Switzerland is home to many exciting railway adventures. And many model railroaders gravitate toward modeling Swiss prototypes and scenic byways. FR’s first foray in Swiss z locomotion was modifying Marklin locos, one such example is the class Ae 3/6 electric. Not a great runner out of the box, FR redesigned it with an FR custom circuit board and motor with a flywheel. In order to allow the flywheel to spin freely window glazings had to be removed on that end of the loco. But another very interesting loco for Switzerland was designed and built from tip to toe by FR for the railway Rorschach Heiden Bergbahn, the model is entirely constructed of metal with separately applied details, and the first model of a cog railway prototype in ‘Z’ scale. It also incorporates the new technology of coreless motors.

Marklin 8851 loco modified by FR with upgraded FR circuit board and motor with flywheel. The brass flywheel can be seen in photo #3. I purchased this second hand, it was missing all the glazing. Later I found a shell with complete glazing, and I was able to file the bottom edge of glazing, with very careful positioning I was able to keep all glazing intact. The running characteristics are very good with the FR modifications.

FR – Rorschach Heiden Bergbahn (RHB) class Fzeh2/4 cog railway locomotive privately owned and lettered for RHB in Epoch 2 paint scheme.

*Siding: FR recommends teflon based oil instead of Marklin oil for its locos available from Hightech Modellbahnen.