I just received this Insider Club model and got it on the track this morning. It is doing break in laps now.
Before unboxing there are a few things to be aware of. First, this thing is heavy! There are some tiny exposed details, maybe horns, projecting from the roof at both ends which would be very easy to break off. So rolling the loco out onto a foam pad is a good way to get her out of the box. Actually, I flip the box over and let gravity do its thing, leaving the loco on the foam. But if you try and pry it out from the ends you might break those. There is a black foam pad between the locos for shipping which is easily mistaken for part of the loco. If it falls away when first handling the loco you might be surprised, I was! The loco halves are connected by a long drawbar. The long one is for driving. There are two more in the packaging, be careful not to lose those, a short one and another long one. I guess the short one is for display. There are also two black wires connecting the locos, one on either side of the drawbar. These are a mystery to me. I assume they are current carrying and double the pickup contact but they could also be for show? They are not shown in the manual's exploded diagram or mentioned anywhere. In fact the manual has an elevation showing hands pushing/pulling the locos apart on a track to connect them or expose the drawbar, whether or not doing this would rip apart the cables and damage the loco I do not know! It is an unfortunate example of Marklin "dumbing down" their manuals. I want to know what those wires do and where they are going in case maintenance, or a drawbar swap, is required. Moving on, I am mightily impressed. At first glance in the package it is rather subdued, there isn't a lot jumping out at you, but once you get it out of the packaging and put it on the track the double diesel configuration is pretty arresting. Double locos always are, but the L/R handing with the drawbar really gets your attention. The "WAF" (wife acceptance factor) is not great. I think, for the price, and all my excitement about getting it, my wife found it boring. Anywhoo, it runs really well! It is a power hound, it is not slow but requires more juice from my Marklin controller than on average to get it going. At slow speeds it is noticeably smooth and consistent over switches and track irregularities. Hooray for heavy locos, right? This should be a great loco for switching duties. The standard directional lighting is nice and bright, and the engine room lighting is the best I have seen in Z scale. I will elaborate on that. I have a Marklin HO train with lighted passenger cars, the table lamps in the cars are a soft warm white light and contrast well with the brighter white ceiling lights. So Marklin is cognizant of this effect. On my Class 103.1 Electric Loco #88545 the engine room lighting is bright white and even overpowers the driving lights, it is not very scale like. I also think my Class 798 Powered Rail Car #88167 is like that, the interior lighting is too harsh. But on this V188 the engine room lighting is suitably dimmed and there is that hint of an interior which looks just great while driving. Wether or not it was done on purpose is anybody's guess, but it is nice ;)

Thanks again to Zscalehobo for his patience and persistence in bringing these to us here in the US!

It is very unique!

WAW didn't yet put that one on a scale. But +70 is very impressive!!!

Thanks very much! You know how much this data means to me!

All the best


Chris

188 is heavy with more powered axles.
320 is lighter and has 4 powered axles.

The 320 will outperform lighter boogied pullers.
It probably will be on par with the E8 locos
They also have 4 of the 6 axles powered :)

Did your wife tell you this Chris ???

How did you know that?!