1936 sees the first release of the M100005 Streamline Passenger sets. The enormous popularity of the UP M10000 made the building
of other train sets inevitible. It wasn't long before they were up to M100005. Toy train manufacturers weren't slow to
capitalizze on this success. The yellow and brown was the first released by Marx. These are shown
as electric sets in catalog artwork however no known boxed yellow and brown electric sets have yet to surface. Those that have
seem to have had the motors changed, a practice not uncommon with Marx streamliners. Both electric and clockworks had the slot
in the roof for the clockwork brake so no signs of tampering are readily evident. However, careful examination of other details
that I will not mention have revealed the part swapping.
I remember these sets from my childhood. They were one of the few Marx trains I liked (we had Lionel trains). I loved what we
called the "snake" train and how it wiggled through the layout.
Here is the rare Diner car sold in a few of these sets. It is hard to determine why so few of these cars exist. Were they produced
on a separate sheet? Was the artwork damaged where this car was printed? We don't know and likely never will.
This is my first Marx train. It was 1969, I was 16 years old, at a yard sale with a brother (yard sales were a new phenomenom then)
and this set was $11. It was only a four piece set but it was an electric train and I had that much money! Now, I was a novice Lionel
collector then and buying Marx was definitely heresy but I had always liked the M100005 sets. This was going home with me, Marx or not!
Shortly after my first son was born in 1982 I took the family to the Strasburg Railroad to ride the "Road to Paradise". There is (or was)
a little diner near there that was in an old Diner Car. They had a little gift shop which had four stray green and
cream M10005 passenger cars for $16. They filled out the rest of the set.
I ran this set for a few years until the motor literally fell apart and it wouldn't run anymore. My brother who is a notorious tinkerer
retrofitted the engine with a Lionel Scout motor and I put it back in service. I was going to sell it off a few years ago (I have two
excellent examples in the collection now), but when my first born heard about it he had a fit. He wants this set. Not the excellent set,
not the boxed set. He wants this one, Lionel motor and all! He loves the sentimental aspect of this set and cares not at all about how much
it's worth.
The M10005 sets resurfaced after the war for a short time. The red and silver version was released in the late prewar period and prewar
sets had the REA cars. Postwar the REA cars were eliminated and the litho was changed so that the windows were no longer individually
outlined but were punched from a colored band. Early postwar sets appear to have been made from leftover prewar stock. I have a boxed green and
cream clockwork set with the individually outlined windows, the hole punched over the headlight (spotlight hole*), in a prewar red and
blue box, with plastic wheels. The wheels on these sets are crimped outside the car bodies so they don't come off. Wheel
swapping cannot happen without serious damage.
* The spotlight hole is just visible above the headlamp in the yellow and brown set at the top of the page.