hello members; i have been looking a long time for a br152 #3366 in green and finally got one. the person selling it also had a #2860 set which contains the brown ep5. i was pleased with the transaction and they're in perfect condition. on the test track with 3 passenger cars both loks slip like crazy. i noticed the previous owner must have used a four inch brush and a gallon of oil on the wheels so i removed the tires and cleaned everything with solvent. the tires got a dip and a wipe but were not replaced. the track was also cleaned. the problem improved somewhat but still not 100%. my next step will be to replace the tires with new ones. does anybody have the same problem with these loks? is this a characteristic of this model? when i lift the engine the driver assemblies flop around quite a bit. maybe the spring pressure on the drivers needs to be increased. so..i figured i'd ask the forum before i rip everything to bits and mess it up. mike

Hi, i have this set, and with the 2 coaches add on also, no slip problems.
Must be your tires, they become useless when oiled....

Mike,

I don't have these locos, but I have had a few over lubricated eBay locomotives that behaved the same way and required the same attention (cleaning and tires) Once you get new tires you should see a return to normal operation.

-Brandon

Hi Mike, this is another loco produced by Märklin with an inferior design, the driving bogies are attached to one side and this tends to lift the bogy slightly and therefore you will find, actually only 1 axle is touching the track, not having replaced the tyres completely as Ray suggested you' haven't got much of a grip and especially when attaching a moderate or prototypical amount of carriages behind the loco.

there isn't really a solution and I've tried a spring on one side of the bogy to counteract the lifting of the bogy itself but I think I have removed it since than. most locos have their bogies balanced in the middle so both axles are equally touching and transmitting torque to the track but having them hinged off balance eliminates the common practice and common logical thinking. you'll find other products e.g. ICE carriages, whereas the pivoting axle is off balance and you'll find proof that one axle has accumulated more dust , grime and dirt than the axle is closer to the pivoting connection arm, an other ill designed loco is the BR 53 whereas the whole weight of the boiler is set and sits on the back bogy (4 axles) here again the connecting screw between boiler and bogie is set off centre and it can result in the loco going over a set of double points and gets stuck at a point with one axle (rubber tyres) touching the point whereas the track has a gap and the rest of the axles having no torque left for the other axles to move the loco forwards because again the whole weight is on the last axle and not both first and last axle (both with rubber tyres), because the whole bogy is lifted up slightly in the front because of its unbalanced connection.

the loco I had, I modified slightly by adding a thin washer between the bogy and the boiler before screwing the both components together and therefore creating less play between the boiler and the bogy and at the same time the weight of the boiler is now transferred further to the front whereas before the weight of the boiler purely pushed the bogy with its off centre connection point up into the air slightly (first axle of the back motorized bogy. it was a pitty they didn't find a way by connected all axles so all axles are powered and the same goes for the loco BR 96 whereas the same both pivoting bogies only the rear is powered and the front assembly is purely running for fun. they've manged before to create steam locos to power all five axles, such as the BR 50, BR 44, etc etc. but gave the particular design a miss for what reasons is anybodies guess.

there also have been locos produced at a much later stage with new tooling, e.g. BR 38 whereas the same scenario appeared with the loco going over double point and the loco lost its grip or going up an incline, they have since added another front axle with rubber tyres. some locos these days are only produced for looks and accuracy but not performance. and it is unbelievable to produce a loco with metal boiler and a heavy freight loco in its total weight but can't pull a light freight load behind it, Märklin train enthusiasts who let Märklin off the hook time over and over again because they just like the look of the loco and its made from metal and the price and performance of a particular loco is something no one queries or have been aware of it or do have no desire to say anything about it. I wonder who's insanity is here in question like Dave (moderator) pointed out to me recently, creativity, intelligence, logic and reasoning has suddenly come to a halt and any constructive discussion or opinion has disappeared into thin air and no link between a personal attitude and ill constructed models, with the last word, "I'm happy the way it is" before going into hibernation and leaving the subject to rest until another loco comes a long and arouses another Happy day ahead of wasted energy in the model train world


John

You are right, there is no apparent problem with the BR 96 its just a pitty only 4 axles are powered and as you pointed out the Rivarossi model has 8 driven axles ,


on a none related issue, some of you may not care if this model has a sound decoder or not or whether it can be bought with a sound module but here again no one I've heard mentioning the failure to be able to add a smoke generator to this model but some had been able to convert this loco but enthusiasts keep buying this model at a high price and let Märklin get away with time after time. In the past we've excepted for certain shortcomings, such as missing brake shoe and all other none prototypical shapes and sizes and Märklin, I think is trying very hard to reproduce models closest to the prototype but at the same time leaving out essential components such as a smoke stacks, we've talked about having too many sound slots and most of them, normally we don't use them all, its a bit of a contradiction using a sound decoder in the first place and not having any smoke coming out of the smoke stack but this lack of weighing up what is essential and what is not has in my opinion gone off the track with comments made in the past and any plausible or noticeable balance by comparing either failures or excessive accessories has failed or has been ignored by leaving out any objective summary rating of a locos completeness.
We seem to be able to comment and detail on excessive sound slots but are unable to find fundamentally floored or missing components within a loco construction, suppose we are all part of an ideological believe what is right for me may not be right for you, what is exceptable for you may be odd for my standard and what are floored designs by me may be dream for you come through to be able to buy one of these long awaited locos and what is essential for me may be totally irrelevant to you.


John