Little Engines was a southern California company started in the late 1930's by Martin S. Lewis, and has been in the
business of supplying castings and drawings in various sizes or "scales" to machinists, amateur and professional,
who have had an interest in building tiny steam locomotives that would actually work, just like full-sized ones.
Clarence Marshall met Martin Lewis in 1941, and soon ordered the necessary parts and drawings to build this ¾"-scale
(1/16 actual size) 4-8-4 live steam locomotive, the largest of the several scales and wheel arrangements available at
that time. During World War II, he worked on it in his shop, and by the time the war ended in 1945, it was completed.
He named it for his son, Thomas C. Marshall, who was soon to return home from 4 years in the service. Its little
firebox burns wood or rice coal, but it has seldom been fired. Instead, it was taken to hobby shows and the like
and run on rollers in place with steam being provided from the boiler of a Stanley car outside the place of exhibit.
In the 1970's, it also ran this way in our museum here, supplied by "house steam". The track gauge is 3-1/2 inches,
and although some owners actually rode behind these locomotives on their tiny trains, the Marshalls decided this one
would be for static operation and Clarence would soon build larger ones, the castings and drawings for which were first
available in the late 1950's. These larger versions became the locomotives still operating on the Auburn Valley Railroad.
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