A few years ago, Märklin released model of Serie 241-A, SNCF, one of the biggest steam-locomotives in Europe. At the time of release, I was ill for a long time (in hospital, in a coma, re-animated 3 times etc … it was a hard time for me)
Since April of this year my health is OK again, and since a few months I’m gradually picking up my modelrailroad-hobby. This 39241 was still on my wishlist. They where sold-out everywhere. Even a lot of people who did pre-order this loc, didn’t get it. In the meanwhile, sporadically, some of these pop-up on Ebay, for prices 4 to 5 times higher then the original Märklin price …
Until one day, I found an honest seller in Poland, selling a brand new version of this locomotive, but the trix version. (22941) I couldn’t let this go, I knew that this was a “once in lifetime” chance, to get his beautiful locomotive 🙂 Converting it would be a “piece-of-cake” since actually the 2-rail and 3-rail are “almost” the same. So, I jumped into this little adventure, and while ordering this locomotive, I also ordered (a few) Märklin 206370, a shoe that would fit this loco perfect …
After all, today I finally found time to to make the conversion. The locomotive looks even more beautiful now, but that’s just a thought, because it now smells and radiate the “Märklin vibe” 🙂
For those of you wanting this loco, if you ever get a chance to buy the Trix version: don’t hesitate, buy it ! (And follow the guide on this page to convert it to a Märklin 3-rail locomotive)
Things needed:
– a Trix 22941 (duh !)
– a set of (small) screw-drivers, flat and cross.
– a soldering iron
– some solder
– a multimeter ( or another way to “measure” the continuation of a wire)
– 15 minutes of your spare time
001. the Trix loco, some screwdriver-bits (I use an extended set if iFixit, never needed something else)
002. 3 Märklin shoes “206370”, only one is needed 🙂
003. Turn the loco and tender upside down, and gently disconnect both.
004. Turn out the flat screw that holds the front guiding axles (front of the loco)
005. Another flat screw will be visible after step 4, remove this screw also.
006. at the back of the loco, there are to (almost hidden) flat screws, next to the wheels.
007. Next, the top and bottom can be separated easily.
008. Next, it’s time to take the tender apart.
009. The top-part of the tender simply “clicks” off, also unscrew the 2 flat screws that you see. Take off the top-part.
010. disconnect the top from the bottom, by unplugging the white connector.
011. At the front of the tender, unplug the white connector.
012. The tender is free now, next unscrew the 2 cross-screws that holds the circuitboard in place.
013. Take off the circuitboard, and unscrew the 2 cross-screws that do hold the speaker.
014. The tender should look like this 🙂
015. Turn the tender upside down. Notice the electric guidance to the left and right wheels.
016. Take away the left and right electric guidance of the front axles of the tender, also take away the plastic part underneath it.
017. Attach the 206370 shoe, it fits in the 4 square holes you see in step 16.
018. Unsolder the wires from the circuitboard, “TRKL” and “TRKR”, you should have 4 wire now. 2 black and 2 brown.
018A. Measure with a multimeter the wires that are connected to the shoe. one black and one brown.
Solder them to the TRKR. Solder the other 2 wires to TRKL.
018B. If you don’t have a multimeter, wiggle with black and brown wire in the speaker-hole to seek those 2 wires.
(visible in step 14) Solder those 2 wires to TRKL, the other 2 to TRKR.
019. Next, a small modification needs to be done on the loco itself.
020. Unplug both connectors, and take a look at the 2 gray and 2 black wires. Unsolder the 2 gray ones.
021. Solder the 2 grey wires to the 2 black ones …
022. Conversion is done, follow the above steps in reverse order, to put the loco back together 🙂
023. Enjoy ! The decoder in the loco does support Motorola, MFX and DCC. All functions work (sound/lights/smoke) …