My diorama that brought me back to model railroading

[torikoos]

I could be wrong of course, but when I was young, Marklin starter kits used to have an engine extremely similar to yours, but it would be 3 axles, more precisely, it would be a BR80 (class 80, freely translated). Yours is a class 81 (BR81) which had 4 axles. The two classes are related in real life, but it was the 80 that was found in most starter sets. (also the first engine Marklin modelled in 1972 when they invented the Z scale, and promo pics at the time showed one inside a wallnut.)

I never owned Marklin, my parents couldn't afford it, and even as a child I did not like their 3 rail system on a metal ballast bed. I prefered 2 rail DC even then, and there were cheaper ones available then that did that. I then moved on to scale N for ages due to space constraints initially, and moved from there back to HO, but went US prototypes, and stuck there ever since :-)