This program was on Australia's SBS network last night. Maybe UK members have seen it already. The program documented the wild-haired one's efforts to run a series of Hornby OO scale trains 10 miles over the route of a closed and dismantled British Rail branch line. At the start of the program he visited Minatur Wunderland in Hamburg and talked with the two brothers who run it.

The best performer of the lot was a prototype model of a new high-speed train, which managed seven miles of dirty, bumpy and wet track before being reduced to a total wreck. Would Marklin trains have done any better?

I would call to the attention of honourable members the following extract from Wiki:

"In 1978, a Märklin Z scale locomotive pulling six coaches made its entry into the Guinness Book of World Records by running nonstop 1,219 hours, and traveling a distance of 720 km before the train stopped due to failure of the motor."

Before making unfair comparisons we should remember that the Little One ran under ideal conditions.

Hi,

Six video of Jame May's trains on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/...mp;search_type=&aq=f

Hahah Gee I had some great comments in the shop after that programme was shown here
One of my first customers in the next morning walked in and said "well that programme
on tv last night was a great advert for buying marklin" so we had a good laugh
and then my brain got the better of me and i worked out that my small train operating in the shop
frontlayout does about 7.5 kls a day,and also only needs oil about once a week, so i though our
marklin little brown electric does very well, compared to james may's lot.
Then he was followed by a chap with a hornby loco who said " I don't want to talk about last nights tv !!!
yes peco and hornby would not have been to happy about that very public failure
well we shall see what Ian Rice has to say next weekend at the nz national convention here in chch.
happy derailments
bryan

Thanks for the youtube link. I remember hearing about this and I'm glad I was able to see the show. I agree one of the biggest problems was a lack of roadbed. If they had attached it to plywood in sections ahead of time they could have had more success.

My quick calculations indicate that 10 miles is 1,609,344 cm's. That would be about 17,881 pieces of K-flextrack at a cost of $276,976 CAD from my dealer. C-track would need 85,467 pieces of 24188 at a cost of $298,279. I doubt the show would have budget for that.

Hat's off to them for trying and getting as far as they did.

Cheers...
Darren

'James May on the Moon' is being shown here on Monday night on the Documentary Channel, although I have already seen the youtube version.

Part 1 here:

Hmmm, I can't find it either. I'll upload it tomorrow for you Stephen.

There's also a companion program, 'James May At The Edge Of Space Part' which covers the training part of the U2 flight.

- part 1 of 3

Not necessarily. As I recall this was under heavy weather conditions like rain and lots of dirty track. Though I am positively sure, that a track with a built-in road bed would have made a better performance, I am not sure Märklin locomotives would have performed any better outside. Dirt in the motor will kill of just about any locomotive.

In my club, which is an exhibition layout, we have around 1200 meter of track, and some of our locos run there every opening day and has done so for lots of years. I think our oldest locomotive is a 30 year old Roco. No problems at all. Of course, they need care from time to time, but they still run.

True.
It was a comparison between BR 218 of several brands, Marklin, Fleischmann,Roco, & some other manufacturers....
A non stop running....
Fleischman: 2400 hours
Marklin: 2200 hours
and Roco: ...900 hours !
Another one did about 500/600 hours, do not remember which one...(another manufacturer of BR 218....I think Brawa was the big looser...)

But, it was the Marklin model of BR 218 with old 3 poles Flat commutator (FCM) motor, from a starter set....I would like to see with the 5 poles DCM motor which is known to have better electrical efficiency than the 3 poles FCM....

The most interesting was the reason why they stopped to work :
Fleischman: heavy failure leading to change transmission and motor.
Marklin: light failure leading to change 1 or 2 (or very few) available parts of the motor....

I would like to see some comparison with Marklin C-sinus motors or SDS-motors (like the new 218)....I think C-sinus with Marklin strong metal transmission would have been the winner...

Edited by user 02 April 2010 05:23:44(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Watched all the differenet programs and episodes- Best use of a Sunday ever.
Thanks for the link.
-George

Sorry, Rapidshare dont work for me as I am a AOL use.