Last week I received first shipment of much talked about Z21 digital control system and SmartRail functional presentation stand, and, boy, did my hands were itching to play with them!
Before I delve into details - I post this on Marklin forum because both Z21 and SmartRail work fine with Marklin digital system, and I thought it appropriate to post my impression in this Forum.

Z21, basically, is a digital control center which allows smartphones and tablets to be used as train/accessories controllers.
It comes in two flavors: full blown, stand alone "experts" version (retails for $499) and somewhat stripped down, but still plenty functional version to be found in several starter sets.

Stand alone version comes with Z21, wireless router, two power supplies (European, so you need two o f those traveler's conversion plugs here in the US), manual (German/English) and a LAN cable.
Manual is excellent, by the way.



It took 2 minutes to connect everything together - power in, LAN cable from Z21 to router as directed, track (I used Marklin C track) connection into Z21 Main Line.
Next up was to download Z21 application from Google app store (it is free) to my 2 year old Samsung phone (it also works with iPhone, iPad, all Android phones and tablets).
You then turn on Wi-Fi on the phone, open up Wireless Networks settings, find that now you have this new Z21 network, connect to it with supplied password, and that's it.

I had one of the Marklin mfx locos lying around, so put it on track and in the downloaded app I entered its address and quickly setup some sound functions on the app screen.
Z21 offered to take a picture of my new loco and, this being smart phone, it imported taken image, cropped it automatically and there it was.





Once you setup all your locos and other digital appliances, it is time to play

Pressing "Control" loads up digital inventory, you select the loco (I only had my Marklin loco and another Roco AC loco entered in). Control screen has throttle, direction control, functions icons and emergency stop. On a side it has small tab to switch to layout (turnouts, signals, etc) control mode. On the bottom there are icons of all your other locos; you swipe right/left to select the one you wish to control and off you go. On iPad (borrowed with considerable difficulty from my daughter) you can control two locos side by side.

I was mightily impressed. One of the things I did was to walk away with phone in hand to the other side of the basement, around the corner, and still I had connection to router and still was able to control my layout. Imagine getting few train buddies together armed with their smartphones walking around layout and operating different pieces of it!

Z21 also offers downloading digital cab of several locos and to operate those via touching cab controls (much like in Marklin new MFX+), but I did not progress to that stage (yet).
It also talks about camera equipped locos that stream video into your cab control view, so you literally driving the loco around your layout as if you were an engineer inside your loco




But this will have to wait until another day.
Check out this website:
Z21 Website


Next up was to take wraps of very heavy, very handsome (and pricey) SmartRail Roco package.
SmartRail is a Rolls Royce treadmill for your AC/DCC locomotives. It is absolutely stunningly beautiful, beech wood, high end gloss finish - it is really something else.
And it has glass cover to keep dust away.




So it has these what looks like base guitar strings "rails" that run in the endless loop. It also has infrared detectors to make sure rails match speed of the running loco.
And it has basic controls: power, digital functions F1-F4, direction and speed control.



And if that wasn't enough - SmartRail has Z21 built-in, so you control all loco's functions from your smartphone.

Again, excellent manual. Plug it in (same European plug), light is blue, press On, light turns white and red square light blinks indicating it is ready for the loco.
I took Marklin mfx loco, put it on "rails" and pressed blinking light. It took all of 10 seconds for SmartRail to recognize the decoder address and all controls light up in white light -
ready for operations. And the loco responded to sound functions and to throttle/direction controls by starting to running in place. I could not get very precise with built in throttle control at first, it took some practice. Diesel and Electrics don't look like much running in place, but, of course, Steamers look awesome on SmartRail.

SmartRail happens to be terrific, albeit expensive loco test bench in general.

I then proceeded to put Roco DCC loco on and same exact thing happened - loco's decoder was recognized very quickly.

Seeing the picture of SmartRail I first thought that it is big enough for Marklin Big Boy, but, alas, it is not


Roco and Fleischmann have several very exclusive SmartRail + top locomotive bundles, including some AC locomotives.
It is an amazing high end product through and through, and I hope it will be made available as a stand alone item in the near future.

SmartRail has its website as well:
SmartRail Website


Well, another boring day in the office
Michael