Maybe a question John river6109 will know right off but many (15?) years ago I purchased a Roco 43512 Re 4/4 "Bahn Rail Ferrovia" model at auction.

I have run it a couple of times on DC and it runs smoothly and quietly. I've always liked Roco's models, from what I've heard generally well-built and reliable.

I have a couple of options on this. I can leave it as it is, and run it DC from the overhead on Märklin track, nice and simple.

I can look at converting it to 3-rail using original Roco parts, from the instruction sheet it seems it was offered in a 3R variant

I can ditch this one and look for a factory 3R version of the same (or ditch it and get the Marklin equivalent 3330 or 3630).

But I quite like the idea of a little variety at least.

So I guess the first question is would I still be able to get the required parts from Roco to do the conversion? It may be that all I need is a pickup shoe and the plate it mounts to but I suspect it's not as simple as that because I'd still need a connection from the shoe up to the motor

Is this a candidate for adding a Digital Decoder and which one would be best?

I've added some pictures below, and the service sheet that comes with it. It's virtually as-new, minimal running. I did also get a Croc at the same time but I sold that some years back because I could see that converting it would be a major task.

Thoughts, anyone done a similar conversion?

Also, it came with a spare pair of driving wheels, they appear to be replacements for the installed ones which have traction tyres, the spare ones do not. Any particular reason they included these?