As a returning Marklin person, the first thing I wanted was a catalogue. You know, the printed kind, on dead trees. The Marklin on-line shop wanted 10 euro plus another 10 for shipping. So I looked for official stockists but there are none in Ireland
However, there are two (only 2?) in the UK and I managed to have a reason to be near one of them in Ford, near Arundel in Sussex down the south of England. It's called Gaugemaster (The Engine Shed). Wow! I was like a kid in a sweetshop. They have a comprehensive range of model railway material, locos, track, modelling stuff, landscape, buildings, etc. Having drooled over Fleischmann, Roco, Faller, Noch, etc. I still had not seen the Marklin stuff. Eventually, in a corner I found a stand with a small amount of Marklin locos and rolling stock. Very disappointing. But they did have the catalogue.
At the checkout, I asked about shipping to Ireland - no problem. BUT... the guy advised that they have great difficulty getting stuff from Marklin and the lead time is about 3 months. He advised me to buy directly from Marklin on-line.

So if you are in the UK, it's a great shop, but not for Marklin, I'm afraid. They have a very comprehensive website, too, but not sure whether it's ok to put a link here.

I use Schweickhardt for a lot of orders from Germany. I am sure that they ship to Eire and they do not charge extra for credit card. They have English speaking staff who can respond to emails/queries in English. I guess that your best bet is to compare the list price of various dealers, the shipping costs and decide which one is the best option. You may also want to consider the possibility of flying one of the cheap carriers to the continent and doing your shopping in person. I bet that many of the members in North America, Australia and NZ would love to be able to do that. If you do shop in person, you can still have the items shipped to you rather than bringing all of them back with you.

Regards

Mike C

There are dealers in the UK who will order new Märklin for you.

There's Modellbahn in Towcester, and Mount Tabor models in Matlock, for example. But I don't think there's anywhere you can walk in and see a good display of current Märklin production.

Gaugemaster has always been expensive, but when they were the Märklin distributor for the UK they tried really hard to give good service. They held regular weekend meetings of the Märklin Club (that they also hosted at the time), and Dieter Lorenz from Märklin in Goppingen used to hold technical seminars at Gaugemaster for customers. Due to a very bad decision by a previous generation of Märklin management, Gaugemaster lost the distributorship, and have since lost interest in Märklin altogether. That's understandable. They are still a very good company to deal with, though they now major on lesser (in my opinion!) European brands like Piko, Roco, Fleischmann, etc.

I'm afraid that UK Märklin buyers now need to shop in Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium) to get good availability, or online, of course.

Nigel

I use the following dealer in Germany. I have placed many orders with them. They deliver literally to Scotland within 3 working days. All parcels are extremely well wrapped and protected. Their prices are also very competitive. I have used ETS and Lokshop in the past, but find Joe better for my requirements. Alan

http://www.joes-modellbahnlaedle.net/