Märklin Production Today. It's been a long road from handmade tin-plate toys to today's mass production in which the hand worker still plays an indispensable role. Before locos and cars make their appearance in the shop window or shelf, they have a two-year route to travel through the various production stages.

It starts in the design shop. Here the results of surveys - in the Märklin Magazine, for instance (it appears regularly in German) - are evaluated, the latest projects of the national railroad and railroad companies are looked at, the designs of the loco and car manufacturers examined, and then all are weighed up in the context of Märklin's medium- and long-term policies, what chances a new product would have on the market and whether it can be viably produced with the necessary accuracy to the prototype.

However, what the customer has to say is not always clear. While young railroad enthusiasts who no longer see any steam engines "live" on the rails can go into raptures about a smart-looking diesel racing through a tunnel at 125 miles an hour, the older generation will hanker with nostalgia-glazed looks after a true-to-life model of a Prussian P8, seeking lovingly but uncompromisingly to establish whether there are as many rivets depicted on the body of the locomotive as there were on the original. So all the alternatives which present themselves in weighing up such considerations are duly discussed by the builders and technicians at the factory, until the green light is given by the management.

Meticulous Like A Sleuth
Using photos and manufacturers' plans which - especially with historic models - are to be uncovered only with the meticulousness of a sleuth - the research and development department gets down to designing the product and its components. The national railroads and the railroad companies play only a secondary role in acquiring plans, however. Märklin's engineers turn for the most part directly to the manufacturing works which then - with the agreement of the consignor national railroads and companies - make the blueprints available.

It was quite different, though, in developing the "steam loco that never was" - Märklin model 3102, the super heavy wartime locomotive from the Borsig works. This colossus was intended for military transportation to the Urals but never materialized because the tide of war turned against the consignor. Thirty years later Märklin wanted to build Europe's biggest-ever loco - and its' subsequent success proved the managers right. But the plans, naturally enough, were hardly to be found in the "to be resubmitted" tray of the German Federal Railroad. The railroad did help the Märklin searchers in the quest, though, and eventually the blueprints for the Mallet-type loco were discovered in a small technical file.

Once the plans and drawings are ready for a miniature project, the research and development department makes the first brass models which are then required to prove their functional worth in extensive trials on testbeds and special facilities. After this those responsible meet again in conference to decide whether to give the go-ahead.

The machine shop then gets down to designing the tools and molds and other mechanical requirements for production. Unlike with, say, the automobile industry, all the tools which will eventually be involved in coachwork production are designed and constructed by Märklin itself. Here special precision is the rule, because the quality of molds and tools required to last for production series of several hundred thousand will, in the long run, determine not just the appearance of the product but also its durability.

The Pilot Run Begins
Once the plans are ready, the mold- and tool-makers take their turn. With minute attention to detail they get down to building the tools which will already be "pinpointing" the individual components of such details as the Heusinger valve gear of a steam loco or faithfully-reproduced cabling atop a modern electric loco. The pilot run is then ready. Here, before the main production begins the quality control department must first have its say. It checks the components and the first complete models for operation and "look". Dirty window casings? Unsightly seams between parts produced by different machines? Nothing escapes the schooled eyes of the quality control specialists. Not so rarely does it happen that they will reject a passenger car superstructure in the Mini-club range because a series number has "slipped upwards".

At last, the pilot run is given the go-ahead. This is the point when the work of the production planning department pays off. They are responsible for the painstaking schedules involved in preparing machine tools, for ensuring bulk dyed plastic is delivered on time, or for the final assembly of motors. Our new locomotive which has just passed its first test can only go into production if its scheduling fits in with the factory's overall work. For this, data processing plays a key role in helping the planners. Once the schedule is finally prepared, "Day X" is now not to far away: Full production can begin.

First stop is the die casting shop. Loco body, chassis and wheels are cast independently of each other. At the same time, in the plastic molding shop, work goes ahead on the remaining body components. The highest precision has to be the rule in the turning shop. Gear wheels which still guarantee the almost legendary Märklin quality even after thousands of working hours, bevel gears and the extremely fine Mini-club wheels acquire their form here. The cast wheels for HO and gauge 1 locos are finished here, too.

