Hi,

I agree fully with John. I am going to take the product as I don't want my dealer to get stuck with it. If it preforms as badly as the reports have been, I will put it on e-bay and take what I can get for it. There is no point in having it take up space that can be used for something worthwhile.

Jack

I know it is not wise to extrapolate a position from one datum point, but it almost seems like Marklin's attitude is "we already have the Insider's loyalty so we don't have to pay attention to what we sell to just them...let's concentrate on products to attract new buyers" I hope that is not the case and that this is just an oversight. Time will tell.

BTW: Märklin will fire another 70-80 workers, if Christmas sales are "not up to expectations". Expect more to come in early 2006.
Lousy quality is certainly a good means to let dump sales numbers
below expectations in order to fire more people and move production to other plants without investing money in new machinery, tooling and the like. Money they simply don`t have any more.
Guess they`re in the state of agony.

Regards,
Manfred

Perhaps Maerklin should "career reallocate" it's management - who are obviously making bad decisions with regards to marketing strategy, product design and quality - instead of picking on the line employees.

A losing Hockey team fires it's coaches (in Canada for example) and not nessecarily the players who are just doing what is asked of them by the coaches.

It is truly unfortunate Maerklin isn't a publically traded company (an AG) - their board of directors would have a field day with these managment goofballs.

As for the Wegmann train I also added some ground conductors to it - the electrical system is truly inept and half-assed design solution -take that guys engineering degree away!

The Z -scale Wegmann - absolutely flawless and well executed - is Maerklin still making Z-scale at Goeppingen or is it farmed-out to the Trix factory in Nuernberg?

Great signature, Frostie

I would say if you want to change management at Marklin and we don't have any influence through stockholders votes, we can vote with our wallets. Tell you dealers to cancel the order or return the box to Marklin with the H-W. Vote with our wallets!
I have heard that in the 1990's, Lionel had got themselves ito a similar position. the locos looked nice in the box, but many wouldn't run. Lionel knew that most of the locos stayed in the boxes, so why push quality control?
The cheaper marklin $100 electric locos are probably good because they are using proven parts, design, manufacturing, and technology.
I bet marklin found itself running way behind on this train - new motor, cost-cutting (cutting quality checks out), poor management, and its new PR firm pushed them to get it released regardless of whether it was ready and tested OK.
I would guess that there must be many good top quality business and manufacturing managers in germany who also happen to be model railroad enthusiasts - that is who the marklin family needs to bring in. I don't get the sense that Gomez Adams is a long time MRRer. This group of management seems more interested in fluff like expos in old castles and other baloney like that, than sound engineering and quality manufacturing.

I should have kept my Lima H-W!
Does anyone know if the Rivarossi H-W was a nice model? I know it had some more detail than the Lima (wire hand rails applied), but did it run good?

Manfred,

please give us the source of this statement. And please do not say it is from a German forum, because they do not give a source as well. And please note that it can also NOT be found in aforementioned German forum's link to a website at SWR online. Nothing resembling a statement like yours could be found after extended search, at least not by me !!!

This would really be helpful. Thank you very much in advance !!

Hans

Thank you Manfred.

But please note that nothing of this kind is stated at www.modellbahn-kurier.de and that one post refers to said radio news, which have been removed annd nobody is able to find.

Please remain confident that if anything like this was true, we would have read about this in every German newspaper, or at the very least in the newspapers from around Stuttgart.

Funny that those sites have archives showing all kind of news from the past months, like Märklin news from May or September this year, but yesterday's news concerning further redundancy of workers has been completely removed with no trace whatsoever ...

Hans

It is quite interesting that quality has become an issue (again) for Märklin, since Mr Adams comes from a company that makes high-quality power tools (Metabo). We have some power drills from Metabo at work and they are certainly of much better quality than the Black & Deckers, Bosch's, Skils and other "big names" in that business... I believe he was hired to get the quality up and to streamline production at higher quality levels and bigger volumes than in the 90's when Mr Topp was at the rudder...

Steven ! Where did you get those wonderful punch and judy animations.
Stephen(USA)

No. It is actually a very, very bad runner. It can't run decently on anything but R3, and derails on most of my C-track turnouts and certainly on all double switches.

Luis

Stephen: You're so right - it's o.k. to be critical, but staying fair should be prima ratio ...
As I said in another topic: M's whole new line of U.S. models is just that - excellent [:p][:p][:p] !!!

John

Heres an important note: I just recieved my ETS newsletter in the mail and I states that the pickup shoes on the set is of the noise reduction type (like Roco) designed for C track. If you run M or K you are supposed to change to a normal pickup shoe for better running quality.

squealing breaks should be heard when the loco decelerates real fast, like in an emergency brake situation.

What I have read on a forum in Germany. It looks like they have solved the problem. New software for the decoder. But you still have need of a layout with the track very well laid.

http://stummi.foren-city...enschel-wegmann-zug.html

You can also put the this sound out. On a mobile station there is no symbool for.

I happened toick up my H-W today. Proud to say that I have every annual insider locomotive (or set) since the subcscriber locomotive started.

