Hi everyone,
I had a quick question for those
with knowledge of French railways. While I normally model exclusively Swiss items, I purchased the blue-ish Marklin 3038 BB9200 electric locomotive about a year ago and want to learn more about it. It is a bit of a strange story, but I bought it as a bit of a gag gift for my father's 60th birthday, who often jokes that the color is so ugly it is one of the few Marklin locomotives he won't own! After his near-heart attack and gifting of some passenger cars he had been after I was able to keep the 3038 for myself, as I think it is quite good looking!

My question is, I know Marklin made the 4050 TEE silver coaches for this loco, but is that a prototypical consist for it? I don't have any 4050's, but I do have a nice 41871/72 TEE INOX set I'd like to match it with; and was curious if the aluminum and blue-ish color ran in real life?

Thanks for your inputs!

Hello,

France has 2 different voltages for catenary: the older 1500 volts DC, and the 25000 volts AC 50 Hz.
At the time of the first electrification (Paris to Orleans -- Orleans is directly south of Paris), AC was not completely mastered, so it got DC. Later, when AC was mastered, it was much more economical, and that's why the north and east parts of France and the Riviera, along with a few lines in Jura and Alps are 25 kV AC.
The BB9200 (3038 and 3059 Capitole) were designed for the AC lines, while the BB16000 (looking almost the same as the 9200) was designed for the AC lines. The BB25200 was designed for both AC and DC, having one pantograph for each current (25200 = 9200 + 16000).

So, in short, if you want to be absolutely prototypical, your 3038 has to "run" on the Paris-Bordeaux, Paris-Toulouse and Paris-Marseille lines. The problem with the 4050 is that the itinerary states "Munich" if I remember correctly. And the 9200 never pulled a train from Paris to Strasbourg (to be cont'd to Munich), that was the 16000's job...

The 41870/71 were also used on the Paris - Lille (north of France) TEEs, and pulled by... a 16000!!

Oh, but if you want to prototype a train from Paris to Marseille, you can stick a couple of 4029 in there along with the 4065s. The 4065 is not very common, and can be pricy , but the 4029 is quite common and not expensive.

As you can see on the wikipedia page as indicated by Mike, you will see that the 9200 has had a lot of different liveries. The geen/bluish one is the first one, and yes, it was pulling the Corail passenger cars at the beginning of their existence.

But heck, you do not have to be 100% protoypical, do you?

Cheers,
Ricky

Hi,

hereafter, a BB9200 pulling the famous "Mistral" train in the early 60's...

Regards
Joël

As it comes out of the box, the Märklin BB 9200 doesn't look so good because of the wrong pantographs (Märklin fitted the BB 9200 with DB pantographs!!!) and the grey plastic window panes. I replaced those with clear windows, and installed Sommerfeldt SNCF pantogrpahs, #933.



In the video, it is hauling a consist of SNCF and SNCB coaches from the Märklin 00796 set.

Regards,
Florian

I used some kind of transparant plastic foil, like it is used as a packaging for car models, for example, or blister packagings.

I have used the same material for the tuning of my E 424.

Regards,
Florian

All correct!
But don't forget the most famous train made of a 9200 and inox coaches : the Mistral between Paris Gare de Lyon and Nice!
When it first went to Inox cars like the 4065, these were bearing large "Le Mistral" signs on the sides.
The restaurant car was (almost an antique) WR from the CIWL
All one needs are the distinctive silver "Mistral" signs to complete a striking consist ...:I am still looking for these!
Cheers

Aha!
I'll be looking for these now.
Being in France should make it easy.
On the other hand , I'll dig out the pics of teh old inox cars with teh big aluminum Le Mistral signs, so you'll have an idea of what they looked like.
Definitely often hauled by 9200s, but mainly by CC 7100s too!

Cheers