I was quite happy to receive my 26922 Orient Express train set last week, or at least I was initially. I had an mfx registration problem with the loco which I was able to resolve with some help from the forum and a day of my time. So I was thinking that I was finally all set with this train.

But I have severely flickering interior lighting in multiple coaches in this set. The flickering does not affect any of the coaches further from the baggage coach with the pickup so I don't see how it can be the current conducting couplers. The only two coaches which have rock steady lighting are the two baggage coaches, one being the coach with the slider and the other is at the far end of the consist. KiwiAlan wondered if perhaps I had two-rail wheel sets but they are regular three rail wheels with continuity between the wheels on the axle.

I have taken the wheels and axle wipers out of the coach, cleaned them thoroughly but it has not made any difference. The ground passes from the truck and through the coach via a steel rod which I assume contacts the pcb with the lights at the top of the coach. I have not figured out yet how to open the coaches to see if there is a problem where that rod contacts the pcb. Removing the diaphragms on the ends of the coaches does not seem to release the coach body from the frame and there are no instructions which show how to open these coaches. At this point I am reluctant to apply more pressure to these new coaches and maybe break something.

So the two baggage coaches and one sleeping car never flicker and work perfectly. Three sleeping cars and the dining car have lights which flicker badly when run and when stopped are often completely off. If I push on the roof of those coaches I can get them to light intermittently but they go back out as soon as I remove my finger from the coach roof.

I will contact the selling dealer and see what he suggests. I don't understand why three of the seven coaches work perfectly and four hardly at all. I really don't understand how a limited edition (and quite expensive) train set such as this was delivered without functional interior lighting. I guess I have been fooling myself when thinking that Märklin's quality control is back up to their former standards.

As always any input or suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Ross,

Thanks for your ideas. The 26922 coaches are slightly different so I am still not sure how to open them safely. I will study those manuals some more and see if I can figure that out. Does that one diagram indicate removing the steps on the coach ends and then prying the sides away from the frame? I am surprised that the set did not include instructions for opening the coaches as most other Märklin products do.

The problem seems to maybe be where the rod from the grounding spring contacts the pcb in the top of the coach. I could perhaps examine that contact area if I can get the coaches open. The current conducting couplers are working perfectly and the problem is inside the individual coaches.

I can't argue that this is a bad design, since it was shipped from Märklin without functioning lighting and this is my second Märklin coach set in the last two weeks that I have had to work on right out the box.

Hi Ross,

You are right - looking more closely at the manuals I think that they are basically the same coaches with different cosmetics. The lighting is all done with led's but otherwise they are most likely very similar.

I will try to get them open tomorrow and see what happens. Once I get inside I will post photos if I have more specific questions. It would be interesting to compare the one coach which is fine with the three that are not to see what the difference might be. I think it might be where that vertical rod the grounding spring attaches to meets the PCB at the top of the coach. Maybe the contacts are bent like the ones you illustrated.

Stay tuned for my rebuild efforts on my brand new limited edition Märklin collector set. I would gladly trade them their certificate of authenticity for some coach lighting that actually works!

David,

No, I have not heard of any other problems of this type with the 26922 set but since I don't often read the stummiforum, there may be more. I had a great bit of difficulty just getting the loco to register. After I worked through that I believed I was home free. I have older coaches which work perfectly in which I installed the lighting myself and I never imagined that a special set like this would ship without functional lighting.

Last summer I bought a Rheingold coach set that I didn't get the chance to run until just two weeks ago. That set had some of the current conducting coupler parts installed incorrectly with some of the parts even installed in the wrong coaches! I had to repair that set before it would work also, but it seems to be fine now. I suggest that you check out your 26922 as soon as possible.

Right now I am wondering how a company like Märklin forgot how to make passenger coaches with lighting that works properly and I am quickly losing interest in getting more of their expensive coach sets. Unfortunately I pre-ordered the Insider 103 and coaches just a few days before I put the 26922 on the track and now I am wondering if the lighting in it will work or not.

It seems like it is time for me to take a break from acquiring more Märklin products for a while, which my bank balance will thank me for anyway.

I never had a problem with the similar 42795-42796 blue Orient Express set.

Thanks - that is encouraging. It makes me think that maybe I can fix mine so that they work properly also.

Excellent advice! I intend to be very careful opening them.

Their complexity is why I hesitated to open them right away until I knew more about what was going on and how to proceed.

I would be interested to see how they have done the LED lighting, so a photo of that PCB once you get them open would be appreciated.

To get them open it is worth having some cocktail sticks or similar fine items that you can poke in as you lift the coach sides off the chassis, as they do tend to clip themselves back on. However before you get to that stage remove the fine piping pieces off the ends of the coach, some of them also go into the chassis, from memory.

Alan I found on YOUTUBE this movie with the titel

"Einbau einer flackerfreien LED Beleuchtung im Orient Express von Trix Express"
"Installation of a flicker-free LED lighting in the Orient Express from Trix Express"



Unfortunately the explanations are in German, but you may see the pictures.
But I translated the explaning text below the video.

