Can the superb new Marklin Re 6/6 be improved? Of course!
The chunky pantographs were quickly unscrewed and disposed of.
Looking at my pictures of Re 6/6s, the roof seems fairly silvery where it meets the red sides, and then usually dirties up on the top, especially around the pantographs. I assume they stay cleanish on the sides due to the train washing facilities. So the grey roof on the model was painted silver, except for the bits between the pantographs - because I knew I'd be making them dirty soon.
Some brown Tamiya panel line accent was dabbed onto the roof's side grilles as I've seen a few pictures of these looking lightly rusty, and I thought that might be something different to do in terms of looks. In hindsight I'm not sure I'm crazy about this and will probably go back over them with black accent.
Various shades of grey, dark grey and black then found their way onto the roof.
The aerials above the drivers cab (radio and GPS I assume) were painted very light grey. Nice that Marklin included these, and the UIC plug (?) between the front windows is already white. I put some Tamiya Smoke inside the side windows to darken them down a little.
You probably can't see it in the pictures, but I also added tiny red vertical strips between the main front silver window frames and the curved corner windows. I did the same on the Re 4/4.
As mentioned yesterday, the little side details between the bogies (air tanks and boxes) were very lightly glued in with come contact adhesive, as were the cowcatchers. I note that there is an ETCS shoe cast into one each of the side details between the bogies - attention to detail! The lower half of the bogies and those details were washed with a little brown. Most of the 4/4s and 6/6s seem to actually have grey weathering on the bogies - perhaps from use of sand on the way up and composite brake blocks that don't produce as much rusty-dust on the way down??
A little bit of this brown and grey ended up on the sides of the loco. As I have a second 6/6 on the way, I figure this one can be the 'second loco' behind an Re 4/4, and the other 6/6 will 'lead' a train with a 4/4 behind it. As such, I decided I would gunk this up a little more and add a little more detail (including a front cowcather/pilot) to the leader.
As with my 4/4s, it will be nigh impossible for me to change the side numbers and town lettering, but I could change the crest on the side. I was looking for a yellow one, but then found this number, ten less than 11666. Pic below from Christoph Herni on Flickr. I did attempt to change the numbers on one side with a blob of red to change the 6 into a 5. Not worth it! I painted blue inside the crest frame, and put three angled white lines across it.
After I'd done most of this, I added a set of etched pantographs.
So here is a closer pic:
And as it looked yesterday:
I'll probably revisit this again tomorrow and clean up a few areas.
Other things I might add to the 'lead' 6/6, once it gets here, include side mirrors, maybe a front step, that door behind the cab on one side, the little white triangle on the cab side doors, maybe some sun shades ...and a driver!
It's been a long wait for the Marklin Re 6/6 (announced more than two years ago), and for me, it's been an expensive exercise.
I feared I'd missed out when the one ordered at the NZ dealer came back as "item on backorder', so I ordered a second one from Z Scale Hobo. Plus a '175th' SBB livery Re 4/4 with a can motor, as I'd heard the new can motor locos don't run well with the old 5 pole cage motors. Plus a few new wagons with both locos. I'd better get a lotto ticket to pay for all of this.
So. A new design of white Marklin card box, and out pops Re 6/6 11666 “Stein am Rhein”, Marklin's item number is 88240.
It looks fabulous. The Re 4/4 was a superb model (except for the pantographs as have been mentioned in the past), but this is at another level. Freestanding handrails,tidy roof detail, detachable front skirt/cowcatcher/snowplows, and most importantly, this is the first of my Marklin Z locos where the chassis 'looks right'. Large diameter, nicely spoked wheels, a prototypically spaced wheelbase so the body doesn't overhang much at the ends, and most importantly, the body is hunkered down on the chassis in a way the Re 4/4 could benefit from. Not bad at all.
The pantographs, while still clunky, are painted black, which reduces their visual impact a little. I believe this is one of the first Marklin locos that doesn't take current from the overhead, which might upset some people with existing layouts (it doesn’t bother me). Given this, why not provide some fine injection moulded plastic ones in the box? One folded up, one down (and several spares of each to allow for breakages!) I'll be replacing mine with etched examples.
Compare the 6/6 and 4/4 bogies/trucks/drehgestell). On the real thing these are almost identical.
A proper Re 10/10!
Popping the top off, the innards look quite different to the 4/4s (even the new can motor-equipped 4/4). The body seems to be cast in a lightweight light coloured metal (? but it feels a bit like plastic). The pickups from the two end bogies are thin wires. I'm not sure if that is a good thing (no rubbing copper strips to get dirty) or merely something that can break. There is now a long circuit board on top. The little air tanks and boxes between the bogies clip in and out (and surprise you by pinging onto the floor the first time you take the shell off). I'll probably glue them to the chassis. The printed boxes and things on the side of the light grey chassis can be seen through the side windows to provide some interior detail, which is a nice tough, and there is cab interior at both ends. Again a nice touch, but that leaves little room for extra weight.
As god intended:
So how does it run? This is the first Marklin loco I have with the new ‘bell armature can motor'. It’s quieter and smoother than the old motors, but not as smooth or quiet as the Rokuhan unit I have. It was also reported to be a bit faster than the old motors - why didn’t they change the gearing so it would run with the old 4/4?! Grrrr. Then I further bolstered Marklin's coffers (voting with my wallet for poor decisions) by buying the 175th livery Re 4/4 which also has a can motor. Despite the top being of no use to me as that livery came out in 2022, after the Gotthard base tunnel opened.
Side by side, the two can motor locos run at different speeds anyway, the 4/4 a little faster, although they run together OK.
I'd also read a review saying the 6/6 was a bit light and wimpy, but I ran th 6 wagon boxcar train with no hassle behind the 10/10. The 620 was a bit jerky in places. I was surprised. It's a brand new loco, so it should be clean, and I cleaned all my track. Almost as if it was losing contact with the rails in spots (wonder if there is enough vertical movement in that middle bogie) and it felt like it got 'tired' the more I ran it!Maybe I just need to re-clean a few spots on the track. It certainly wouldn't hurt either of these locos to have a bit more weight.
So the 10/10 ran well enough other than the occasional herkey-jerky, but with two locos they tended to get past any bad spots. I swapped out the red and cream 175th livery top for one of my red tops for the video.
This first "running session" on Wassen in many years was a mixed bag. One of the levels of loops in the north end hill is too close to the scenery and the Transwagons (and other long wagons from the marks on the inside) scrape inside the paper mache, and on one occasion, they caught and derailed the train. Good to know, as I'm sure that can be fixed.
I then noticed that the new 6/6 ran at a similar speed to the old-motored 4/4s (Grrr!!!) so ran a big container train behind them, which ran reasonably well given its length. One container wagon caused a derailment by clipping a plastic tunnel portal (which was then opened up slightly with a knife blade). I also need to add more vertical clearance on the north loop somehow, as my nice pantographs were getting snagged. The points up top of the south hill seem a bit sketchy in terms of power delivery, which is a pain, but two locos will generally power through them.
With the long train of light wagons and little wheel flanges, sudden stops and starts cause derailments. As does backing the train for photo ops. So the session was a bit frustrating. I need to sort out some of these issues or the layout will just be an exercise in frustration. Fortunately, now that I've identified a few trouble spots, they can be fixed.
A few videos might show up if blogger gets around to processing them:
