Minitrix - 16471 - Locomotive, Steam, 4-6-0, Prussian P 8 - Deutsche Reichsbahn (East Germany) - 78 1001

Specific Item Information: Prototype: German Federal Railroad (DB) steam locomotive road number 78 1001, 4-6-4 wheel arrangement with a type 2T17 two-axle short tender. The locomotive looks as it did around 1951.

Model: The locomotive and tender are constructed of die-cast metal. The locomotive has a motor with a bell-shaped armature and a flywheel, mounted in the boiler. It also has a built-in digital decoder and a sound generator with the formats DCC, Selectrix, and Selectrix 2. The locomotive and tender are close coupled. 3 axles powered. Traction tires. The locomotive has dual headlights with warm white LEDs.

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Prototype History: The Prussian Class P 8 of the Prussian state railways was a 4-6-0 steam locomotive built from 1906 to 1923 by the Berliner Maschinenbau (previously Schwartzkopff) and twelve other German factories. The design was created by Robert Garbe. It was intended as a successor to the Prussian P 6, which was regarded as unsatisfactory.

This locomotive was known as the DRG Class 38.10-40 when operated by the Deutsche Reichsbahn and DB Class 038 when operated by the Deutsche Bundesbahn.

Road Name History: From 1949, the new governments assumed authority for railway operations. The DRG's (or DR's) successors were named Deutsche Bundesbahn (DB, German Federal Railways) in West Germany, and Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR, German State Railways) in East Germany kept the old name to hold tracking rights in western Berlin.

Unlike the DRG, which was a corporation, both the DB and the DR were federal state institutions, directly controlled by their respective transportation ministries. Railway service between East and West was restricted; there were around five well-controlled and secure checkpoints between West and East Germany, and about the same number between East Germany and West Berlin. Four transit routes existed between West Germany and West Berlin; citizens of West Berlin and West Germany were able to use these without too much harassment by the East German authorities.

The DB started in 1968 with changing the locomotive and passenger car serial numbers to the UIC norm. In 1970 the DR followed. The DB started experimenting with the Intercity trains in a new livery (bright orange).

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: Trix is a German company that originally made Trix metal construction sets.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