"Published on January 6, 2017

This is a circuit which is designed for analogue, digital and also EMS driving and ensures that breaks in the driving voltage are intercepted and the interior lighting of a car does not flicker. This can be the case, for example, when points or electrical disconnections are crossed. An integrated GoldCap, also known as a supercapacitor, buffers the travel voltage and illuminates the interior lighting further. An integrated charge circuit ensures that it is charged evenly. If the driving voltage has been interrupted, the circuit lights up for approximately half a minute with the capacitor fully charged.
The shape of the board is similar to the original Trix modules. It is 180mm long and 11mm wide. The board fits, for example, in the Wagons of the Orient-Express."

I have similar problem. One the sleeping cars lights are not working properly. They are flickering. The problem is aggravated on the curves. As a matter of fact the cars came equipped with current conducting coupler 72020. A set set of Drawbar coupler 7319 is included in the box.
The manual which came withe the 26922 does not mention anything about the cars. It only contains the description of the Locomotive in the package: "Very poor documentation".

one would think that since the couplers are factory installed, they should have been installed properly. First thing I checked was the eclectic contact in the coupler pocket. I did not find the the electric contact has been pushed back. I suspect that the ground spring is not touching the wheels properly: it is bit short. These are special ground springs and installation may be tedious. The seem to be riveted.

Does anybody know how to reinstall the ground springs on these cars?

Jim,

Congrats on getting your set working. I'm looking forward to seeing your photos and instructions.

Thanks,
David

I ran my 26922 set for about an hour last night and I did not see any issues with the lighting at all, so I am very relieved.

I heeded foumaro's advice and I was as careful as I could be when opening and handling the coaches, but by the time that I was done I had broken 4 of the pipes that plug into the roofs. Luckily Märklin supplied spares, although at this rate I might eventually need more! I think that the next time I open one of them up I will just go ahead and remove them completely from the coach rather than just popping them off of the roof as the manual indicates. I didn't break them when I first removed the roof but later when trying to put the roof back on.

I did not find any smoking gun problems inside any of the coaches. The most obvious thing that I saw was that the PCBs had moved upward and were no longer pushed completely down on the rods from the trucks. Two of the sleeping cars started to work perfectly by just firmly pushing the PCBs back into place. The other two took more effort. I moved the steel sleeves that are attached through the PCB hoping to improve the contact there. I turned them and moved them laterally in the copper edged opening in the PCBs. In one that seemed to make the difference and I was done. The third was still flickering after doing that and I spread the split pins the sleeves sit on so they made better contract with the pin. Strangely when I put that coach on the track it didn't light at all until I pulled the PCB up a little. Why that made it start working is beyond me, unless the PCB was pushed too tightly onto the interior assembly and perhaps putting pressure on one of the traces on the board?

One of the worst flickering coaches was the dining coach and it was more of a problem, since I never figured out how to get the interior out (the part with the LED table lamps). That did not allow me to access the area where the shorter rods contact the lower PCB. I could see the inside edges of the clip that contacts the rod through the opening in the floor, so I used a very small screwdriver to push the clips down hoping to make a more stable contact with the pins from the truck. By a miracle that seems to have worked and that coach has gone from constantly flashing on and off to steady lighting.

One thing that I learned is that I do not like the old Trix lighting setup very much at all. My dealer called about an hour after I had it all working and we had a nice talk. He said that the coaches are from about 25 year old Trix moulds. He thinks they were done so well that there has never been any reason to change them but he also thinks that it is well past time for Märklin to redo the lighting system. I obviously completely agree. He had two interesting observations. He said that on his coaches with that lighting arrangement he solders over the contact between the PCB and the sleeves, since that tends to be the source of most of the issues. He also said that he is currently trying to find smaller, flatter capacitors to fit into his coaches of that type. He does not think that the system is robust enough to work up to his expectations without capacitors. I agree and I hope to avoid getting any more coaches with this type of lighting in the future.

So I do expect more issues to come with these over time, since what I really did was open the coaches and fiddle around until I got it working. It is hard to say how long they will stay happy but at least they are totally flicker free right now.

Here a couple of photos of the inside of the coaches. Feel free to ask for better explanations about anything on which I was not clear.

PCB installed:

Underside of the PCB:

PCB Grounding Detail:

Hey Ross,

You got me pointed in the right direction with your manual links, so a big "Thank You" is in order!

I don't know what I thought I saw at first, but my coaches are exactly the same as those that you sent the link for. I just finished running that train and they are still working perfectly. Hopefully I will stop holding my breath every time that I boot up the CS2 pretty soon.

No, Mäklin made no provision for adding a decoder as they did in my Rheingold set (#41929) but it certainly could be done. There is a red table lamp on each table in the dining car and it looks great. I will post some images soon, now that the coaches all actually light up!

Indeed and good question: which decoder is suitable?

I think a 60941 is not applicabel, because it is a motor. The new msD3 as 60977? Very expensive for the functions needed. Which one would you suggest?

What do you think about a TAMS function decoder FD-R extended?
And this one only costs about 20% to 25% of the Maerklin 60977 decoder, but it has no mfx format. Only DCC and MM (fx) is possible.

