I purchased a Trix El.12 but the fact that the snow plough is incorrect and the ugly Marklin couplings cannot be replaced/removed is a big minus in my opinion.

richardvoorhaven wrote: So I did some rebuilding. I entirely removed the coupling mechanism (by opening the hood you can do that without making and damage at all). I reoved the old snow plough. Instead I fixed a Roco closed Norrlandsplog (spare part to SJ DA or Dm3 of Roco). The two vertical parts of the Roco coupling have to be shortened a little and then you can glue the snow plough. I used glue that is quite adhesive but can be easily removed (with the idea: should I ever decide to sell the El.12, I can reinstate the loco in its original version).

A great improvement!

well I like the Roco model better. I do not understand why Trix/Marklin ask EUR 500 for a model and do not include a decent covered Norrlandsplog. Apart from that, the details on the Roco model are a bit more filigrane. The bolts on the Trix model look not as fine as those on the Roco model. All in all, the Trix loco looks not as detailed as the Roco loco looks. but the difference in that aspect is small. The pantographs of the Trix model are nices, but they are in silver metal. They need to be airbrushed to have a more realistic look. The sound of the sound decoder of the Roco model is more detailed then the sound of the Trix model. Finally, the Trix decoder is more difficult to handle with my ESU ECOS-central than the Roco locomotive with Zimo decoder. 

Thank you Richard for sharing your opinion.

It is pretty close to mine after looking at pictures of the models and reading on some forums. I am going for the Roco model and are looking forward to get around 45 pieces (should be 65) of Mas orewagons behind of Roco, UGJ and Trix production.

Thank you Richard.