News & Reviews Product Reviews Marx Park Avenue trolley

Marx Park Avenue trolley

By Bob Keller | May 9, 2006

| Last updated on November 3, 2020


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SET YOUR WHIMSEY meter on full! The Park Avenue trolley is a nifty tin-lithographed motorized unit that will look right at home running on just about any prewar-style layout or around the Christmas tree.

The trolley is simple enough. It has a nicely designed and produced lithographed shell with a trolley pole. The lithography is for a seven-window, four-door car. The faces of travelers dot many of the windows. The only oddity is the motorman figure, who seems to be wearing a hat like that of former Hollywood Squares personality Charlie Weaver. (Between taping TV shows, Charlie must have been working part-time on the Park Avenue line!)

The motor is a gutsy little unit that will send your passengers rocketing along the right-of-way at reckless speeds! This baby puts the “rapid” in rapid transit, with a low speed of 35.2 scale mph and a high of 74 scale mph. With no reverse, this is a one-way train!

Our experience with Marx motors is that you will probably never need to worry about it failing. We’ve run up hundreds hours on new Marx steamers on our staff display layout and found the Marx engines to be the Energizer Bunny of the tin-litho world!

What the Park Avenue trolley might lack in “realism,” it makes up for in plain old fun.

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