Hi
welcome to the forum

To answer some of your questions.
1/ the feeder track intorduces the current to the live dots in the middle and also carries the eart from the rails.

2/ C track is the new raised track and has built in ballast. It replaced the M track which was made of metal.
The K track is more "traditional" with only the rails and sleepers.
Both are served by raised dots acting as the 3rd rail and the power source for the engines and coach lighting etc.

3/ Analogue control is by transformer and will control sections of isolated track or complete circuits. Normally only one engine per circuit/section is controlled by one transformer.
Digital means each engine is chipped and controlled separately from the main controller. In the case the whole track is constantly live and the control is via the chip in the loco.
Analogue locos will not run on digital tracks as they will be under full power all the time.

4/ it is always possible to start by buying separate items but sets do provide good value for money. Also to consider is buying second hand from ebay.de, for example.

Hope that helps

Mike

Hi and Welcome to the forum.

Yep. A starter set from a good dealer is the way to go. This gives you everything you need and a booklet that will answer most of your questions abd get your first train running. Thereafter the forum here is great for questions when expanding the layout.

dave

A warm welcome to the forum from me too.

As already said, here you will find a lot of useful information.

Cheers

Renato

Welcome to the forum! I am sure you will have lots of fun hanging here and enjoying discussions!

Hi nv, welcome to THE best place to talk Märklin!

As others have suggested, a Starter Set is a fine way to begin -- you get everything you need to get up and running, and there is a good variety to choose from at various price levels (although -- being Märklin -- none especially cheap...)
I agree that a Starter Set with a Mobile Station 2 is probably best to begin with: it will give you good control, without too much complication and setup time.
I strongly suggest you peruse the available Starter Sets and find one that suits your budget and interest, and buy that.
Digital is really the only way to go nowadays -- others may (actually, will!) disagree, but every thing new from Märklin is fully digital.

C-track is a "click together" system the replaces the old M-track (for "metal track"). It has the road bed built in (made of plastic), and can be easily connected and pulled apart for a "carpet-bahn". K-track is more for a proper permanent "layout", where you build the road bed and place the tracks on it, with all the associated weathering and details. It consists only of (plastic) ties/sleepers and the rails+center studs.
Actually, C-track looks pretty good (considering it's nature). It is like the Kato (2-rail) track system.

As to digital control, understand that the old "analog" locos cannot run with the new digital controllers, but the new digital locos can run with the old analog transformers (with some caveats about exactly which/how old the analog transformer is).
Go digital.
Yes, it can be confusing, but the Märklin literature does quite a good job explaining how everything works in practice.
Basically, the track provides constant power to the loco, and also digital commands to the "decoder". The decoder then controls the motor to set the speed, and also all the extra "functions" like lights, smoke, horns, sounds etc...
When you bump up the speed of a loco on the controller, it sends digital commands to the decoder to increase the speed of the motor.
Each loco gets a unique address/identification, so you can control multiple locos at the one time.

Similarly, fx and mfx are just varieties of "languages" with different capabilities, but they are essentially transparent to the you, the user (mfx has more capabilities than fx, but your MS2 will control them all to the best of their abilities.)
Märklin Delta and Digital (Motorola) are simply older version of the digital control language, and your MS2 will control them perfectly correctly. This is one huge advantage with Märklin -- they go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that their new controllers will correctly control all of their older digital locos/systems.

If you buy a new Starter Set, you don't need to worry about digital protocols or compatibilty...
.
.
.
until the Märklin bug really bites and you start scouring e-bay for old locos to convert to digital... Then the fun really begins...

And yes, that streamlined BR03 is a beautiful thing...

Oh, I forgot to mention... Along with the BR 03 streamliner set, I saw a couple of things on special offer:
An electric locomotive with AGFA emblazoned on the side (83463 I believe?) - EUR109
A steam loco with the product number 33952 - Labelled "Marklin Delta" - EUR119
And a tiny steam locomotive with no identification except its brand - EUR27 - it did look like it came from "My Start with Märklin" though.
Also a new electric loco with the hvle.de markings on the side - made me think of doing something like this:

Anything worth picking up ahead of time? You know- "get it before it's gone"?

I have just skimmed through the thread so I might have missed it but regarding what to get I think it is up to you. Have you decided on a certain Era or country to model, or will you collect and run a variety of trains? Some people get the items that look good to them, and of course that is a very nice way to get a layout with lot's of different interesting items.

Good luck

Oliver

One day if you find some old models in your grand father's attic ....you can always make an analog locomotive becoming digital . You just have to install a decoder inside.
For instance : about old analog Marklin models, you will find some special electronics kits with 1 decoder + a few motor parts allowing you to improve the old motor. In Germany you should find plenty of good info in German about it...Germany is the planet of Model Railroading...

Looks like I'm pretty locked onto the Railpool starter. Guess I'll have to wait for some time before I can join the fun...