Dear Forum members:

As a young boy, I grew up with Marklin. Now, I am retired and am thinking about setting up a layout.

I have old Marklin M track, blue transformers and locomotives that date to the 60s. I have a ton (50-100) pieces of old M track, but I assume it is generally in poor condition--it's been stored in boxes in heated and unheated garages since the 60s. Never wet, but old and dusty and cold. Some of it is bent, I assume, and I can dimly remember how some pieces didn't work well when I was a kid!

I am clueless about how Marklin works these days--except that it has gone digital. My locos are analog. I have plenty of rolling stock.

Where do I start? I want to build a medium sized layout, with a loop inside a loop. Maybe a bridge or tunnel. That's it.

I want to buy used.

Where can I access a layout diagram? Does it list all the pieces needed? Should I ditch the M and go for C? Who can digitize the locos?

What's the best way to proceed?

Thanks for your advice!

Peter

Hi Peter,

Welcome to the forum!

Ak (above) is right - you can just stick with M track and analogue if you want - just buy a new transformer/controller for safety reasons.

C track isn't necessary, but it is a leap forward in terms of reliability and ease of set up - but plenty of forum members here are still running on M track (and lots on K track as well, of course).

I was in the same position as you about 15 years ago - lots of M track and analogue. I decided to start by buying a second-hand start-set, which included a simple C-track layout, a digital controller (called a "Mobile station") - something like this:

https://www.modellbahnshop-lippe.com/Starters+%26+Sets/Start%2DSets+digital/M%C3%A4rklin%2D29074/gb/modell_256297.html

and I also bought a couple of C to M track adapters:

https://www.modellbahnshop-lippe.com/Railtracks/Standard+Railtracks/M%C3%A4rklin%2D24951/gb/modell_4431.html

so that I could still use M track while I gradually bought more C track.

I still have analogue locomotives as well as digital - like many here, I can run my layout in either digital or analogue by just switching to a different controller.

Hope this helps!

-Herman

Great advice everyone! Thank you so much. Am I correct in assuming that I can run both C and M track together using a mobile station and digitized locos?