The BR 98.5 from Trix was never offered as an AC model. Neither by Trix nor by Märklin.

So, a conversion is necessary if one wants to operate this model on an AC layout. But many model railroaders will have desperated about this model, becuase there's not much room to mount a pickup shoe. Because of this it's often siad it is impossible, others say however, that they have converted this model. 

So, what's the truth - is a conversion possible, or not?

The model which was converted has the catalog number 22565.

	The picture shows the bottom side of the loco after the installation of the pickup shoe.
The pickup shoe, mounted beyond the driver's cab. Below the front part of the chassis, over the driving axles, there's much less room. In the yellow circle, we see the section over the trailing truck. The pickup shoe's rear end is "hanging over". In the green circle, we see the section of the pickup shoe's front end, Where the chassis' base plate had to be countersunk in order to create room for the pickup shoe's end section. In this case the short Roco pickup shoe was used, its plastic base plate was removed. It was fixed directly on the chassis' base plate. It's also possible to use a Fleischmann pickup shoe lik it is used for the T3, for example. These pickup shoes are made of special thin sheet metal and can be screwed on the base plate. The deocder found place in the driver's cab above the motor.

Unluckily, this is not possible. This model is equiped with wheels where only the rims of the wheel consist of metal. The rest of such weehls is consisting of plastic. There's no way to mill a notch without destroying or at least heavily damaging the wheels.  

This loco is running on my layout without any problems. It's running perfectly through all the turnouts.

Disclaimer. I can NOT be held responsible for any damage you cause by following my instructions, on modifying your model railway equipment. Everything you are doing, you are doing it at your own risk!