Prototypical
Model Trains
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Ipswich, MA 01938
USA
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Rolling Stock Accessories
140 Years of Marklin: Marklin Production Today: It's been a long road from
handmade tin-plate toys to today's mass production in which the hand worker
still plays an indispensable role. Before locos and cars make their appearance
in the shop window or shelf, they have a two-year route to travel through the
various production stages. It starts in the design shop. Here the results of
surveys - in the Marklin Magazine, for instance (it appears regularly in
German) - are evaluated, the latest projects of the national railroad and
railroad companies are looked at, the designs of the loco and car
manufacturers examined, and then all are weighed up in the context of
Marklin's medium- and long-term policies, what chances a new product would
have on the market and whether it can be viably produced with the necessary
accuracy to the prototype. However, what the customer has to say is not always
clear. While young railroad enthusiasts who no longer see any steam engines
"live" on the rails can go into raptures about a smart-looking diesel racing
through a tunnel at 125 miles an hour, the older generation will hanker with
nostalgia-glazed looks after a true-to-life model of a Prussian P8, seeking
lovingly but uncompromisingly to establish whether there are as many rivets
depicted on the body of the locomotive as there were on the original. So all
the alternatives which present themselves in weighing up such considerations
are duly discussed by the builders and technicians at the factory, until the
green light is given by the management. Meticulous Like A Sleuth Using photos
and manufacturers' plans which - especially with historic models - are to be
uncovered only with the meticulousness of a sleuth - the research and
development department gets down to designing the product and its components.
The national railroads and the railroad companies play only a secondary role
in acquiring plans, however. Marklin's engineers turn for the most part
directly to the manufacturing works which then - with the agreement of the
consignor national railroads and companies - make the blueprints available. It
was quite different, though, in developing the "steam loco that never was" -
Marklin model 3102, the super heavy wartime locomotive from the Borsig works.
This colossus was intended for military transportation to the Urals but never
materialized because the tide of war turned against the consignor. Thirty
years later Marklin wanted to build Europe's biggest-ever loco - and its'
subsequent success proved the managers right. But the plans, naturally enough,
were hardly to be found in the "to be resubmitted" tray of the German Federal
Railroad. The railroad did help the Märklin searchers in the quest, though,
and eventually the blueprints for the Mallet-type loco were discovered in a
small technical file. Once the plans and drawings are ready for a miniature
project, the research and development department makes the first brass models
which are then required to prove their functional worth in extensive trials on
testbeds and special facilities. After this those responsible meet again in
conference to decide whether to give the go-ahead. The machine shop then gets
down to designing the tools and molds and other mechanical requirements for
production. Unlike with, say, the automobile industry, all the tools which
will eventually be involved in coachwork production are designed and
constructed by Marklin itself. Here special precision is the rule, because the
quality of molds and tools required to last for production series of several
hundred thousand will, in the long run, determine not just the appearance of
the product but also its durability. The Pilot Run Begins Once the plans are
ready, the mold- and tool-makers take their turn. With minute attention to
detail they get down to building the tools which will already be the
individual components of such details as the Heusinger valve gear of a steam
loco or faithfully-reproduced cabling atop a modern electric loco. The pilot
run is then ready. Here, before the main production begins the quality control
department must first have its say. It checks the components and the first
complete models for operation and "look". Dirty window casings? Unsightly
seams between parts produced by different machines? Nothing escapes the
schooled eyes of the quality control specialists. Not so rarely does it happen
that they will reject a passenger car superstructure in the Mini-club range
because a series number has "slipped upwards". At last, the pilot run is given
the go-ahead. This is the point when the work of the production planning
department pays off. They are responsible for the painstaking schedules
involved in preparing machine tools, for ensuring bulk dyed plastic is
delivered on time, or for the final assembly of motors. Our new locomotive
which has just passed its first test can only go into production if its
scheduling fits in with the factory's overall work. For this, data processing
plays a key role in helping the planners. Once the schedule is finally
prepared, "Day X" is now not to far away: Full production can begin. First
stop is the die casting shop. Loco body, chassis and wheels are cast
independently of each other. At the same time, in the plastic molding shop,
work goes ahead on the remaining body components. The highest precision has to
be the rule in the turning shop. Gear wheels which still guarantee the almost
legendary Marklin quality even after thousands of working hours, bevel gears
and the extremely fine Mini-club wheels acquire their form here. The cast
wheels for HO and gauge 1 locos are finished here, too. Painting - Automatic
And By Hand In order to ensure that the paint holds securely, the individual
zinc die cast units are electro-phosphated. Hundreds of parts are dipped
simultaneously in the various chemical baths, secured on special mountings. In
the paint shop, linked spraying machines apply the basic colors of locos and
cars where these are not already of dyed plastic. Against this, the spray gun
operators need a practiced hand and the right kind of practice for painting
individual sections of the loco bodies. And because not all color can be
applied by spraying or printing, skilled women's hands in the manual paint
shop give the final touch to body and chassis. The print shop, finally, adds
the lines and serial numbers and all the remaining insignia, etched with the
same precision as all the other processes. When the components of our loco
have got this far, it's time for final assembly - a procedure with so many
different demands from model to model that normally it does not lend itself to
automation. Here, again, it's a question of tireless work by hand, applying
realistic detail to the loco body or sub frame. Here you only have to think of
the minute attention to detail in the Heusinger valve-gear of the Mini-club
class 86 steam locomotive, or the connecting rods of the Crocodile. The same
applies to the mounted tubes on the HO steam locos or the way couplers are
reproduced on the 1 Gauge locos. In assembling the sub frames, the raw wheel
frames are turned into high precision trucks. Motor parts are put together
here, too. Again And Again: Quality Control At last comes final assembly. The
completed components are brought together into the Marklin model. Once it
"stands", it is put through a long-distance run, first on test beds for motor
and switching. Every model that arrives at the dealer's has already undergone
many switching and running tests. On top of these come trips over test routes
featuring all the tricks; that can be built using the K and M track programs.
Models that fail to come up to scratch under the controller's critical eye are
ruthlessly sorted out. External details are also given a final check here, and
only then is the loco allowed out for packing and storing in the multifixture
warehouse, from which it starts its journey to anywhere in the world.
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