old tin metal engine

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james-trainmaster

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can anyone tell me what this is.very old tin metal engine.looks like either a marx or lionel pre war engine.
 
thats a rock island, illinois Lionel Grain train EMD F7.

A Rock Island grain train, piloted by a pair of EMD F7s, crosses Calumet Sag Channel at Blue Island, Illinois in August 1978. The Rock Island was a most colorful and interesting railroad which connected several large cities, but a lack of business and deferred maintenance combined to cause severe financial difficulites. On March 31, 1980 the 7,000 mile Rock Island ceased operation, which was the largest abandonment of a U.S. railroad at that time.
 
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They are not pre-war. The F unit appears to be a Marx and looks like a cross between and F-7 and F-9, which weren't produced until long after the war. I really can't tell who made the second train but it appears to a crude attempt at modeling the GM Areotrain, which first hit the track in 1956. As to value, the condition is so bad that I'm sure both worth essentially nothing.

Edit: Midrange, that's not a Lionel. The couplers and crude trucks indicate it's a Marx. As I said, the details don't match any particular F unit model but are a cross between and F-7 and F-9.
 
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You may be right. But all i could find for rock island toys was lionel.. However, i can't find the specific loco for either lionel or marx.
 
The "Aerotrain" looks also to be a Marx. A friend in Mobile collected Marx and I think he had 4 of everything Marx made. If the Aerotrain is the Marx version, it was offered with either 1, 2, or 4 car sets.
 
The areo train is a marx has the marking on top to indacate it is a marx.the first one have no idea.it is o scale and does have a motor with the pick up bar in te middle for the 3rd rail.
 
heres a few pics off the pre war lionel sight.this looks like the inside of the engine i got.
 
James, what site says that's a pre-war engine? The first Alco PA wasn't built until almost a year after the war ended, in 1946. Marx and Lionel used nearly idendical power trains. Lionel had track puckups that were mounted on a spring loaded plate with rollers in the middle. The rollers were magnetic and Lionel touted their advantage as "Magnetraction". Marx used copper strips that were fixed to the bottom of the truck. Lionel also had knuckle type couplers and Marx and their own kind of blade couplers. Your photos are so blurry it's hard to tell the coupler type on the F unit. If you can take a closeup of the couplers, that should give us what we need to identify the engine as Lionel or Marx. In any case, as I've now said three times, neither of the ones you have are pre-war.
 
ok no problem will snap some better pics on the couplers.thanks for the imput on it.
 
ok don"t know if this helps .but took a few more pics.hope you can see the coupler.
 


I can't see any coupler unless it's that hook thing. It's not a normal Marx or Lionel if that's the case.
 
ok found out it was a unique art,made in the fifties.company did not last long.its o scale.thanks for the info guys.
 
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