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Telex, relex, standard, Roco - I need a bit of help
Joined: 04/01/2019(UTC)
Posts: 344
Location: England, Ipswich
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I started out with Marklin back in January and have enjoyed the ride so far. I have an ECOS controller, only Marklin locos, a mix of Marklin and Roco freight wagons and a mix of Marklin, Roco and Piko coaches. Up until recently, everything was fine. Since buying the SBB 482, I have been building up my collection of SBB wagons. I have a few Marklin but I wanted a train of aggregate wagons to go behind. Roco had some very nice ones.  Now the problem. My main locos all have standard Marklin couplers and these pull Roco wagons without any issues. My shunter is a Marklin V60 with Telex couplers. These work fine with Marklin coupler, of course (although I have some trouble getting my head around the process). However, they couple and then let go quickly after getting underway when the next wagon has Roco couplers. This applies to the goods wagons and the passenger coaches. I went down my local Marklin shop and, after some discussions, ordered a pack of Marklin Relex couplers and bought a small packet of Bachmann ones (as an experiment). The Bachmann were no different from the Roco so they are back in the draw. The Relex couplers arrived today so I installed one in a Roco aggregate wagon to find that it sits way too high and won't couple to anything! I took a standard Marklin coupler off a new SBB wagon that arrived today and fitted that to an aggregate wagon and that worked fine but the Telex coupler still didn't like it. Can you suggest my next step? Don't suggest selling all the Roco (grin). |
Long Haired David
AKA David Pennington
A mystified Maerklin Newbie |
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 Joined: 10/01/2005(UTC) Posts: 1,024 Location: Den Helder, Noord-Holland
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Would it be possible to lower the Relex coupler using (a) shim(s) between the coupler and the car body?
Jeroen |
Figomima division, UP; mostly figment of my imagination yet. |
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Joined: 04/01/2019(UTC)
Posts: 344
Location: England, Ipswich
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Originally Posted by: jerdenberg  Would it be possible to lower the Relex coupler using (a) shim(s) between the coupler and the car body?
Jeroen These are all NEM couplers so we are stuck with the socket. |
Long Haired David
AKA David Pennington
A mystified Maerklin Newbie |
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 Joined: 04/04/2013(UTC) Posts: 1,291 Location: Port Moody, BC
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Can you not use the Roco Universal adjustable height couplers 40396?
Peter
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Joined: 04/01/2019(UTC)
Posts: 344
Location: England, Ipswich
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Originally Posted by: PMPeter Can you not use the Roco Universal adjustable height couplers 40396?
Peter Would they sort out my connecting problem with the telex coupler? There seems little point in replacing one Roco coupler with another without being sure. |
Long Haired David
AKA David Pennington
A mystified Maerklin Newbie |
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 Joined: 10/07/2002(UTC) Posts: 3,298 Location: Patagonia
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Hi, I use the standard universal Roco couplers to replace the Marklin ones in M locos and coaches, they work fine, so the adjustable ones should too.
Regards |
 German trains era I-II and selected III, era depends on the mood, mostly Maerklin but i can be heretic if needed XD, heresy is no longer an issue.. LOL |
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 Joined: 15/10/2006(UTC) Posts: 2,319 Location: Washington, Pacific Northwest
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When you say "standard Märklin coupler" are you referring to the Märklin Relex, or the Märklin Close Couplers ? Is the "Roco coupler" the Roco universal coupler? The NEM specification is for the pocket and the thing that slides into the pocket, unfortunately there isn't a cross-make agreed upon height of the coupler pockets and buffers. To take a meaningful step you would need to understand what the issue is (are) with the current junction of the Roco coupler and the Märklin telex coupler. It could be the coupler shape, but it could also be the coupler height. If its the height, then it often makes it easy to uncouple, or even to engage the coupling. There are some (German language) websites that talk about coupling various types to each other (eg this one ) That talk about the issues if the couplers are at differing heights:  wont couple.  will couple well. The Roco adjustable universal coupler is height adjustable as can be seen in this photo from this great website on couplers (in German), so if its just the height that is the cause, a swap to an adjustable may well solve the problem. But if its not height differences that is the issue then this wouldnt help.  If its the shape/style and not the height that is the issue (or if its a binding in the curves on the buffers that causes a decouple) then the height adjustable isn't going to solve the problem. |
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Joined: 04/01/2019(UTC)
Posts: 344
Location: England, Ipswich
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Originally Posted by: Minok When you say "standard Märklin coupler" are you referring to the Märklin Relex, or the Märklin Close Couplers ? Is the "Roco coupler" the Roco universal coupler? The NEM specification is for the pocket and the thing that slides into the pocket, unfortunately there isn't a cross-make agreed upon height of the coupler pockets and buffers. To take a meaningful step you would need to understand what the issue is (are) with the current junction of the Roco coupler and the Märklin telex coupler. It could be the coupler shape, but it could also be the coupler height. If its the height, then it often makes it easy to uncouple, or even to engage the coupling. There are some (German language) websites that talk about coupling various types to each other (eg this one ) That talk about the issues if the couplers are at differing heights: wont couple. will couple well. The Roco adjustable universal coupler is height adjustable as can be seen in this photo from this great website on couplers (in German), so if its just the height that is the cause, a swap to an adjustable may well solve the problem. But if its not height differences that is the issue then this wouldnt help. If its the shape/style and not the height that is the issue (or if its a binding in the curves on the buffers that causes a decouple) then the height adjustable isn't going to solve the problem. I wasn't aware of the height difference until I inserted the Marklin Relex. Before that, the Roco couplers were working with the Telex but would slip loose after about 2 feet. This affected both the aggregate cars and the coaches. I will try with the Piko coaches to morrow and do some more testing. |
Long Haired David
AKA David Pennington
A mystified Maerklin Newbie |
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 Joined: 01/02/2004(UTC) Posts: 7,453 Location: Scotland
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Mixing items from various manufacturers can give problems and I just go by trial and error to see what will work. With Marklin telex I just use Marklin wagons.
As said above the Roco adjustable ones can be useful and have used these with Brawa coaches linked to Marklin locos but not telex.. I don't think we will ever get a standard for height for wagons and coaches.
If you have different types of wagons being pulled use a Marklin one to connect to a Marklin telex loco. |
Take care I like Marklin and will defend the worlds greatest model rail manufacturer. |
 2 users liked this useful post by David Dewar
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