Are any of you running the new (?) 46913 freight wagon with sound and tail lights? I just purchased one, but I guess it could be a 2019 car. It is a really nice car, good detail, fairly heavy because of the realistic (in my opinion) scrap metal load. It has a sound decoder which works fine, and the marker lights work and look nice. It is not cheap for a single car, but with the decoder and the lights, I think it is worth the price.

My complaint is with the pick-up shoe. All the photos you see of the model show it the way it comes out of the box, without the pickup shoe installed. Without the shoe, you cannot use the sound decoder or the marker lights. The trucks are very close to the ends of the car, and the pickup is very long, so close to half the pickup shoe extends beyond the end of the car. If the shoe was on the front of the car, it would extend under the car in front of it, which would hide the shoe, but maybe interfere with the other car's trucks. On my car, the shoe is mounted at the rear. Because this car is designed to be at the end of your train, you can see it dragging the shoe all around. It kind of destroys the great detail of the car. We all know our Marklin HO trains have the 3rd rail, but most of the time the shoe is not so obvious.

My question is whether anyone else has seen this? Maybe you dont care? Maybe you have found a way to switch the trucks? Maybe you have installed current conducting couplers and put this behind a car with its own shoe?

I am thinking of painting the visible parts of the shoe in matte black so it is harder to notice behind the car.

Please share your thoughts.

Ken

You can see the issue on this video:



Carim