Minitrix - 12591 - Locomotive, Electric, BR 120 - Deutsche Bahn - 120 114-4

Specific Item Information: Accepts NEM-651 Decoder.

Model Information: The locomotive has a digital connector. It also has a 5-pole motor with a flywheel. 4 axles powered. The headlights and marker lights are LEDs, and they change over with the direction of travel. The close couplers have a guide mechanism. The locomotive has new roof equipment with individual insulators and wire. New rail clearance devices are cast on to the coupler drawbar.

DCC Information: Some of the models in this series either come pre-equipped with a decoder that handles DCC, Selectrix and Selectrix II. Other models are DCC_Ready and accept plug-in decoders.

Older DCC-Ready models accept NEM-651 decoders, like those available from Digitrax.com. The most recent models accept a MTC-14 14-pin decoder. These are nice decoders but they are only made by Minitrix and are hard to find. They can be purchased in the United States at Reynauld's

Prototype History: The DB Baureihe 120 is a class of electric locomotives operated by DB Fernverkehr in Germany. The locomotives' prototypes, delivered in 1979 (Mark 120.0), were one of the first electric locomotives with three-phase motors. They were based on experiences made in the 1970s with diesel-electric test platforms (Mark DE 2500/ DB Mark 202). In Norway, a new four-axle Locomotive, Mark El-17, was launched during 1983 with top speeds up to 93 miles per hour (150 km/h).

The design was intended to be the first truly universal locomotive, capable of pulling fast passenger trains as well as heavy freight trains. While the electric equipment exceeded expectations, the mechanical part suffered from its lightweight construction necessitated by the heavy electronics of the time.

After extensive tests, a series of 60 locomotives (Mark 120.1) were ordered in 1984 and delivered in 1986 - 1988. Original plans to build up to 2,000 machines were ultimately ended by DB's privatisation. The 120s went to DB Fernverkehr, the other divisions of Deutsche Bahn ordered locomotives that featured technologies from the 120, but were not direct successors.

From Wikipedia

Road Name History: Deutsche Bahn AG (abbreviated as DB, DB AG or DBAG) is a German railway company. Headquartered in Berlin, it is a private joint-stock company (AG), with the Federal Republic of Germany being its single shareholder. Deutsche Bahn describes itself as the second-largest transport company in the world, after the German postal and logistics company Deutsche Post / DHL, and is the largest railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europe. It carries about two billion passengers each year.

Deutsche Bahn (literally "German Railway" in German) came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn ("German Federal Railway") of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn ("German Empire Railway") of East Germany. It also gained ownership of former railway assets in West Berlin held by the Verwaltung des ehemaligen Reichsbahnvermögens (Administration of the Former Reichsbahn Assets).

Brand/Importer Information: Trix is a German company that originally made Trix metal construction sets. one of its co-founders was Stephan Bing, the son of the pioneer toy-maker industrialist Ignaz Bing. In 1935 the company began producing the electrically powered model trains that it became famous for, under the Trix Express label. Prior to the outbreak of World War II the Trix company produced a small range of fairly unrealistic AC powered three rail models running at 14 volts.

N gauge models under the Minitrix brand were made from the late 1960s mostly of European prototypes (German and British primarily). North American prototypes were also manufactured and marketed under the Aurora "Postage Stamp" brand; later these items were sold under the American Tortoise, Model Power and Con-Cor brands. Trix sometimes utilized North American consultants to aid in the design of this portion of the product line. The "Hornby Minitrix' brand was used in the 1980s for a short lived range of British outline models using the earlier product tooling.

Trix's owner in the 1980s and 1990s was Mangold, which went bankrupt in the late 1990s and Märklin purchased the assets in January 1997. In part, this purchase was a reflection of Märklin's need for added production capacity; Trix had been manufacturing certain items for Märklin in previous years. The purchase was also in response to the earlier purchase of the Karl Arnold company by the Italian company Rivarossi; Märklin were very keen to take over Trix market share in 2-rail H0 and especially Minitrix, until then Märklin had not marketed N gauge models. In 2003, Märklin introduced its first N gauge models under the well established Minitrix brand. A number Märklin H0 scale three-rail AC locomotives have also been introduced in two-rail DC versions under the Trix logo and many models are shared between the two brands.

From Wikipedia