I bought the Marklin 81520 Battery Start Set as my first venture into Z gauge. The picture below shows what you get:- an oval of track, a loco, a wagon and a battery powered controller.
As this is the 'vacation set', it is neatly packed into a transparent suitcase and the wagon has a picture of an overweight man on a beach. I do not recommend connecting the pieces of setrack together too much, as the fishplates are tiny and bend easily.
I had great fun putting pliers under the track for inclines, and piling small boxes up for tunnels - in fact, I have had more fun with this 30cm x 32 cm oval than I have had with my loft layout
There is one disappointing bit - the battery controller does not have variable speed so the loco is stuck on 'high'
but you can use a standard DC controller that you would for the N gauge/OO layout - the loco flies off the corners before you turn the speed up past the recommended 9 volts so no electrical damage can occur
Whilst on the subject of the loco, I took a close up shot:
Loco
It is a beautifully crafted class 89 in some kind of blue. It runs really well at slow speeds due to it's 5 pole motor, and can taackle *almost* any gradient you throw at it. I found that removing the front coupling helped greatly in improving the overall appearance.
So the next time you have £60 and your thinking of spending it on a loco for the average scale, why not spare a thought for the Z gauge starter set and all the fun you could have with it

As this is the 'vacation set', it is neatly packed into a transparent suitcase and the wagon has a picture of an overweight man on a beach. I do not recommend connecting the pieces of setrack together too much, as the fishplates are tiny and bend easily.
I had great fun putting pliers under the track for inclines, and piling small boxes up for tunnels - in fact, I have had more fun with this 30cm x 32 cm oval than I have had with my loft layout

There is one disappointing bit - the battery controller does not have variable speed so the loco is stuck on 'high'


Whilst on the subject of the loco, I took a close up shot:

It is a beautifully crafted class 89 in some kind of blue. It runs really well at slow speeds due to it's 5 pole motor, and can taackle *almost* any gradient you throw at it. I found that removing the front coupling helped greatly in improving the overall appearance.
So the next time you have £60 and your thinking of spending it on a loco for the average scale, why not spare a thought for the Z gauge starter set and all the fun you could have with it

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