Trix Profi Club 'Free' wagon.

No sign yet of any of my 2007 Marklin Insider orders, the wagon, the year book, a metal fire engine model.........

All ordered months ago from Gaugemaster, and in previoous years always delivered well before Christmas.

I did recently receive a German language version of the year book with my TEE Gotthardo unit, so maybe all the English stuff has just been delayed.
I will contact Gaugemaster later on today. I guess they are no longer 'Best Friends' with Marklin after being dropped as UK distibutor for MArklin/Trix in favour of The Hobbby Company.

Ashley

Ahh, the Gottardo, yes well where to begin.........

I love it to bits, it is a superb metal casting, wonderfully decorated and runs superbly with very good lighting and a few sound effects.
However it is possibly one of the most controversial models ever to be released by Marklin. It is a long story, best understood by reading a very long thread on the marklin-users.net forum.

The basic issue is that Marklin have not provided any flexible corridor connections between the coaches, so on sharp curves, as the coaches swing apart, you see an exposed circuit board connector on one side of the link, and a black plastic lug on the other. follow some of the links from the thread to see some pictures on the Swiss forums.

Basically, because of this people seem to either love it or hate it. To me it is the engineering that is important, and I feel sure it will not be too long before an after market solution appears. All it is going to take is some flexible rubber connectors. Maybe Marklin will even release them themselves, as apparently they are currently receiving a barage of criticism over the model. Looking at it from an engineering point of view, I can see how it has turned out like it has, but I think some latex or material connectors should have been included as sold.

I might be tempted to put a review up on this shortly if there is enough interest.

Ashley

The Gottardo does have multi-pin plugs connecting each unit, I think they are the same ones used on the previous VT11.5, but turned into a verticle position. The train would be too long and heavy to be permanently coupled. The individual cars are much longer than those on the VT11.5, for example.

The basic problems is that the unit really needs some flexible rubber/latex covers to fit in between the coaches. Without it, it does really look like an 'unfinished symphony' !
The other issue people are having with it is that it has movable skirts fixed to the bogies, much like the Flying Hamburger. I really cannot see how this could have been avoided without ruining the profile of the model though, there is almost no swing for the bogies within the confines of the deep skirted body.

By coincidence there is a review of the Kato N gauge version of the Gottardo in the March Continental Modeller. Kato have raised the entire skirt height so that the bogies freeely pivot. To my eyes this looks much worse. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself, time to start working on that review.........

Ashley