Background

Background of the Märklin Project

Born in 1968, I was introduced to the fascinating world of Märklin in the mid 70's. In our small city, my father and I made the local dealer happy when our layout started to grow. Then came schools and girls, and in 1986 the layout was deassembled to an unknown destiny in banana boxes. And forgotten.

In the summer holidays of 2001, the family car suddenly stopped by a road sign: The Model Railroad Museum "Chateau Småröd" north of Uddevalla in Sweden. The visit was a success. The two sons in the family were extremely happy, and I was even happier. "Hmm, the oldest boy will be 7 in August, why not... Let's find those banana boxes again". The old Märklin 3085 steam locomotive was a great birthday present for Andreas. And his little-brother Mattias, 5 years old, was also enthusiastic. The livingroom floor derived a great playground for the next months, at least from the majority's perspective. (Sorry wife!)

In parallel, I started (1) to plan where to build the layout and (2) to study "what's up" in the Märklin field today. These are the main conclusions:

There was no local Märklin dealer anymore, actually, I have to go more than 100 kms to get one.

	On the other hand, there is a fantastic market and knowledge base on the Internet.
	The digital world. A "Go" or "No Go"?

Turning back to the 70's and 80's, what was fun? Designing and building the layout, develop the landscape etc. How about driving the trains? Well, it was OK, but... So based only on the virtual digital experience I had concerning the digital world, we (?) decided to go for it. The objective was that the new layout should be 100% operated from a computer. This could be a new influence for the kids in IT: First games, then educational software, and now computer operated railroads! Well, I have to admit, working with computer systems daily, I also saw the opportunity to learn how automation processes could be monitored and controlled by software. Isn't it good to have the right arguments for investments sometime?

Playing with trains is one thing. But having an objective to create a realistic 3D real-time multimedia show, based on limited resources and still flexible for modifications, is another story.

One remark. I have spent several hours on the Internet trying to collect and sort information about digital systems. How does it work? What's the best solution there? etc. There are hundreds of digital components out there, and this is one of the reasons that I started to work on this site (Please check my "Digital" section). In my opinion, the model railroad marketshare could benefit from the current situation:

There are a lot of model railroads in banana boxes in the homes.
There are a lot of PC's in the homes.

There were also the following strategic decisions:

Let's remain with the Märklin M tracks. It could be nice to use the K tracks instead, but for me, it wasn't worth the money. Nine additional arguments for this are my old, beautiful metal bridges which I really want to use again. Also, it's very easy to get M tracks on the 2nd hand Internet market. Instead of e.g. paying 24 SEK (approx. 2.3 USD) for a simple, straight 5106 track, or 320 SEK (approx. 30 USD) for a single turnout, you will find the same items on the 2nd hand market at between 1/3 or 1/4 of the price.

	I will not go for a Swedish or Nordic style of layout. Items are too expensive, and I'm after a spectacular Swiss layout with alps, tunnels, bridges, port etc.
	I will not use catenary (i.e., power line in the air) on the layout. In the analogue world you use catenary to enable two trains to operate in one section. This you don't need in digital, here you probably use catenary for visual purposes only.
	The era will be somewhere in early 70's. Then, I can include steam locomotives and early electric locomotives - Don't we all dream about the Swiss Krokodil? Also, the "new" SBB logo was introduced in 1972.
	On the 2nd hand market, I check for items without boxes. Those are not attractive for true collectors, and accordingly, less expensive for me.

So, after this introduction, read more about my project on the other pages!

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