Good idea Alan,

Shall we all congregate on Platform 4 @ 4 on Saturday? Seems like a convenient time towards the end of the day and allows for people to make their own arrangements beforehand with minimum disruption. After, maybe we could continue to a bar?

IanC

Take a bus to the Stuttgarter Straße 55 in Goeppingen. The Maerklin headquarter.
See it from Australia by Google here:

Maerklin Goeppingen

Read more about their shuttle services here:

https://www.maerklin.de/...ma-and-10-maerklin-days/

Good idea!

But please do not use only a black T-shirt with red MÄRKLIN logo on it. In any case use your country flag or whatever in addition to the logo too. Because at these days there are running thousands of black Maerklin T-shirts around in Goeppingen. I guess, minimum all Maerklin employees wear one them.

YES!

Saturday, 16th of September 2017, 16:00 (4 p.m.) at platform 4 at the railway station Goeppingen.

location: 48°42′1″N 9°39′8″E

Goettingen railway station map

description

GeoHack Goeppingen station

Yes I'll be there as well. Meet everyone at 4pm
Looking forward to the whole experience,
Cheers
John

I speak fluent Spanish, so I can help you!

Good idea.
I should be there!
4x4 on saturday!
See ya!

I'll be there. Looking forward to meeting M friends.

T

Hi all

Hope all those that were in Goppingen enjoyed the meeting.

Here are the majority of those that met at 4 on 4






Please add your name and country of origin. I can remember we had some Frenchman (or was it Belgian), several from down under; a Swede; some Germans; British and American. Forgive if I have missed anyone add, that is why I ask to add your name and location.

Oh and yes that is the SNCF 241a we are standing in front of.

Mike

Hello Mike,

you are not alone.

Too many People, together for a too short time, to keep all names in mind.

It is me (TEEWolf) right in the middle, behind the charming lady in the green coat.

And yes, we are in front of the SNCF 241-A in gauge 1:1. Shortly before I saw first time the model in the Staufer hall in gauge 1:87 - H0. I have to confess: the model looks better, while younger.

picture from the original


and H0

Here is a link with some of my pictures from a nice evenmang

Here are my brief impressions of the Treff weekend.

I would agree with Kiwi Alan, and Mike. There did not seem to be as much on display.

I did the factory tour on Friday morning. I got the commemorative model of the box car no problem. You could also build a locomotive, as at Stauffer Park. The tour was well set out, but a lot of stairs, likely a problem for those who are not good walkers. It was a highlight to see the making of locomotives. The insider 103, and 75 were conspicuous. Staff were very patient at explaining, though my poor schoolboy German and their equivalent English was a challenge.

Leonard Weiss had a track bed repair machine, and what I think was a track laying machine. Their Kof was there too. There was not as much model railroad to see. There was one modular layout along the wall in the side room that was quite detailed. It was single track with passing tracks, and broken into blocks. Each block had an operator, and the pleasure seemed to be in passing off the train to the next controller. I wish the Italian Group with their wonderful M track layout of four years ago would come back. Unlike last Treff there was no display of thermite welding. The live steam groups were not there either.

Stauffer park had a good display of the main scenery, model, car, and train makers. As in past years Marklin was set up so that you could make a locomotive, however it was three variants of the Traxx type which I made last year, so I did not do one. One was in modern SNCF FRET livery that seemed popular. I bought one of the "treff" cars, a copper coloured tank car. I gather they ran out of those at some stage. It is quite attractive and I am happy with it. I got to play with a CS 3 for a little while. I think I need more time and perhaps some patient teaching to understand the advantages. Four years ago, as I recall Marklin had a CS 2 in a sort of Insiders only area with an attendant. Under his supervision I played with it, and the then new 218. It sold me on both. It was a large area with lots of tables where people were eating and watching presentations by Marklin.A repeat of that would have been good from my point of view.

I got to the meeting on platform 4 at 4. There were forum members from India, the U.S., Australia, The U.K., France, Spain, (I think), Canada (me), and Sweden. The meeting ended rather abruptly as the Rheingold was leaving, and we scurried off to watch it leave. The 241 was also moving to it was quite distracting.

The undisputed star of the event was the 241, both the big one, and the model. There seemed to be a rush to order, and even in some cases first to order from your particular dealer. I have ordered, but have no idea if I was the first from my part of the world.

The EWS arena seemed to have relatively little on display. There were some interesting layouts, but to me the best one was the outdoor one.

Another highlight, for me, was to have a beer at the Hohenstaufen and play with their Z gauge layouts, makes the beer taste great!! I hope to make it for 2019. For a Marklin fan it makes for a wonderful three days.

Hi there,
I'm John from Canberra, Australia to the right of Lisa in the green coat. We really enjoyed meeting our fellow Märklin fans and having dinner with them afterwards. That was one of our major objectives.
The Treff was well worth the visit, especially seeing the live action at the station and the factory tour. I was surprised not to see more layouts at Staufer Park but there were some wonderful ones there in any case.
We've just completed the Bernina Express today. On the plus side the scenery was incredible but on the negative side there was "unscheduled maintenance" on the line so a sizeable proportion of the trip was by bus!
Hope to keep in touch and it's great to be put a face to many of the people I've seen on the forum.
John
And thanks Mike for posting the photos!

I'm in the pictures, but hiding!

Nigel

I can see you

I'm on the far right n this pic.

Dave Pryor

Hi Rafael,

What a great set of photos, it was almost like being there.
You are a very good photographer.
And you have a range of perspectives, from close-ups to panoramas. Thank you.

I particularly liked the photo .....8902b which had a foreground of a catenary mast.
Marklin make a model of this mast, I was so pleased to see the real one.

And the photos of 3673 (eg. ....8821b ....8859b and .....8864b) are quite stirring.

regards
Kimball

Finally the "4 at 4" group ended up in a nice Italian restaurant filling up the energy reserves for the next IMA day 2017 in Goeppingen.







P.S.: sorry, I lost these pictures in my deep valley of the big chaos data of my computer. Where my searching machine found them again last weekend.

Yes I did. I even had a chance for a view inside, not only to the drivers cabin, also to see the engine, gear and exhaust system. But it was so narrow and overcrowded by the people, I did not make pictures, sorry.

Ah, as stated (by me) further up, I was expecting this to be in the 2018 NI. It is in the herbst Trix NI as a Minitrix item for delivery next year.

I know I'm a bit late, but as information to someone visiting this thread in the future:

The above mentioned store is the Märklin Museum. Next time it will be at a new location next to the main factory building.

My personal experience is that the Märklin Museum is a great store for everything Märklin and accessories from various other manufacturers (Noch, Viessmann, Faller etc.). Of course, you won't find any Roco, Fleischmann and PIKO there. .

I like going to the Märklin Museum. The term "Märklin World of Adventure" might be a bit over the top and expectation adjustments are needed. You should expect a store with a smaller exhibition. Not a resort with roller coasters, ice cream stands and hotels as the name implies.


Another store is
Spiel und Freizeit Rau
Poststrasse 52
73037 Göppingen

They have an okay selection of models and accessories. They also deal in RC cars etc. It is not as big as the Märklin Store, but that is to be expected.

I was at the Elser Toy Store as well, but that seemed to be only second hand and at prices that was ridiculously high. I cannot recommend that store. The store is located at Bleichstraße 6 in Göppingen.