It is also boring to hear from Märklin again and again how bad the quality of items made in China was and that they are bringing production back to Europe (where "bringing back" means that former "Made in Germany" and intermittent "Made in China" becomes "Made in Hungary").

Märklin are very secretive with their ongoing China production and very notorious with their ongoing China bashing. This explains the highly emotional reaction of some Märklin fans when another "Made in China" sticker is shown on this forum.

MRR is an emotional hobby. IMHO too many Märklin fans believe that production in China ended long ago, thanks to Mother M*'s ongoing China bashing - and it's good those folks hear the truth from time to time.

BTW: We heard several times here that people have fewer production faults with Märklin "Made in China" than with Märklin "Made in Hungary". Yes, Quality Assurance is a big topic. A big topic for Märklin.

IIRC all Autumn surprise models from Märklin were made in China, so this one perfectly suits the line. There should be no risk of Zinkpest.
But will spare parts (motors) still be available in five or ten years?

The model looks nice and seems to drive well. Let's get back to discussing the model. It doesn't really matter where it was made. Don't buy Märklin if you do not want "Made in China".

Why do Märklin produce expensive train models in China?
Because of the cheap chinese worker.

And the model cost about 589,00 euro...made in cheap country!

Oh, so about the same price and made in the same country as your ipad that you mentioned in another thread.

You keep talking about cheap workers and cheap country, but never offer any evidence. What you reply to my post further up this thread is not evidence. You just keep putting more noise on the thread without anything substantial to back it up. You really are living up to your non-de-plume.

And you know yourself that chinese workers are cheap in payment which also Märklin know about it.

Hum... It seems to me, that the most forum-noise comes from people COMPLAINING about other peoples complaints (being it about China and/or Märklin) than the people actually pointing out a crititcal flaw or problem!

Typical way of going after the person instead of the problem, just because one doesnt agree with a certain complaint.

The primary interest is the model at hand. (and for me, it really doesnt have to be limited to products only from Märklin)
It is okay to get information about running characteristics and where it is made.
It is equally valid to loud concerns about availability of spareparts and quality of the materials used.
Only by openly recognizing the products good quality AND that it is made in China (in this particular case), can the negative bias about China be corrected.
Equally, we also need to know that quality problems were present in previous models from China (again, China in this particular case), in order to determine if Märklins quality-control is on the rise and problems has been remedied.
Some people will want the model for its good looks and excellent running, but OTHERS might not want to risk that amount of money on a model that COULD be suffereing from zinkpest or lack of spareparts. In this case, Märklins chinese quality-control needs to EARN themselves a better track-record. Certainly not a thing that can be done overnight, especially with zinkpest taking up to 12 years to manifest itself.
So I think it is okay for the sceptics to remind the fanboys of the crude reality of product and company quality... IMHO as always.

Märklin did just present another swiss model Be 4/6 and the price are €520,00!
I beat this loco too will be made in China too.
The Köfferli 39520 do have not fair price.
Hopefully there is not zinkpest as suprise later...

Are you assuming the role of some kind of "super moderator" and trying to teach us what we are allowed to say here? I do think it's time for a real moderator to step in and explain the rules of free speech to this member.

I like and buy and play with marklin but I also criticize and laugh at marklin for its omissions, negligence at dimension scale, and reality on which other manufacturers has never made such mistakes.
Some members on this forum said if you don't like marklin why not come to other forum?
I would say if someone didn't like marklin they never appear here or even has never hear of this forum.
I criticise marklin as I look forward to seeing more progress
on products from marklin.
I started up this thread and questioned this locomotive but I also bought this loc as well to prove I support marklin. Here are some pictures of 39520 which arrived two days ago.

I think it's fair to say at this point that Marklin problems with Zinkpest are in the past.

The models that had this are over 10 years old, I believe and that newer models such as 39241 series and 37015 have been excellent with no problems.
These are detailed models and in many cases one-off production like the Kofferli. The SNCF Lok was not a one-off, but I doubt Marklin knew it would be as popular among its Germanic customers as it has proved to be. The first production run completely sold out, and quickly. All these series were produced in China for economic reasons such as detail and potential lack of interest in short series Loks. If one is a prototype modeler modelling Era III Germany (this is the biggest market segment) how many Kofferli Loks or SNCF Loks are you likely to buy?? Yet we have these wonderful models.

Considering the detail and projected short production runs, I don't think these models are overpriced.

We are looking for the best models that can run on the Märklin (Maerklin) system, and that does not exclude other manufacturers - especially if they are good models.

I have seen a number of videos of the 39520 now, and I think it looks good - but on narrow radii it can look rather peculiar as Unholz has observed.
For me it's a loco I will skip since I'm a steamer fan, but I fully understand the members who love it - or have other opinions about it...

There is always pro and cons about train models.
So does about Märklin.
Without present cons, how can you even be sure there is no problems without present cons either too?
The real problem with the Köfferli is the price and the model are made in China.
Didn´t Märklin verified all models produce in Europe and no more in China, because of porr quality control?
When a swiss model cost €589,00 i suppose the model must been in damn good quality without future problems.

At all these nice pictures have you seen any signs for a zinc pest? I could not recognize anything about a zinc pest. Unfortunately I had to read some stubborn comments and posts sounding more like an off-topic expositor pest.

ORGINAL POSTED BY TEE Wolf.










