Egger-bahn

Egger-Bahn were a German producer of model railways. The company was founded in 1963 [ and created H0e scale. The firm was founded by the three brothers Egger. One of them, an performer soon left the firm. Theodor Egger, technician, and Jonathan Egger, salesman, continued. [http://www.egger-bahn.de/english/index.htm Egger-bahn: History] ] . The first appearance was at the toy-fair in Nürnberg in 1963. The models were in the scale of HO (1:87) at 9 mm gauge. In reality this represented 740 mm gauge and was named narrow-gauge. It was the first firm to produce these models and it was a great success. In 1964 more models were presented, for instance a steamloco. Models from Egger-Bahn were often used in presentation-lay-outs. For instance Faller used them in their magazine, because Faller produced models more in a scale of 1:100 than 1:87. The small models of Egger_bahn suited it very well. In the USA Egger-Bahn was marketed by AHM together with the Roco Peetzy models under the name of 'Minitrains'. But it was not only a success. In order to cope the market demands Egger had to produce more models. Besides, technicals improvements, as Magna-Kraft, made that models and moulds had to reworked very often. See for a varity at http://www.egger-bahn.nl/smalspoor%20lok%20foto%20basispagina.html . Furthermore was decided to simplify the models in order to cope with the demands. Customers respond badly to this change and sales went down. One had to find new financial resources. These were found with Tristan movie company (Constantin movie company) that produced the Old Shatterhand movies. Tristan forced to produce more USA-style models suiting the Winnetou-scene. This was no success. In the end the firm was broken up in 1967 and Jouef later acquired the toolings and produced the models. Jouef ended production in the early seventies. As in 1983 in an old bunker the old moulds were rediscovered Jouef retried to market these models under the name of Egger-Bahn in the grey boxes. As sale was mostly directed internel France the market was not large enough and production finished in the early nineties. The firm-name even was not renewed and now is possessed by private owners as at http://www.egger-bahn.nl and Theodor Egger himself. Apart from the narrow-gauge trains Egger-Bahn produced a boat in N-scale. It was meant to become mechanical moved boats in real water. This was the great love of Mr Theodor. Produced was only one Mississippi-styled-boat. Egger also started the production of slotcars by the name of Egger-Silberpfeil. The models can also be found with Jouef. The Egger-models ran with a Jouef Motor. Successful was the production of Egger-Lectron. These were electronic elements one could combine on a metal underground to instructive articles. It was taken over by Busch that produced these elements for a long time.

References

External links

* http://www.playcraftrailways.com/Eggerbahn.htm
* http://www.egger-bahn.de/english/index.htm
* http://www.egger-bahn.nl