I agree .
Untill now we were treated to a big " computing-Bug" Hunting ***, but no reports <u>in situ</u> about a train & layout controller.[|)]
ie pointing to what appears to me as the most clever and clearest interface I have never seen (user-interface) , considering the purpose... ( beating many PC softwares in terms of clarity and many other aspects). How it works with installed layouts and running machines , or S88 ...etc...etc
Unfortunately, I expect to have mine not before Christmas , or early 2009...
Sierra Delta started a nice report...but didn't go far...

*** this is not a personnal attack [:o)] thank you .

John,
That's what I think that Lutz was saying as well.Edit: I see that I was correct. For me, the simple answer to your question is yes - very much so. I'll try to make a couple of observations below.

Jehring,
No worries , but one could say reporting has been temporarily suspended while my CS2 is in Göppingen. Anyway, I can still describe a few important things from memory.

I should start by saying that my layout is very much in the early stages of construction and as such I still have a lot of freedom when it comes to selection of addresses for switches etc. I say this because that is one of the differences with CS1 where you could freely chose the address of an accessory - regardless of which of the "Control Area" pages you would place it on. With CS2 you have 20 "Keyboard" pages with 16 addresses available on each, ie. page 1 contains 1 to 16, page 2 contains 17 to 32 and so on. In my case, not a problem at all. I can still easily change addresses if I want to group my accessories according to functionality or placement on the layout, whereas someone with an <s>old</s> well established layout may not be able to do so.

Which then brings me to the biggest change for me - the CS2 Layout section. After setting up the accessories in the Keyboard section and then incorporating them in my Layout pages there has been no need to go back to the Keyboard section for controlling purposes - all switching takes place on the Layout pages. For a fine example of how much can be achieved with this initial version take a look at Steven's work here: http://steventrain.fotopic.net/p54473925.html

The final thing I will mention today is the obvious shift towards the built-in Help function being the primary source of documentation. I think it is fair to say that the included printed material merely serves as an inspirational introduction to all the possibilities that you have with the CS2. To me this is a smart move by Märklin - when new functionality is gradually added to CS2 over the years there will be no need to reprint the manual, this can simply be incorporated in the on-line help.

So much for a bit of additional information I'll be back with more when my CS2 returns. Be advised that I'll be away most of next week

There was one of these sets on ebay that I posted a link to a week or two ago. Somewhat rather expensive though, it was the set with the BR85 and BR55, and worked out to be around NZD 3500, where the original set retails at $1750. I wouldn't worry about John wanting an era II set, just find him a 1985 museum car at a good price and he will be very happy (we are trying to make up the gaps in our club's collection, anyone with a 1985, 86 or 87 museum car for sale, let me know).

Mind you, having said that, a set with class 18.1 and a class 38 could be tempting, even for this era III, IV and V collector....

Looks like the home page has crash right now [:o)]

Lutz and Goofy: I was responding to Goofy who asked about whether the CS2 is made in Germany or China. Clearly the supposition is that the quality works like Germany=Good; China=Bad. The reality is that the industrial base for electronics is very international, and if a company outsources the manufacturing of an electronics part like the CS2 to another company, it is ultimately the responsibility of the company ordering the product to assure quality. So China, Germany, Hungary, Malaysia, USA, Taiwan, Japan, doesn't matter in terms of who bears the corporate responsibility for quality: it's that little company in Goeppingen.--MM

When the CS2 is updated to 1.05(3), it will update the Track Format Processor of any booster connected to it to version 1.5. They ship with 1.3. I know for certain because that's what my CS2 told me today when it updated to 1.05(3) this morning.

Lutz I think I am a REAL User and the Unit I got was full of faults and was dead in about 6 hours. It was not ready for release. IF M* knew that the early serial Numbers were faulty they should have withdrawn them from sale.


I will stick with the CS1.
We connected it up and away it went no problems.

NN

The queen is dead (not really, just until v3.0 comes and the connection box both come and the CS1 gets relocated to teh Bw area of the layout) long live the queen!

Just as a quick follow-up - and happy end - to my faulty controller problem described earlier in this thread. I got my CS2 back from Göppingen today, well in fact they sent me a brand new replacement unit.

It came with the 1.02 software version loaded, but I had a USB stick with v1.05(3) as well as my last backup from the first unit prepared, so it took me less than 5 minutes to be back in business

The new unit has serial no. 2944 and has shown no signs of problems during an evenings worth of running.

Søren:

Glad to hear that Marklin took care of this for you.

r/mark

Is the Delta control box an emergency backup?

BTW, here's the reply I got when I asked what was wrong with the original CS2 I bought:

Dear Mr Alves,

Thank you very much for your e-mail and your interest in our products.

At the sent Central Station was a defective controller and the touchscreen was not responding.

Sincerely yours,

Your Maerklin Customer Service

Gebr. Maerklin & Cie. GmbH
Customer Service
P.O. Box 960
D-73009 Goeppingen
Phone: +49 7161 608-222
Fax: +49 7161 608-225
E-mail: Service@maerklin.de
Website: www.maerklin.com
0M0K