London Bridge Toys Emmaus, PA

Ron Ruddell is a history buff with a well rounded and comprehensive knowledge of history and trains. Here is also a certified street car operative at the world’s oldest trolley car museum in Maine: https://www.trolleymuseum.org/

Ron’s store London Bridge Toys in Emmaus, PA is a gem combining a train room for z gauge with more than half the space dedicated to toy soldiers, not any toy soldiers but the historically accurate ones produced by W. Britains. Ron is an expert and a design/researcher for W. Britains of England. His knowledge and enthusiasm for history and trains is contageous. The store features a wide selection of Micro-Trains, z gauge accessories: cast vehicles, freight loads, lighting, and building kits, and some consignments. You might start collecting Micro-Trains before you leave his shop so watch out, those by the way are always discounted.

Hot tip: Buy Ron’s newly released book “Riding the Bell Lehigh Valley Transit’s Liberty Bell Route”. Visit Ron’s Books before it goes out of print: ronsbooks.com

http://www.londonbridgetoys.com/

Trains and Lanes of Easton, PA

One of my local train shops here in Pennsylvania is Trains and Lanes, I stop in at least once a week when I am in town. This is not just any old train store, Trains and Lanes is a shop on steroids with staff dedicated to the hobby of railroading, they all collect themselves and have knowledge about trains. Let’s call them train people, we all know what I mean. The store is an important store to dig around in with an inventory of all gauges with a sheer volume that would impress anyone. Trains and accessories galore! And if you have someone in the family whose interests are those of RC planes, cars or rockets bring them along. Z gauge is in one case, but they can order in everything except for MHI (Marklin Dealer Initiative) items. Looking for Marklin HO they have this too! Ask for always affable and helpful Dave and Woody in the train department.

http://www.trainsandlaneshobbyshop.com/

Ormandy’s of Medina, OH

On the square in Medina, OH is a very cool train store filled to the brim with Marklin Z, Marklin HO, and Trix. John Ormandy’s inventory of Marklin Z is one of the largest around including sold out items and the new releases. You will need to visit the store in person since there is no available on-line inventory, but it is a fun place to spend a couple of hours. And if you collect Marklin HO it takes up 1/2 the store. But you may find the train museum on the second floor equaling a visit to the store. Vintage Marklin HO and other vintage trains line shelves aplenty in this small but important museum. My Wife and I travel throughout the United States, we visit Ormandy’s at least 4 times a year either heading out to the Midwest or returning to PA. Here I have found special imprints, classic z items no one else has, and many other items that just slipped through the cracks affording me an opportunity to collect those trains that have been missing from my railroad museum. Highly recommended!

http://www.ormandys.com/

Joining Marklin Insider Club

Joining the Marklin Insider Club comes with member benefits in the form of exclusive offers, Marklin Insider News and Marklin Magazine. Plus the annual Marklin Insider car in z gauge. It is easy to join and worth the price of $109.00 annually. One extra cool thing with membership is the annual “Year in Marklin” video. The excitement for being part of this worldwide community of collectors is renewed with each bi-monthly mailing of Marklin Magazine. Marklin Insider cars are each collectible in their own right and often predate the release of a newly tooled cars in the line-up.

Here is the link to join:

https://www.marklin.com/club/marklin.html

Marklin 81972 40th Anniversary Set

A few Marklin 81972 sets are still available. And the prices I have seen can’t be beat. If you have been collecting Marklin Z for awhile this set conjures up fond memories for the early years of mini club. The set includes 3 German Federal Railroad (DB) Era III locomotives and one static gold ingot mold: 1 class 89 steam locomotive, 1 class 03 steam locomotive with a tender, and 1 class V 60 diesel locomotive. The 3 locomotives and static model come housed in a glossy carton with wood-grain illustration reminiscent of the first box design for Mini Club, “40 Years of Marklin mini-club” booklet with the story about the mini club along with illustrations, and a numbered certificate. Of course these three locomotives have updated 5 pole motors otherwise they are cut from the same cloth as the early locomotives they are modeled on. In a sense they bridge the old with the new and celebrate the 40 year history of mini club: 1972-2012.

This One Time Series from 2012 is no longer available from Walthers, but I have found it in several stores with very attractive pricing:

AJC Kids has it for $340.65 http://www.ajckids.com/products/Marklin/81972

On Ebay the very reliable fit991 of Gutersloh, Germany has it for $219.99 + $19.00 for shipping http://www.ebay.com/itm/Marklin-Z-81972-Train-Set-with-3-Locos-Limited-Edition-/331750853065?hash=item4d3de449c9:g:yt4AAOSw3ydV6VS~

I highly recommend this set, the running characteristics of all three locos is superb.

Recommended USA Marklin Z Dealers

I decided to compile a list of Marklin Z gauge dealers in the USA that I buy from. To get on this list a dealer has had to pass with flying colors several areas related to the sale of Marklin Z:

Brick and mortar store or online store
Inventory on hand
Knowledge of all things Z not just Marklin
Passion for Z gauge
Trustworthy

Price can be important when a collector is working on assembling a large collection, saving money here and there affords an opportunity to expand a collection in numerous era’s or railroads. But paying a fair price should be embraced, supporting retail train stores helps with the overall hobby of collecting and supporting fine companies such as Marklin, FR, MicroTrains, Archistories, and many others. We all know with a few exceptions the risky business of buying secondhand trains on auction sites. Supporting a dealer whose business is selling trains should be the go to source for railroading. My list is not small, but it is also not big. And if you have a dealer that you like who is not on my list please let me know, helping each other with resources helps us all.