The 60941 is a motor.
Märklin recommend the 60942 which was discontinued.
I bought an ESU FX decoder. That is a function decoder without parts to control a motor, just what you need.

From Märklin you can use the 60972, the successor of the 60942.

You have to do some soldering if you want to use a decoder with cables.
You can even use some shelf-queen decoders (6080 or AnDi or such) for a cheap solution.

Here is an update on my Orient Express coach lighting problem and another request for some advice.

When I boxed up this set about a year ago all of the coaches were lighted and there was only a small amount of flickering, which was quite acceptable. But when I put the set back on my track last month one coach did not light at all. It passes power to the cars further back, so the CC circuit is fine, but the PCB is not getting power unless I push the PCB to the side. Luckily the other coaches are fine for now and the rake looks pretty nice with one fewer sleeping car.

I have traced the problem back to the metal post which comes up through the floor and onto which the post on the PCB pushes. It does not receive power unless that post is pushed to the side. I am guessing that the problem is where it contacts the CC power strip under the floor. I suspect that I need to run a wire from the power supply under the floor up to the PCB for these to ever work reliably, or maybe just solder that connection under the floor.

To get to that though I need to remove the interior details but I have not yet figured out how to do that. If anyone has any experience taking these coaches apart I would love to hear about a safe way to proceed. I know from experience that if I just start forcing things I will end up breaking even more delicate parts on these very pretty but unreliable coaches. I have already broken several of the small pipes which run up to the roof and I would love to limit any further damage.

Thanks for the ideas Mike.

Yes, these coaches follow normal CC coupler format, with one live power feed through all of the coaches and each lighting board grounded through a wiper in one bogie per coach. These are not Trix coaches and don't have 2-rail wheel sets, but they are adaptations of Trix coaches and that causes electrical issues. I have no desire to add decoders to these, since my other coaches with decoders are almost never used. I turn the lights on once and then tend to just leave them on, and I don't care much about the ability to turn them off.

I did manage to fix one of the coaches and I think that I can now fix the rest as needed. I figured out how to get the interior out - you remove the body by releasing tabs inside the coach, rather than prying from the bottom. So the one coach which did not light at all is now fixed and eventually I will do the same thing to the rest of them as they cause problems.

The CC power circuit is very robust and does not cause any issues in my coaches, reliably passing power to the next coach even when a coach is not lighting correctly. The return through the wipers on the axles is also solid, with a direct connection from the post on the PCB to the wiper. So although I investigated the whole circuit I only found faults in one area, which is good news.

From what I can tell all of the problems come from where the plate under the coach interior floor contacts the pole taking power up to the PCB. The positive pole is pushed through this plate and this connection is not reliable, even though it looks fine on inspection. I now realize that all of the things that I did last year were indirectly affecting this one connection, like pushing down or pulling up on the PCB, both of which would make the lighting work, at least for a while.

My fix was to solder a wire to the bottom of the plate the pin pushes through and route the wire along the pin and up to the top of the PCB. There I soldered it to the brass band on the PCB where the top segment of the post is mounted. That coach went from not lighting at all unless the post was pushed to the side, to working perfectly. I also soldered a wire from the return post to the PCB but I don't think that is necessary. As I said earlier that part of the circuit seems very solid and does not seem to be a problem, at least not on my coaches.

I was in a rush yesterday and I did not capture any images of what I did. The next time I work on one of these coaches I will grab some images and post them along with a brief description of my fix. Advice from several people pointed to other areas of concern in this circuit but luckily all of my problems seem to come from just the one connection. My dealer suggested soldering over the connection between the post and the PCB but I don't think that would fix the problems I have had with these coaches.

Now, if I could just find a few replacement packages of those stupid little water pipes to the coach roof - which I currently have about a 50% chance of breaking when I take these coaches apart.

Correct - I was just pointing out that they are already set up for 3-rail use and they do not have two rail wheel sets in response to Mike's suggestion.


Because multiple people suggested that the post to PCB connection was the source of the problem I first soldered a wire from the lower segment of that post to the PCB. Much to my surprise that did not fix my problem. So I started checking each element of the circuit with a continuity tester and found the break under the floor of the coach, where the power from the CC circuit should be passed to the lower segment of that post. Wiring directly from that contact under the floor to the PCB made my lighting absolutely rock solid and flicker free. Before I added that wire to the PCB from the circuit under the floor, the PCB in that coach did not received any power at all.

I posted this so that I could point out that at least in the case of my coaches the problem was not at the PCB, but rather where the posts makes contact with the CC power supply. It is a weak design and I am sure that there are other areas where problems can occur, such as that connection from the post to the PCB. My dealer said that he soldiers over that connection, so that must be a problem area also. I don't see any downside to doing that, it just did not fix what was wrong with my coaches and I wanted to point out a new area for people to investigate.

Hi all, a "bump" on this thread- does anyone know how easy it would be to convert a 21215 Trix set of these coaches to AC? I'm assuming the pickup shoe is easy, and that one wiper must either be swapped to ground, or omitted entirely.

Then from there install Current conducting couplers?