Hi Karl,

According to the informatiom I found in Koll,s catalog the differences are only small.Like you already said the GN 800 was produced after the G 800 model from 1955 until 1957.

Apart from the above mentioned there are some differences in the couplers and some of the GN 800 (GN 809 to be precise)have a plastic tender.

Best regards
Guus

post scriptum: Congratulations with your purchase .It's one of the Märklin classics isn't it [:p].

The most obvious difference is that metal tender. Be warned, the G 800's tenders are notorious for zinc rot. I would thuroughly inspect and G 800 for this before purchase, and if possible do so in person and not but one on ebay that may have the rot hidden/ masked or a restored coal load.

Very Nice Locomotive!,i notice coal added on tender.

What was said above by Guus and John sums it up. I simply wanted to add something about tenders and couplings.

GN 800 had a new front coupling which was even mentioned in the 1955 catalog. It was assembled on the front bogie in order to move in the curved sections. Therefore, as claimed in the catalog, a second locomotive could be used in front of the GN 800, to increase traction power. That was a daily occurence then on mountain railroads, and model railroaders wanted to copy this.

The odd thing is that although the new coupling sat deeper than the old one on the bogie, the hole for the old coupling from the G 800 was still left there. Have a look, there normally is a little hole between the front Puffer.

Tender: GN 800 received the new plastic tenders marked 809, yet, as very often happened during this time, Märklin used up the old left over tenders as long as they had one. So you will find GN 800 with metal tenders as well. I have a similar item, the same BR 44, just 10 years later: it changed from 3027 to 3047, lost one window, received smoke, Telex coupling ok. But the one I have: still the old 3027, with two windows, but Telex and smoke installed alright. As I said: I think they said, ok, here's the new 3047, and some production chief would say, let's first use the old 3027 frames ...

Johann

Almagik: is that the original coal load? My tender has the pest around the inside, where coal comes in contact, but nowhere else. But, I only have just a few grains of coal... the size of granulated sugar (about 3mm^3 each).

Anyway, wondering if you or anyone else knew where to get more coal.