Hello!

I think it is a very nice model!!

And one of the best looking model I have!!

You can of course not see any zinkpest now.

It takes approx 4—5 years minimum before it is visibile and some time after 10—15 ? Years.

I realy Hope al on this forum that (think) that it is over with zinkpest is right.

I realize that I have more Märklin models (not made in Märklin)
And they are not Old enugh to be sure they not have zinkpest.


Regards

Bertil.

No doubt about it.

What a misconstruction by Märklin.

It makes me shiver.

OK - here is one last try at getting this thread back to actually being about the 39520 and not its country of origin.

Mine arrived last week and I have been running it on my track for a few days now. It runs very well and it is very nicely featured and finished. It certainly looks great with perfect paint and imprinting. The Köfferli trucks sit appropriately close to the loco body in my opinion and they only look a little odd on very tight curves, which can be said of pretty much all HO locos.

If the doubters prove to be correct and it falls apart due to being made in China I will be sure to report it. Until then I just plan to enjoy this beauty and not worry about potential problems. That is what I have done with my other high end Mäklin locos made in China and I have yet to have a problem, although the minimum 4-5 year zinkpest incubation period has not yet ended for them.

Like most of life how you view the world depends mostly upon your point of view. I see the posts about what a horrible mistake this loco was for Märklin, while all I see is a cool new addition to my roster.

This one too was made in China!

Kofferli.jfif (67kb) downloaded 62 time(s).

I have seen this model for two weeks ago and it looks very nice.
The model does not have such a great distance between the front and the main cover.
But when the locomotive starts dosing in tight curves, it exposes itself a lot between the front and the main cover.

In fact does the pictures in this topic make difference to allow discuss pro and cons.
Not always does pictures says truth.

Received my Kofferli mid week with the accompanying carriage set 46520. The loco was unpacked today for loading into the CS2. All went well with all functions working. However the icon did not and is not in the CS2 loco database.

This raises two questions. Firstly do I need to reload the mfx details? Or do I need to upload the latest CS2 upgrade?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

John

Although I continue to run and enjoy my 39520, I do have a strange new behavior to report. Over the last week or so it has been parked in my yard, which does not have a power bus in all sections. It was in an area where I have seen other locos stop on occasion, maybe due to a dead spot in the track. But it is getting power and what it is doing is totally new to me. I would be interested to see if anyone has any ideas about what might be happening.

While sitting idle in the yard it has on several occasions initiated a long sound recording, which does not match any of the loco sounds that I can access through functions. It is basically a man speaking - German I assume although I unfortunately am not good with languages. It is quite long - at least one minute, maybe up to two minutes and it is a monologue sounding pretty much like a man giving a lecture. It starts when I turn off layout power and then turn it back on again, even though I am not addressing the 39520 in any way. I can only stop it by turning power back off or waiting until the lecture finally ends. I can not easily replicate this, as it seems to happen at random, but if I find a way to do that I will record it. Maybe it is telling me that I need to replace the Märklin decoder with a new ESU one.

Now it is back on a mainline and I will see if it happens where the power supply is strong and clean. If it continues I guess it might be time for a new decoder, although I have not yet done a reset on the current decoder to see if that helps. I am surprised that there is enough memory to hold such a long sound file, which probably totals the time of all of the normal sounds combined.

Is it some kind of strange easter egg or is it just broken? I probably start a thread in the digital section to reach a wider audience, but any insights would be appreciated.

Sounds like function key F23 - a recording of a tour explaining the prototype specs.
Try to replicate it by pressing F23 on a clean track.

Sorry!

My message came in the wrong topic. Can I delete this?

You can also edit the message and delete all its content and write in it that you deleted the content because of the reason you did it.

Hi,
My 39520 just arrived, and it works as expected but testing the world of operations in my CS2 only shows a modern cab and not the one in the instruction.
Have any of you tested the world of operations for this locomotive?

Regards,

Eduardo

So I now have a little more information on the stray sound function coming from my 39250, although I still do not know the cause. It is probably a generic digital issue and not something specific to this loco,so I should start a digital forum thread on that one of these days.

This morning I had just turned on CS2 when I read the post from Eduardo about the cab control screen. After I checked that, I selected two locos to run from my CS2 and ran them both for a few minutes. Then something came up that I needed to deal with right now - ie wife issue.

I stopped both trains and turned off the track current and returned about 15 minutes later. As soon as I restored power to my track the Fc 2x3/4 started to play the prototype info soundtrack, which is a bad one to auto start because it goes on and on and on. Once it finally ended it was fine again but I definitely did not trigger that function from my CS2 and I hardly ever even use the functions on that second pane. Luckily it does not happen every time that I apply track power or I would have to send it back to my dealer.

Talking to the US Digital Club "Marklin Dudes" about another problem I am currently having, Curtis mentioned something that he has seen before. He sees mismatches between the active functions on the CS2 display and the decoder behavior. He does not think that it is the loco decoder but rather the limited amount of RAM in the CS2 causing it to lose track of the state of some functions on some locos. He suggested that I try deleting my VT 11.5 and letting it register again in the hope that it would fix its current problem. It did not help that train but it might be a factor in this, although it is odd that it only happens on this one loco and not very often.

Otherwise it is perfect and I am very happy with it but it does make you wonder what might develop down the road.