Last Updated on May 17, 2024 by Dave Farquhar
In 1950, Marx introduced the largest locomotive it ever made, the Marx 21 Santa Fe diesel. Marx made both powered and unpowered versions, and they were dressed up in the same warbonnet scheme as Lionel’s iconic F3 diesels, but unlike Lionel’s effort, they were nearly 1:48 scale (proper for O gauge) and made of metal.
Marx only made them for two years.
At some point, Marx planned a series of large tin lithographed freight cars that would match the scale of the #21 diesel, but never introduced them. As a temporary measure, Marx put their 1:64 scale freights on larger trucks so they would more closely match the height of the #21s, but the cars were still shorter than one would expect.
Marx set numbers 45200-45299 all featured the #21 Santa Fe diesels.
Marx never released its 1:48 tin cars due to metal shortages caused by the Korean war. Typically Marx kept its designs in production 11 years. So based on that, we would have expected this product line to survive until 1962. But since Marx didn’t know for certain it would have a steady supply of metal to use, it accelerated its transition to plastic. Marx continued to produce its smaller, 6-inch tin trains, but its larger trains transitioned to plastics, which had the side effect of permitting a greater level of detail.
As part of the transition, Marx developed a line of plastic diesel locomotives to replace the #21. As a result, the #21 was discontinued after 1951. Marx bundled the remaining inventory into train sets that it sold in 1952, such as the 9640 and 45225 sets.
Price and value of the Marx #21 Santa Fe diesels
Marx retailed the #21 diesels at $15. That was less than 1/3 what Lionel charged for its comparable set of diesel engines with the Santa Fe Warbonnet livery. Marx would sell a whole set for less than Lionel charged for the locomotives alone. Today, a set of Marx #21 Santa Fe diesels is worth around $100 in nice condition.
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.