Smoking Marx 999
by Dave Hess

What is your favorite Marx locomotive? Is it the Commodore Vanderbilt or the Mercury? For some it is the die-cast 333 with its six-driver wheel arrangement or the sturdy 666 with lots of pulling power. For me it is the 999. What other locomotive looks as good in front of scale and six-inch cars alike? Even the number is a Casey Jones classic. It’s simple design and nearly indestructible motor makes it a real winner. Yet there is something missing. SMOKE. I like smoke and lots of it. Unfortunately the small boiler does not lend itself to any conventional Marx smoke unit. How could I make it smoke? The answer came in a garage sale box of used RC airplane parts.

In the bottom of a box that contained antique airplane parts, was a motorized unit that I had never seen before. It looked like it belonged in a train, but not being able to identify it, I let it collect dust on a shelf for over a year. The second time I stumbled upon this contraption, I decide to see what made it tick. Hooking up both sides of the motor to AC power, the motor tried to turn, but in vain. I replaced the motor bushings and it began to turn. With a little oil on the piston, the machine began to make a beautiful chugging nose. And then came the smoke. There was enough fluid left in it to cause a few wisps. As I added smoke fluid to the unit it really came to life. The room began to fill with smoke. An American Flyer chugger unit! I quickly decided that this must go in a steam engine, one that normally did not smoke. The 999 was my answer.

The 999 was the perfect choice for the project. Since there was no room in the boiler, I decided to mount the chugger in a tender. An eight-wheel wedge tender was selected to accept the new part. I began to unfold the tabs on the bottom of the car. Since the chugger had a certain amount of heft, the weight in the car was no longer needed. Making sure that the chugger unit was in good working order, I fastened the chugger to the frame of the tender with a single 6-32 nut and bolt, which fit through existing holes.
This bolt also serves to ground the motor to the frame of the car. Since the car had 3/16" trucks, I chose to use a passenger car pickup that I purchased from the Robert Grossman Company. The wire lead ran directly to the motor. At this point, the tender was ready for testing.

When I found the performance of the chugger on its new frame to be satisfactory, it was time to replace the tender shell. I found it necessary to cut a small 3/8" by 1" slot in the front of the body. This worked nicely and hardly affected the look of the car. For service purposes, I decided not to secure the tabs underneath the frame of the car. I have not regretted this. Next, I drilled a ¼" hole in the center of the smokestack. A piece of 3/16" ID hose was ran from the tender though the locomotive and out the top.
I decided to cement the tubing into the smokestack. I painted the tubing black near the smokestack since I had used clear tubing. This could be avoided if one were to use black tubing. Now it was time to go back to the test track.

The new 999 was a delight to run! The sound was beautiful. The smoke was nice and got even better when a few cars were added to the consist. Because of the pickup shoe and the extra tender weight, the 999 cannot pull as many cars. Even so, 10 or so cars including a caboose has been no problem. project. The
rest is pure fun. If you are looking for way to improve the classic 999, give this a try. You might just find that it is your favorite engine too.