I recently acquired a Märklin 43256 coach set and I am unsure of the correct order for assembling this train. Right now I am installing the interior lighting and I want to select the coach to run immediately behind the loco, which will not have a CC coupler on the front end.

The last coach will have to be the postal wagon, since it is the one which has the lighted rear marker lanterns. The packaging for this set shows the barrage coach just ahead of the postal coach. Then moving forward it shows the two skirted coaches, then the Speisewagen and finally the Hechtwagen passenger coach. My inclination is to start with the baggage coach right behind the loco, followed by the coaches, the Speisewagen, the Hechtwagen and then finally the postal coach. Of course I might cheat and run them this way even if it is not entirely proper, but it would be good to at least know that.

I usually follow the order that Märklin indicates but only recently have I discovered that this is not always correct. For almost 20 years I have been running my California Zephyr set in the order Märklin shows, which is not 100% correct. I know that there is a lot of knowledge about the prototypes on the forum and I am hoping that someone can enlighten me.

Hi Jim,
My personal opinion is that it is 80 years since this train ran, and I doubt definitive information would be available.
If so, Maerklin would have it.
Maybe a Google search might reveal an historical group who study this sort of thing, but I doubt it.

In assembling this train my rules on my layout are:
Assemble 2nd class next to 2nd class.
Assemble 1st class next to 1st class and so on.
Assemble dining car nearest to 1st class.
Assemble postal car and baggage car at the extremities of the train, aand not necessarily next to each another.

regards
Kimball

Hi Kimball,

I agree that if there is more definitive information out there, I have not yet found it.

I believe that I will start with the baggage car then follow that with the coaches in the order you suggest and finish off with the postal car. That is the one placement that is not really open to interpretation.

I used 73400 warm white led lighting and I have installed it in the postal car and the Speisewagen so far and it looks very nice. I have used the 73401 sets in other cars and although I like how bright they are, I think that the warm whites look better in the Era II coaches. I have been considering a class 19.1 loco and I needed to figure out what Märklin coaches would go well with it. Your info on these coaches and the locos that go with them sealed the deal for me. I also have a DB class 01 which will look great at the head of this train.

Thanks again for you most informative thread Kimball, which "forced" me to add this beautiful set of coaches to my roster.

Hi!
Not bad as a rule of thumb.

It seems that the coaches from the 43256 set have individual coach numbers above the train destination boards. There are several groups of consecutive coach numbers in some trains. Coach numbers can give you a specific order for coaches of the same class.

Grouping coaches by destination board usually overrides grouping them by class. And I'd also pay attention to the coach numbers.
The train may have some through coaches that leave the train at an intermediate station - those will usually be at one end - maybe even separated by a baggage coach.
The dining car may not go the full way - sometimes the destination board will tell you - and will then be at an end to be removed at an intermediate stop.

First off I would like to thank everyone who responded to my question. It is actually comforting to know that there is no right answer, so perhaps what I come up with is actually OK. I knew that the knowledge I was seeking was out there and I also knew that the good people on this forum would help a Mäklin brother out.

I agree Tom. Märklin could do a whole lot better job on their history and research, although IMO they often come up with plausible trains, even if they are not perfectly correct. Really it is just laziness on my part to trust them and not do the research myself, especially since I know that they do take liberties. I also need to be more open to incorporating coaches from other makers, such as Kimball has done. Doing this gives a longer and more accurate consist and adds the variability that makes a train look more realistic.

In Kimball's 2016 thread he educated us about the coach order numbers imprinted on these coaches, and since there are only three of them coach6/coach7/coach8 is pretty straightforward. I felt that the Speisewagen should be inserted adjacent to the 1st Class coach, as Kimball suggested. It is my inclination to run the baggage car first, even though Märklin and your forum source Tom agree that it should be next to the postal car. I like good information and then I also feel totally free to ignore it when it suites.

So my order will be as follows:
Pw4ü-23: Pike wagon baggage car
C4ü-23: Pike wagon coach - 3rd Class
WR4ü(39): Mitropa Speisewagen
AB4ü-38: Skirted Passenger car - 1st/2nd Class
C4ü-39: Skirted Passenger car - 3rd Class
Post4ü-a: Skirted Car - German State Postal System

I added the English descriptors so that pathetic people like me can analyze this stuff without a key. - I can add current conduction to the front of the baggage car if/when I decide to conform to the rules.

One thing I really like about this set is the mix of different but plausible coaches Märklin presents. It looks much more like a real train than the ideal world trains a lot of us assemble. Real railroads had to run what they had and often coaches mixed together as these are. They are all labelled for Stuttgart Tom, so you can't sort things out by that.

I do have one other question though. Why do the Hecht Wagens have ladders under them? Is that just because they hail from an earlier era when people were afraid of trains and thought that they needed readily available escape mechanisms? Perhaps there is another reason that I can not guess.

I know someone here knows the answer.

Edited by user 28 August 2018 13:07:41(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Hechtwagen ladders:
"The emergency ladder hangs on the compartment side. In case of an emergency stop (epoch 1 and 2) passengers were evacuated via the compartment side. Brackets are supposed to be in front of each compartment window for carrying the ladder. That is, one side ladder (compartment), the other side battery box."

Excerpt from post #114 (own translation): https://www.tt-board.de/...ensterrahmen.5787/page-5