[neil_s_wood]

I contacted my dealer yesterday and he said that he stuck it in the post yesterday morning. Rather coincidental I thought.

 

[neil_s_wood]

Mine arrived today along with my catalogue.

 

[neil_s_wood]

I was advised by the Australian Maerklin/Trix handler Noel of Nathan Trains N Toys yesterday that the reason that we got it quickly was because the goods were airfreighted in. This resulted in a cost of Aus $2,800 to him which was not borne by Maerklin. This has been passed on to the club members. I paid $30. Maybe you're better waiting if you want it for free.

Hows your Gothardo Ashley? It looked very nice in the catalogues.

 

[neil_s_wood]

QUOTE (ashleyh @ 16 Feb 2008, 15:19) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Ahh, the Gottardo, yes well where to begin.........

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

Ashley
I'd love to see a review of this Ashley.

As for the flexible corridor connectors, they managed to make these before for the Flying Hamburger so why not anything else? Maybe because the Gottardo is a five car unit rather than a two. The Hamburger came already linked with the flexible corridor connector fixed. This would not be possible with a five car unit unless the box was a metre or so long. A possible solution was to do the same as they did with the ICE3 and have 8 pin plugs connecting all the coaches. This enables power pick up from the end coaches, motor in the centre coach and all coaches to be lit.

 

[neil_s_wood]

QUOTE (ashleyh @ 17 Feb 2008, 19:17) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>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
They used the movable skirts compromise on the Henschel Wegman train too. I agree it is better than raising them. Look forward to the review.