Please check on www.ebay.de ,search for Marklin 3030 and opt for Sofort Kaufen (=Buying without bidding).
There are many for sale at various prices,nothing rare about it.
A near to new one is costing over Euro 150 and beyond!

Unlike you,i always opt for new or near to new Marklin locomotives and am prepared to pay a higher price for that as compared to buying a scruffy one and having to find the expensive spareparts!
The smallest parts like the roof insulators can cause the biggest headache!
It took me great trouble finding the little plastic roof insulators for a NS electric 1600 series.

Note that even when buying socalled near to new locomotives there is room for error,i recently bought a near to new DB electric class E18 from a very trustworthy Italian seller and upon unpacking found that the very fragile plastic handrails under the frontwindows had been glued on,obviously not a factory job!

Happy hunting!

Please look at the bottom :

This Locomotive is sold as 'spares or repairs'

The true prices are about € 120/150.

But as for me for this price it's better to buy a reprint Mfx for a little more => purchase a 30301 : http://ho-2-et-3rails.fo...hemins-de-fer-suedois-sj

Gnam

And if your living Downunder this is what you will pay:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Mark...b7577:g:BMgAAOSw6DtYUInX

I was tempted to go for it myself. It looks poor shape, but the body could be stripped down to bare metal and repainted. Actually it may only need a good clean to get it looking presentable.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Well, it runs and reverses very nicely. Both lights work but do not 'reverse'. There is no manual reversing lever. I wonder if it might be newer than I think? Opening it up will tell.

The pantographs have bent ends that may straighten without breaking and their insulators are a bit of a mess but with work saveable. I might leave the pantographs themselves in Diet Coke overnight...it can work wonders though what it does to your stomach...

All four pantograph springs are missing.

As Cookee says, one of the foot ladders is bent. I will leave it alone so long as I can still remove the cover. Windows need refixing.

Cosmetically it may be no worse than some of my other items. It is quite 'sticky' and needs a gentle wash plus some detail work. Then I can decide what to do next. I think I want to avoid painting too much.

Anyway, now I have a 3030, here it is just as it came out of the parcel.

DSC02094 by dralowid, on Flickr

Will post updates of remedial work as it happens.

Well, I've seen worse, and much of that is simply surface dust. Take the housing off, remove the Panto's, and give it a good clean. The paint on those is fairly rugged so to be honest, I'd put some warm water in the kitchen sink, a little normal detergent and brush it with a soft paintbrush and you'll find it will come up rather well.

Most of the paint damage appears to be around the edges of the roof, so you could always 'weather' those areas just as they would look in real life, even the body if you wanted.

Touch-up the side snow-plows on the trucks, take care of the panto's and it will look a lot better.

That foot ladder would bother me, but only because I would let it!! I guess a bent one is better than a missing one.

I'm sure there's a technique to straighten it, perhaps very gently a little bit at a time but I'm no expert on the properties of die-cast.

Many years ago I got a "Le Capitole" Loco which had been dropped and the cab roof was noticeably bent over. I ended up carefully placing it in a vice between two blocks of soft wood, angle in such a way that the closing of the vice would acheive the desired correction. Then I very slowly just started adding the pressure, tiny increments. It worked and now I can't even tell which end it was that I straightened.

Of course the cab roof had a lot more metal supporting it so I just had a gut feel that my technique would work ok.

I'm not sure if heat would soften the alloy enough to be able to aid straightening, and whether the required heat might then damage the paint.

Be interested in opinions or experiences of others with this.

Good score all the same, now of course you'll need to get the matching coaches, they make a nice looking train and fortunately you can go for the 4030 & 4031 version to match the 3030 rather than 'needing' to find the 4020 & 4021 for a 3018.

Or just go for a nice freight consist instead.

Our Dear Leader will be pleased that you are honouring his homeland and the home of this forum with your choice.

The 'mechanicals' seem in good shape and judging by the plastic moulded side of the motor and style of reversing unit are more 'modern' than I expected.

DSC02099 by dralowid, on Flickr

A very gentle wash in soapy water has improved things a little. It was filthy. It is now of a similar standard to many of my other locomotives...ie well used!

The brown finish is quite soft and can be removed with too much soap or any solvent/spirit I have tried ( I experimented on the inside). A little 'touching up' will be carried out in due course.

I haven't tried Diet Coke on the pantographs yet and I need to find some springs for them. I assume they are supposed to be bare metal and not black?

The steps have straightened a little. I was fearful of going further.

DSC02101 by dralowid, on Flickr

Is there a way of dating older locomotives (ie pre serial numbers) by the style of reversing unit and motor?

Steve, this is really useful, many thanks. A ten year 'window' is good enough for me.

I was thinking about starting a thread about how to date the locos that I have and had wondered whether it was worth buying Koll's? Since I shouldn't be buying any more, perhaps not but then I'd be relying on you guys to answer my questions!

Michael
UK (sunny!)

Very nice Alan. Looks like you may have found that lost pair of forceps too.
Cheers,
Howard.