So as I'm building my collection of rolling stock and loks in my mind, with these great plans, I'm realizing, to get where I want to be, I'll probably have to upgrade or replace a few bits.

Can the following things all be replaced / upgraded ?

Couplers (to current conducting and otherwise)?

Internal Lighting on cars?

Regarding interior lights, there are also numerous non-Marklin LED-based units available; these use less power and have a longer life than the standard light bulbs.

Current cnducting couplers are available in two versions from Märklin. If your wagons have NEM-pockets, it is quite easy to replace the original couplers. For older rolling stock, the couplers are not so easy to remove. You have to cut them off and put a NEM-pocket in to fit the current conducting couplers.

The older version of current-conducting couplers are only usable if you have the wagons permanently coupled together. If you have to uncouple them frequently you need the newer version.

If you don't want to make too many changes to your wagons, it is also possible to connect them by a thin wire. Make some kind of connector under the wagons to have a possibility to take them apart. Then you can also use a 2-pole wire to avoid light flickering - this is a good practice if you use a decoder to turn lights on/off. If you have a decoder with several outputs, you can have it in one wagon and feed the others through wires. The Roco 4-pole current conducting couplers are also a good choice. In theory you can have 5 groups of separately controlled light from 1 decoder and pickup shoe.

Most people prefer to have the pickup shoe last in the train. Then you can still control the lights of two more coaches individually.

Thanks for the feedback. I was looking for just such info.

I can expect, that I might end up with 70's and 80's era rolling stock, and knowing that one has to cut off the connector and replace it with a modern NEM socket lets me know its do-able in any case. Its just a matter of how much work needs to be done. Cool.

I guess, ideally, I'd like to be able to uncouple all cars at will via decoupling stations. Rearranging cars and assembling trains is where much of the fun can come from once you have a permanent setup operational.

I'd like to see if I can feed power from the lok back to the train, as in real life, rather than adding another pickup shoe... I wonder if thats possible... I'd activate all of the cars lighting if the train lighting is active. However, I can imagine building circuits that, in cars with compartments, turns some compartments lights on and off selectively by some timing pattern... but thats a whole project onto itself.

Excellent! That is more than detailed. Nice pictures.

Was it trial and error in geting the right location for putting in the screw hole?

Tap & Die or I guess brazing may work as well... or a delicate tap with the tig welder ?



Ah, thats what I forgot... I assume that the lok roof electrical pickup compeonents (the arms that fold up to contact the catenary) can be swapped to some limited extent? Here I'm thinking, if I end up with a full scissor type unit, and want to put on the half type, high-speed unit, can those be upgraded?


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For Current Conducting Couplers try the RTS CC Couplers . available from LokShop in sets of 10 Cars.
Slider on one car, earthing strips on each car and the positive thru the CC Couplers.
Part number RTS5910 cost 40.52 Euro. (8 months ago.)
There was a topic on Current conductiong couplers some time ago which will give you more information.
Nev