While on Europe's fair shores, I picked up six second-hand Z scale items; a few of which are hidden in this picture:
Firstly, I tracked down a red Re 460 to lead the passenger train at a reasonable price. These locos are all over the passenger trains in Switzerland, and while 99-point-something percent of them are red like this, Marklin has, for twenty years, focused on churning out the various 'advertising' paint schemes for collectors... but no updated 460.
The red ones are hard to find in Z, and Lokmuseum says this model (88441) was produced between 1996-98, so it is well over 20 years old, with the prehistoric (two versions ago) three-pole motor.
The model looks sharp though, and in very good external condition, but I don't even know if it runs. We will get to that in a future installment. It will also need to be updated slightly, as it has the '2000' marking and no SBB directional arrows on the nose.
Behind the 460 above, you might see SBB passenger cars with the old green stripes along the windows. Three were acquired - one will be repainted in the white scheme to match the rest of the cars prepared a while back. Two will remain in this scheme (albeit slightly updated) as 'overflow' cars that were commonly tacked onto the InterRegio trains to increase the number of seats available during the high season. For example:
Interestingly, these older cars seem to roll better than some of my newer passenger cars. All were bought second-hand, and perhaps some have led more difficult lives than others!
