Hi there,

Quick question: Is it any other brand out there compatible with Marklin 1 Gauge tracks and equipment? I was looking to purchase a 1 gauge loco, and also analyzing it purchasing a railking MTH locomotive was a good idea, but the MTH loco has a pickup shoe, which, far as I know, the 1 M gauge doesnt.

Thank you in advance.

Hello,

German steamers and US diesels.

Ah, so like the early Maxi items from Marklin ...

mth rail king is 3 rail a.c. similar to marklin ho except for size. it is NOT compatible with marklin gage-1. mike.

The names of the MTH product lines are confusing in this tread. MTH RailKing is 0-scale and those items are primarily 3-rail but also 2-rail. The MTH H0 is primarily 2-rail but there are some 3-rail engines too.

MTH RailKing OneGauge is their 1/32 product line. It is 2-rail. The modern diesels have wheels that are said to cope with Marklin tracks. The ones in the latest catalogue (2013) have the ProtoSound 3 decoder with DCC. The older ones have ProtoSound 2 with the MTH DCS protocol only - and that is not compatible with anything else. http://www.mthtrains.com/

Bjorn

MTH One Gauge locomotives have pickup shoes, but that is mainly because they are designed for garden railroad operation. I have some F7s on order which will be running on Peco and Märklin track, and I plan to remove the pickup shoes, since the models have wheel pickups also.

As Björn said, the older models are not DCC compatible and they have pizza-cutter wheel flanges, but you should be OK with the 2013 models.

Jens

To be fair, I also plan to repower the models with NWSL trucks eventually. They will be running on MTH factory trucks for a while, though.

One reason to keep the pickup shoe is that e.g. a four-axle MTH diesel has traction tires on one wheel pair, effectively reducing the wheel pickup efficiency by 25%.

Jens

Don't worry about the different brands. In my club we have all kinds of brands running at the same time. As long as the command station knows the protocol and the wheels are OK for the track, you're fine.

I fully expect my MTH F7s to run on the club layout right from the box, but the MTH design is a little odd. The two A units are a master/slave set with only one decoder. MTH is using a proprietary protocol called DCS or ProtoSound, but PS version 3 understands basic DCC, which is why I ordered these units.
The B units are dummies, however. No power, no sound and no smoke, so I want to fit NWSL power trucks and ESU LokSound decoders and smoke units in those. To match the A and B units (I've ordered an ABBA consist), I want to install ESU decoders in the A units as well, and to improve current pickup, I expect to fit NWSL trucks in the As also.

I had originally planned to fit only powered NWSL trucks for a ridiculously overpowered 16-axle drive, but since then I have "accidently" ordered one more B unit so I'll have an ABBBA consist, and I think I'll settle for one powered truck on each unit. It should be more than enough

Mainly that the NWSL trucks don't have traction tires, so the current pickup is better - which doesn't matter if you leave the pickup shoes on, but as I said, I want them off.

didn't know that!!! I'll take a look :-)

Just beware of the "standard gauge" models produced by LGB, Piko, and the late lamented AristoCraft. They use the same 45mm track gauge but are physically larger.

These are usually somewhere around 1:29 scale as their manufacturers wanted to avoid them looking undersized next to G scale models (which use 45mm gauge track to represent either 760mm or metre gauge, so are larger than 1:32).

It gets even weirder if you look at the "standard gauge" LGB models.

Apparently the bogies on the DB coaches are 1:32 scale, but the coach body has been blown up so as not to look undersized with their G scale range.

Japanese manufacturers make both Shinkansen and standard Japanese trains to run on 9mm track. As the standard trains are narrower gauge they use a larger scale, so both are correct in relation to the track gauge.