Painting - Automatic And By Hand
In order to ensure that the paint holds securely, the individual zinc die cast units are electro-phosphated. Hundreds of parts are dipped simultaneously in the various chemical baths, secured on special mountings. In the paint shop, linked spraying machines apply the basic colors of locos and cars where these are not already of dyed plastic. Against this, the spray gun operators need a practiced hand and the right kind of practice for painting individual sections of the loco bodies. And because not all color can be applied by spraying or printing, skilled women's hands in the manual paint shop give the final touch to body and chassis. The print shop, finally, adds the lines and serial numbers and all the remaining insignia, etched with the same precision as all the other processes.

When the components of our loco have got this far, it's time for final assembly - a procedure with so many different demands from model to model that normally it does not lend itself to automation. Here, again, it's a question of tireless work by hand, applying realistic detail to the loco body or sub frame. Here you only have to think of the minute attention to detail in the Heusinger valve-gear of the Mini-club class 86 steam locomotive, or the connecting rods of the Crocodile. The same applies to the mounted tubes on the HO steam locos or the way couplers are reproduced on the 1 Gauge locos. In assembling the sub frames, the raw wheel frames are turned into high precision trucks. Motor parts are put together here, too.

Again And Again: Quality Control
At last comes final assembly. The completed components are brought together into the Märklin model. Once it "stands", it is put through a long-distance run, first on test beds for motor and switching. Every model that arrives at the dealer's has already undergone many switching and running tests. On top of these come trips over test routes featuring all the "tricks" that can be built using the K and M track programs. Models that fail to come up to scratch under the controller's critical eye are ruthlessly sorted out. External details are also given a final check here, and only then is the loco allowed out for packing and storing in the multifixture warehouse, from which it starts its journey to anywhere in the world.

• Autodetection of digital or analog operation
• Suitable for any Digital Command Control (DCC) system, including: Digitrax®, NCE, MRC® DCC, Atlas® commander®, Bachmann® E-Z command®, Lenz® digital plus®, Zimo®, LGB® MTS®, ROCO®, Fleischmann® Twin-Center®
• Suitable for AC-, DC- and coreless motors
• Super silent running due to pulse frequency of 32 KHz
• Perfect load compensation for optimal running especially on uphill or downhill gradients; exceptional slow running characteristics
• Load control can be adapted to any motor by means of 3 CVs
• Dynamic Drive Control (DDC) - Back EMF active at low speeds for smooth slow running operation with reduced influence at high speeds
• Back EMF also active in conventional AC or DC mode - User has full control of motor and acceleration
• Acceleration and deceleration can be switched with function button
• Switcher mode (half speed) can be activated with function button
• Up to 4 auxiliary function outputs suitable for smoke units, interior lighting, automatic couplers, for raising and lowering pantographs, ditch lights or lighting the fire box
• Individually adjustable brightness of lighting
• Special lighting effects such as blinking, fire box, Mars light, Gyra light etc. can be set for each function individually
• New, revolutionary function mapping. All functions can be allocated to any of up to 20 function buttons. Multiple allocations are possible allowing for the combination of sound and functions e.g. the sound of shoveling coal and light flickering in the firebox
• Integrated Function Keys F13-F20 - latest NMRA DCC standards
• Short circuit protection for motor and function outputs

Realistic sounds - as in the real world - can easily be reproduced with the sound module, because the original sounds are memorized digitally on a chip. The sound module offers a new and fascinating model world full of sound.

• The 4-Channel feature allows you to add 3 sound effects simultaneously to the running sound, your engine will sound even more realistic.
• Really hear your engine work - exhaust chuffs synchronized to the wheel and to the load - lower motor revolutions for diesel engines once the set speed has been reached - separate running sound and ventilator sounds for electric locomotives.
• Load Dependent Sound - may be turned off
• The sound speed is synchronized with the speed steps or with an external sensor. This is suitable for use with mechanical sensors, reed switches or Hall sensors.
• Your model railway becomes more authentic than ever with the large 8 MBit memory allowing for complex sound effects, such as the typical noise of a stationary steam engine, the announcements by the dispatcher, the whistle of the train guard and many more. You can activate up to 15 different sounds with the function buttons.
• Adjustable sound volume - Control the volume for the prime mover, horn or whistle and bell individually; accomplished by the use a function key on the command station throttle or adjust the CVs.
• With the Helper Function the user can select whether the engine runs standalone, head-of-consist, mid-of-consist, or end-of-consist. Certain functions can be enabled/disabled, for instance the horn and bell is active on the first engine only, whereas the prime mover sound is on for all engines.
• Consist mode CVs - Influence the behavior of the function keys with the added CVs 21 and 22.
• Analog Sound - Even on conventional DC layouts you will hear all prime mover sounds synchronized to the operation condition.