 4 standard O27 straight sections.
Marx set 4822 is not in Robert Whitacre’s Greenberg’s Guide to Marx Trains, Volume 3: Sets. Marx also didn’t catalog it at the time, so it’s possible Whitacre never saw an example of this set. Thanks to the Internet and Ebay, we know about sets today that Whitacre never found.
Marx released the electric #400 locomotive in 1953. This set was probably a way for Marx to use up its remaining inventory of 7-inch cars.
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 early 1950s would have recognized the New York Central.
The New York Central existed from 1853 to 1968. Today, most of what once was the New York Central is now part of CSX.
Marx lettered a lot of train sets 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.
Other Marx sets lettered for New York Central include 9610, 9639, and 3994.
Value
I estimate the value of a 4822 set in its original box at $60 to $65. Nothing in the set is terribly uncommon. But the set itself is, so original paperwork and a box in nice condition would really help the value. Finding a boxed example isn’t terribly unusual, because Marx shipped them in sturdy boxes that worked well for storage, and the owners frequently boxed the set back up for storage when they weren’t using it.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.