blid

At 21:55 in the Marklin new items 2024 video you can see some cylinder smoke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMb-Pg3PdRk

Sorry Chuck. I was held up by a long phone call. You beat me to it.

Marklin has made F7 A and B. Check marklin.de and select the filter under ”Service”. Marklin also had a sneak product line ”Maxi”. I googled ”marklin maxi diesel engines” and saw UP and Santa Fe. My remaining eye has very limited vision so I didn’t check if they were F3 or F7. Maxi were more toy like and maybe not true 1:32. LGB is now part of the Marklin family and the have some I think. If so, larger than 1:32. I don’t think Marklin has made any 0-scale for the last 50 years. In the smaller scales besides H0 they have Minitrix (N scale I think) and Z with US diesels.

I didn't find the pictur but made screen dump from a video. It shows Big Boy on LGB R3. To me it looks like the hole width of the engine sticks out from the center of the tracks. If you intend to place the tracks along walls the clearance have to be added to the equation. So for R3: 2(1198 + 120) mm = 2636 mm, about 8.7 feet. Suggestion for he curve using LGB. One R5 18000, thre R3 16000, one 18000, three R3 16000 and one 18000. My track planning softwre calculates the center track distance to 2758 mm. This gives 2998 mm or 9 feet 10 inch with clearance as above. This will look so much better and the clearance need by the straight tracks will be less. Besides, if you look at a train in a sharp curv from the inside it will look much better than from the outside. If you don’t go for LGB tracks; check the code. MTH made “pizza cutter wheels” on purpose. They will not run on Marklin/Hubner tracks. The flanges are to deep. I don’t know the required code.

I was wrong. What I called R3 is in fact R5. R3 has a diameter of 7.86 feet. About 8 feet as you wrote.

I’m afraid you have not observed the difference between the European and US notification of curved tracks. In Europe the radii is measure in mm to the center of the track. LGB R3, the 18xxx, are 2363 mm. This gives a diameter of 4726 mm or about 15.5 feet – if I am correct. I have a picture of my Big boy on LGB R2 showing the ridiculous overhang, but I can’t find it right now.

Now that I have found the symbol for inserting links. Here is a link to the company selling these (too?) small EOT lamps: https://www.dccconcepts.com/product/end-of-train-lamp-with-all-electronics-3-pack/

I saw this today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL3SiGLw_n0. He is running OO-gauge so almost HO but no need to pay for a truck.

About salvaging the smooth ended ones. When I look at them they look like 2 modern massive wooden beams since there is no indication of separation between the layers (just looking at the ends). If you gently press a knife or something to make a mark where the “planks” meet maybe the eye will see a stack of planks instead. The mark just have to make the light create a shadow. They will still be planks of identical size aligned lengthwise. I can imagine Bug’s Doghouses cutting planks to a specific length and when one plank is cut it is pushed to the side and falls on top of the previous one. Guided lengthwise but not so well side wise. This type of load is probably for another type of car but I don’t know. I can’t do things like this – but I admire those who can and like watching what you produce. Hence it doesn't feel right for me to give advice but you did ask for ideas.

In my post from February 23 2014 "Marklin Track", http://In my post from February 23 2014, http://www.gscaletrainforum.com/index.php?/topic/184-marklin-track/&tab=comments#comment-1273 , I warned about a potential problem with MTH power pickup shoes and LGB R5 turnouts The engines might get stuck.

I don't remember if it was on this or another forum I saw the tip, but I bought the GB (Gardner Bender) Ox-Gard Anti-Oxidant Compound from Amazon.com. Maybe there are better ones?

Many years ago I received a new car with this problem. I noticed that the car had been put in the original styrofoam the wrong way. From that day I used a marker pen and wrote “wheel” on the styrofoam in the end where it was supposed to be. “Door” for passenger cars. blid

Welcome to the forum Keith Maybe my layout can give you some ideas/answers: http://www.gscaletrainforum.com/index.php?/topic/810-my-elevated-semi-permanent-technical-layout/ I recommend the use of a track planning program to check the gradients for the different versions as you go along with your planning. My gradients are 2,5% and 2.85% according to my track planning programs (WinTrack and Scarm). My tracks are LGB with R5 curves (2320 mm radii, 5,2 feet diameter). blid I'm gaining 12 inch too and run with the GG-1 pantographs up (and 8 MTH passenger cars). I have the Santa Fe Hudson and run it with 5 MTH passenger cars.

My roaster is a mix of MTH and Marklin 1:32. After upgrading the MTH PS2 engines to PS 3 I can now use DCC for all my engines. Last summer I measured the power consumption using the Marklin CS1 and CS2 controllers. They have the option of showing Amp, Volt etc. MTH 70-3009-1 Big Boy with PS 3.0 Placed om the track: 0.3 A + Sound and light on: 0.6 A + Smoke: 1.2 A + Speedstep 30 of 126 with 15 cars + caboose with lights: 2.5 A, 18.3 V (level ground). I can't switch the MTH PS3 to DCS so I can't verify my impression that the MTH decoders are more power efficient in DCS mode than in DCC. The way I have raised my layout might give you some ideas. See my-elevated-semi-permanent-technical-layout Upwards 2.6 % and down 3.3 %.

It's working. Nice. Since it is live you have to remember where on the globe this is. Not much daylight this time of year.