The locomotive is very impresive, and I have no complaints about the way it operates. I know that I need to work on my layout and othrr than that It runs well.

This was the first set that my dealer lokked at also, and he thought the car looked like something from Bachman. He and his father agreed that the cars were not up to the usual Marklin quality and they have been involved in Marklin quite a while.

To me this is almost like the Adler set. A real pretty locomotive with a great paint job and it was all you could expect with the technology at the time. It was included with a simple wooden display box and some simple plastic cars.

Not as pricy as the H-W, and that is what has most people torqued off, I am sure.

NutI have to admit that I like it on the layout (and the display case) anyway. And in essence that is all that counts for me.

I am happy with mine with the exception of the little plastic cars attached that came with it. It actually runs fairly nice.

The problem is one of expecting the old marklin and getting the new marklin.

Well it is a pretty locomotive anyway.

But how wonderful would it have been if it had detailed interiors / interior lighting / and red end of train lighting !!!

I would have been willing to pay more to get this.

Just got my HW set and will run it for eight! hours straight on the ETE modules tomorrow. I'll post a report. I changed sliders and it seems OK for now. I'll install lighting kits also tomorrow as I had some hanging around.

The passenger cars are pure Marklin, and are comparable to current production with provision for current conducting couplers, and a metal weight within the plastic chassis. The weight is comparable to other plastic Marklin cars, and should track just fine. But I'll let you know.

I adjusted the acceleration and deceleration parameters with my Mobile Station, and per the instruction book, lowered the top speed. The lok was set for analog running.

Two criticisms only so far: Set for analog running? Who does Marklin think buys something this sophisticated? The primary customer has to be a digital user. Two, the lok and original slider could not have been tested on any test track prior to packaging. My lok didn't go three centimeters on my C-Track test track laid perfectly flat, before shorting. This comes under the heading of "What Were They Thinking???"

I'm back after an eight hour running session with the HW zug. As some of you may know, the ETE modular layouts are a very dirty environment with many mechanical connections, and lots of joiner tracks between modules translating into a lot of uneven track.

The HW train passed with flying colors. There was not a single derailment, and the cars tracked accurately. No false uncouplings occured. I installed a couple of lighting kits (all I had time for) and they went in easily, except for the end cars, where a hole had to be drilled in the interior where the seats are. It cannot be seen, and I wonder it wasn't done at the factory. As stated before in my comments, these are normal Marklin cars, with a weight in the center of the chassis. This is consistent with current production of all their passenger cars. The cars track well, and were even run backwards on the layout and through some switches as a double-check. They are not "too light". The interior details are also consistent with current Marklin production. Frankly, I don't know where the gripes are coming from. Remember, these cars only supported second and third class passengers in real life, so there would likely be no lit table lamps.
So in my opinion this train is definitely not a shelf queen. It's a runner. Price is a subjective matter, but if all the cars were metal, and it had the characteristics of the VT 11.5, it would cost a lot more than it does. The VT 11.5 with all the additional cars costs upwards of over $1100. The HW costs about 1/2 of that.

Re: your question Peter. The instructions of the HW indicate that the speed of the train is calibrated for protoypical running under analog conditions, but will have to be slowed down under digital operations. Traditionally the decoders have reflected analog characteristics and in fact, one of the tests of a good decoder is whether it will run under analog conditions.

The more I read about this cheap-looking version of the HW, the more I think that it should've been issued under "the hobby series" instead of an overpriced Insider model. I still haven't received mine, but I do harbour very dark misgivings about its looks. I firmly believe that this was a missed opportunity by Märklin to come out with an impressive, richly detailed, all-metal model of a long-awaited train, equipped with smoke generator, cabin details, interior lighting and tail ligths. What a pity! It might have even won the Model of the Year prize.

Greetings,
Armando

The HW is comparable to many of the passenger sets issued by Marklin in recent years (26509, 26530, 26526). I, too, thought that smoke would have been a necessity, but when taken as a whole, and considering the price, the value is fair.

If Marklin had made a train comparable to the VT 11.5, with all the features that everyone thinks are necessary, the price would be double or more, and we would be hearing whining about how expensive everything has gotten!!

Both good points.
Ira

Got my HW today, and all I can say is I am deeply underwhelmed. I've christened it the 'Plastic Fantastic' even found myself tapping the loco with my fingernail to make sure it was metal and I hadn't misread the sales blurb! it runs rather jerkily in analogue and has the modern Marklin hatred of the tiniest speck of dust! Put it on my programming track with the MS and it made some noises, I believe they are called 'sound effects' the only one worth having being the whistle. I would willingly trade mfx/sound for some nice tinplate carriages (are you listening Marklin?) sorry I'm ranting here but for the money I am severely unimpressed, this is the first Insider model that I have pre-ordered and I am fairly certain it will be the last for quite some time.

Yours Sincerely, disgruntled and significantly poorer

Kev

Didn't buy my #37991 in 2004 because she was a insider model (I don't care about M's designations ...) Just wanted her since she's a fully fledged steamer [:p][:p][:p]
And never mind, Thomas: <u>all</u> Bigboys are great

John