Highly Recommended sold out items

I decided to start an ongoing category on this blog to give other collectors a heads-up on Marklin Z gauge items that are sold out at the factory but still available for discounted or original releases prices. So to that end I will list an item that appears to be still available with particular dealers that I trust, and that I have done business with. And the other criteria is recommending items that I personally own and/or consider “Hot” Marklin Z items that should not be missed.

My first entry is the famous Anhalter Bahnhof Station which is Marklin item number 89200. This building kit was awarded “Model of the Year” in 2003 by Z Club 92. This is a big building true to the prototype which was mostly destroyed in WWII, now just the entry portico is preserved. The kit features plastic parts with cast metal ornamentation just like the prototype. The cast metal statuary are exquisite. I own this kit, and my plan is to properly paint it based on historic photos and create a sensitive interpretation of the outlying city center this once resided in. Lot’s of work ahead but all of it is fun work.

Historic background for this important station nicknamed Berlin’s “Gateway to the South”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Anhalter_Bahnhof

This kit has been extremely hard to come by having been sold out for more than 10 years. Forget about getting a new one on Ebay. For the lucky few Discount Train in FL has 3 new ones available for the discounted retail price of $299.98. At the time of this writing (1/31/16) they had 3 available. This is a company I recommend, I have purchased a number of items from them and not a single transaction had any problems what so ever.

If you build or have built the Anhalter Bahnhof station please send your photos, I will love to post them here with proper credit.

As always I hope this information on this blog is helpful.

Koll Marklin Z catalogs

If you collect Marklin Z regular production or special imprints before 1997 your helpful guides on the journey are the very informative Koll catalogs from 1996 and 1997. Koll published two catalogs for each year: “Marklin SpurZ” and Marklin SpurZ Speczial”. The two Marklin SpurZ catalogs cover regular production items and their variants along with approximate valuations. The “Speczial’s” catalogs cover special imprints produced and printed by Marklin almost completely illustrated and accompanied by edition size, valuation and Koll’s number. The Koll’s number is important in that it identifies year produced and sequence of release that year. Marklin has produced special editions and one time series locomotive and car sets sometimes accompanied by a numbered certificate, special imprints including white box editions are a little different often produced in editions as small as 100 and commissioned privately; they have never been available through the dealer network, collectors of special imprints purchase these cars through secondary market passing from the original owners through dealers and then new collectors. One exception are Hbis style cars with Swiss imprints, they were produced for the Swiss market in an edition size of 300, but they were sometimes then imported to USA dealers without being sold in Switzerland first. Great graphics and rarity have been two reasons to collect Marklin special imprints, but gaining a wider understanding of the companies depicted on these cars adds tremendously to the appreciation of the historical value of collecting Marklin Z.

Notes:

-Special Imprints are also assigned another set of numbers besides Koll, these numbers are known as ‘Miba-Monk’ numbers based on the collection of Gilles Monk of Belgium, they are assigned numbers based on the sequential release dates. There are thousands of special imprints so the work of archiving these very special cars is to be admired.

-Special Imprints also include another subset referred to as ‘Industry Prints’. Industry prints are not covered in the Koll catalogs. Industry Prints were privately printed in Germany by Baur-Druck Bad Waldsee and sold by Schmidt, Germany for distribution in Europe and the United States. *If you have a special imprint car, and it does not have a tiny ‘m’ printed on it then it is an Industry Print.

Z Layout: Design

Designing your first large scale Z layout can be a daunting task, but Marklin offers three excellent products to help: track stencil 0212, layout book 0296 and the track planning game 0232. These three products each in their own way references all tracks and track accessories. The track stencil allows for a straight forward approach, tracks are drawn through a connect the dots kind of exercise. The layout book has been reprinted several times suggesting its longstanding popularity, it starts with an overview of track and accessories followed by numerous very fine ready made layout and module designs. Lastly is 0232 referred to as the Track Planning Game which is a good description for it with lots of plastic parts that fit together like a puzzle. Snap together pieces represent all the different kinds of track, switches and accessories to make up a layout in a 1:2 ratio, simply double the dimensions of the completed assemblage of track to determine how big your layout will be. At the time of this writing all three products are no longer available by Marklin, but each are easy to find on Ebay or dealer old stock.

Z Layout: Notes on Track

Z gauge layouts can be produced with products from numerous companies. As for track there are three popular ones including Micro Trains, Rokuhan and Marklin. Marklin in my opinion is the most realistic, but unlike the other two you will need to add roadbed for realism. Cork roadbed is available from Itty Bitty Lines and most train stores that sell Z have this in stock. You can adjust the color of a cork roadbed with water base paint to match your prototype railroad. Cork roadbed is difficult to lay for curves, but cutting it lengthwise in two parts will allow it to easily manipulate for curves. Track maintenance is essential from time to time from cleaning to dust removal. If you own a Miele vacuum cleaner perhaps consider purchasing the accessory SMC20 Micro Set, it is perfect for removing dust from track and catenary. Use denatured alcohol for cleaning the track. A dirty track can often be the culprit when your loco is not running smoothly.

Z Trains Weekly

World of Z scale trains!