Hello everyone.
I am just entering the Marklin world with a purchase of the 29721 Era III Digital Freight Set. I have a plan for the layout that I want to build. I have costed all this up using Lippe prices - and ordered the set from them. I signed up for their premium membership and they gave me 10% discount off the train set, which has given me back a lot of the cost of that.

I have been able to manage this because of a "lump sum" acquired through use of Ebay etc. However, my wife and I live on a pension and once this sum is spent, I have a restricted amount to spend each month- which isn't a good reason for choosing Marklin of course - grin.

I am lucky, living in Ipswich, as I have a great model railway shop - Orwell Model Railways - and a dedicated European model railway shop - Scograil lolly. Scograil stocks Fleischmann, Roco, etc. I have spoken to Neil Scoggins at Scograil about, perhaps, buying Roco etc. freight and passenger cars instead of importing rather more expensive Marklin equivalents. He doesn't see a problem with, even, couplers as most have NEMs so can be changed if required.

I notice that Gaugemaster have a Roco set 67127 which contains eight EraIII (which matches my set) wagons listed at £56.00. I will get a discount on that from Scograil. Does this make sense and is it a way to go for a poor cash strapped pension (grin).

David

Hi David,

I have this Roco set of goods wagons (Actually the almost identical DB version 44002). It is very good value and contains a great selection of wagons. I run these together with my Marklin wagons without any problems. I have not changed the wheels or the couplers.

They do the same set in various versions. Apart from your DR set and my DB set they also do a DRG, a NS and a CSD set. I'm considering buying another of these sets to add some variety to my trains. At that price they are worth it!

When buying C track, I suggest you check Joes prices, even if you have Premium in MLS. I am a Premium MSL customer also.
For example the 24611:
MLS is:20,69€ - 10%(Premium) = 18,6€. 18,6€ - 4%(Bonus for next buys) = 17,87€ (I don't know if I am doing the calculations exactly as they do, but is not much different)
Joes: 15,49€.
In Joes if you buy more than 100€ you also have free postage. Doesn't mean all C track items the difference is like this, but in general, it is worth Joes for C track.

Edit: the 10% is for a single buy during the membership period, so it is not the best to apply it to a cheap item, like the example I gave. It is worth for a buy above 500 euros.

Edited by user 23 January 2019 14:04:44(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I hope that I have got this right but for the list of track that I want to buy Joes comes out at Euro 286.28 whilst Lippe is Euro 375.15!

For the 24611/12 points I need 3 of 11 and 6 of 12. On Joes, they have a combination price for a pair of Euro 29.50 whilst Lippe wants Euro 20.69 each!

My wife is insisting that I get the train set and run it before I spend any more of my budget! Once I (she) is happy - grin, I will try Joes.

David

Firstly David has used his 10% discount on his first order (although at a small loss as it did not meet the minimum order)
Also who is Joe and how can he do C track for EU 286 against Lippe at EU 375. I would have thought that was impossible (Davids figures) if who Joe is wants to make a profit on C track bought from Marklin.

Thanks for the link. Could not find an English version of the site but I priced a Loco and a coach against Lippe and both were exactly the same except I would get my extra 4% from Lippe. Could not find the C Track but there must be some reason for the prices David has quoted. Could be without boxes from start sets as you said but even then would be very cheap.

PS did now find the C Track and it is cheaper and I think it says in German it is from a start set. If he has a large turnover on these he must have a lot of start sets and therefore locos etc also from them going cheap.

Hi David, I just wanted to warn you that some makes, as stated above might have DC wheel sets and different couplers which as stated can be changed. This might sometimes not help you though? On some Roco wagons the buffers are lower than Marklin wagons and so there will not be enough room for the two wagons coupled together with Marklin close couplers. This will cause derailment and you stress😱 unless you wish to change all your couplers or mix and match, stay with Marklin. But as you have said, you might not want to buy new Marklin, there are second hand dealers. Such as contikits?
http://www.contikits.com/Page7.htm
Ask to have Marklin ac wheels. They will fit them if you ask?
Failing that and you want to run other makes, I have a Brawa wagon which is lovely 😊, you can take the metal piece of the Marklin coupler and it will still couple to the other wagons which do??
Hope this helps, have fun. I’m in the UK so if you wish to chat on the phone about Marklin issues. Pm me and I will send you my mob number. Thanks Dan.

As I mentioned in my post above, I have the Roco wagon set that David is asking about and my wagons run perfectly on my C-track layout without having had to change wheels or couplers. The Roco couplers that come on these wagons work well with both Marklin close couplers and Marklin 'Relex' couplers of the newer plastic type.

On a couple of the wagons I have swapped to the Marklin close couplers just to have closer spacing between wagons and this has been painless too. The Roco wagons have close coupler kinematic mechanisms so buffer locking is not a problem.

At the price these Roco wagon sets are sold you get a price per wagon of less than £10, making them the cheapest new wagons you can find today. In terms of quality of finish they are comparable with Marklin wagons in the 46xxx range.