This topic continues from the original questions as posted here.....

https://www.marklin-user...----Wagon-Lits--and--JSG

Some passenger coaches from the 1950's (and earlier) are suffixed with the letter "J"

The coaches 346/2 and 346/3 are Dining and Sleeping coaches respectively, in Red, for the DSG. (German Sleeping Car Co)

346/2 J and 346/3 J are also Dining and Sleeping but in Blue, for the ISG. So far so good. (International Sleeping Car Co)

Any boxed sets from the same period also use the Suffix "J" to distinguish normal sets containing DSG coaches, vs. with ISG coaches.

For example in 1953, set "SEW 846/4" included the DSG coaches, or by ordering "SEW 846/4 J" the two DSG Red coaches were replaced with the International Blue ones.

So far so good. But my real question is why the letter "J" specifically?

During a review of the catalogues I thought I'd found my answer, twice. In the 1954 catalogue, there it stated "Dining car, with the markings of the International Sleeping Car Co (JSG)" - hence my original question re JSG. My initial conclusion was that the "J" was reference to the JSG. However there is no such entity as the "JSG". Turns out this is clearly a catalogue printing mistake.

I posed it at the club Friday night, and friend Kevin took up the challenge saying he believed it was a mis-print and should be "ISG". This seemed plausible, except that the "J" suffix went back earlier than 1954. And, the "J" has been a consistent code for those variants. But I still wanted to confirm one way or the other.

But then it got more weird, in the 1955 English catalogue, it now became "ISG", consistent with what Kevin had found.

Just to be more confusing, the German 1955 catalogues for the same pages (22 & 23) still say "JSG" Hmmm. Have they not yet noticed the error?

Note that 1956 is the last year the "J" suffix was used, because under the new numbering system from 1957, the coaches all got new 4 digit numbers. The Packaged Sets also were assigned new 4-digit numbers.

Further confusion - in 1950, and ONLY 1950, the catalogue states to use letter "I" for the International version. But just for one year, then changed to "J". Perhaps the I used there was also a misprint? Anyone with 1950 in other languages to confirm?




The question lingers. Why would Märklin use "J", when "I" would seem more correct? So, I started going backward through the catalogues.

All the wagons of the International Co are suffixed "J", and they are all Blue, all the way back to 1936 - and hello, here's a weird thing.

The wording for the English 1936, 1937, and 1938 catalogues for the "J" state "Japanned International Blue"




"Japanned" ?? - Japanning is the technique by which a lacquer is applied to an object. From what I could glean from the German forum, this lacquer was applied to protect the lettering of the coaches, but it is also implied that all coaches received the lacquer coating. However, the '36 & '37 catalogues quite specifically imply that only the wagons carrying the "J" suffix are "Japanned International Blue"

The 1938 catalogue also states this for coaches 342 J, 343 J & 344 J, but do not specify it for the longer 352 J, 353 J, & 354 J, even though they also are "International Blue". Is that an omission, or relevant? Don't want to be over-thinking this.

I had to consider whether the "J" code had it's origin as relating to Japanning but I fear that might just be wild co-incidence.

So if any of our esteemed colleagues knows the answer to this, I'm all ears.

Once again, Why did Märklin use the letter "J" to refer to the Blue International Coaches ?

I hope this is interesting to some of you at least even if you don't have an answer I've enjoyed researching it and I've also done my best on the German forums but lack of hits may simply be that I'm not phrasing my search request correctly.

I will put the question out to the wider M. community but here is "home" for me and this is where I'll start.

I have posted below some example snips from the relevant pages showing the various JSG, ISG references.

Perhaps a mystery to solve for an Easter puzzle.

346/2

1954 DE JSG




1954 SP JSG




1954 EN JSG




1955 DE JSG




1955 EN ISG

Edited by user 23 February 2024 23:58:43(UTC)  | Reason: Added images and rewording

The only reference to "JSG" sleeper cars I could find was in the book

Wilhelm Weirauch, Ernst Blume: Die Eisenbahn-Verkehrsordnung: Vom 16. Mai 1928. Mit allgemeinen Ausführungsbestimmungen sowie dem Internationalen Übereinkommen über den Eisenbahnfrachtverkehr vom 30. Mai 1925 und dem Internationalen Übereinkommen über den Eisenbahn-Personen- und -Gepäckverkehr vom 12. Juni 1925.

See for yourself on Google Books:



So there seems to be the possibility that at least in the 1920's the acronym "JSG" was used, so it would not be a mere typo. Unfortunately, I can offer no other help to solve the mystery.