Fleischmann (company)

Gebr. Fleischmann GmbH and Co. KG
legal form	GmbH and Co. KG
founding	1887
Seat	Heilsbronn
Number of employees	33 (2015)
sales	€ 15 million (2014)
Branch	Toy industry
Website	www.fleischmann.de

The Gebr. Fleischmann GmbH und Co. KG was a toy and model train manufacturer based originally in Nuremberg and later in Heilsbronn in Ansbach . It produced almost exclusively model trains and was the fourth largest supplier in Europe after Märklin , Hornby and Roco with a market share of around 10% and an annual turnover of 15 million euros in 2014. Around 20% of production was exported . Since 2008, Fleischmann was a subsidiary of the German-Austrian model railway holding , under whose roof the model railway manufacturer Roco is also managed. In 2019, the Fleischmann brand was discontinued except for the N gauge range.

history

View of the former factory premises on Nürnberger Kirchenweg in March 2012. On the left the former administration building with the facade advertising, on the right the factory building converted for residential purposes. In the meantime (November 2013) there are new residential buildings on the property.

Class 76 of the DR; Prussian T 10 tank locomotive, size H0, year of production 2006

The company was founded by Jean Fleischmann in 1887 and initially mainly produced tin toys such as ships, airplanes and magnetic swimming animals. In 1889 the factory at Kirchenweg 13 in St. Johannis (Nuremberg) was moved into. 1938 took Fleischmann in the wake of linearization the company Doll & Co. , Nuremberg from their Jewish owners at a fraction of its actual market value. As a result, 0 gauge model railways and model steam engines were added as new production focuses. In the winter of 1938/1939, the development of its own true-to-original railway models began. Doll's 0-gauge program was also continued until the war-related, statutory cessation of toy production. Even after the Second World War , Doll's steam engines and drive models continued to be produced to a large extent, first under the Doll name and later under their own name. In 1969 the production of steam engines was stopped.

In 1949, the company was the first to introduce a 0-gauge model railway in a two-wire direct current system. Up to this point in time, model railways had been operated with different three-wire systems. However, production was stopped again in 1959, due to the success of the H0 gauge, which had been on the market since 1952 . In this, Fleischmann initially used a scale of 1:82, later 1:85. In the meantime, practically the entire H0 market has agreed on 1:87. After the Arnold company presented the N gauge as the first large-scale manufacturer in Germany in 1960 , Fleischmann followed suit in 1969 with its Piccolo range on the same scale.

In 1967 the company added the “Auto Rallye” car racing track system, later called “Rallye Monte Carlo”, which was on a par with the “ Carrera Universal ” market leader . Models in the 1:24 and 1:32 scale were built until 1969, from 1970 onwards the focus was only on the nominal size 1:32. The rail system corresponded to the international two-rail standard and was wider than that of Carrera, but offered fewer radii and special lanes. The rail connections were better and more durable. The grinding system offered significantly better contact, and the model quality exceeded the competition with the exception of the Märklin “Sprint” racetrack. However, Fleischmann was unable to prevail against the cheaper competition from Carrera. The system was withdrawn from the market in 1989.

Takeover in 2008 by Modelleisenbahn Holding

At the beginning of 2008 the company was taken over by the German-Austrian model railway holding , the owner of the competitor Roco, and the company headquarters moved from Nuremberg to Heilsbronn. Since then, the company has been restructured, which was associated with a reduction in jobs from 340 (as of 2007) to 180 (as of 2010). A further reduction in staff to 130 employees was announced. The Nuremberg property was sold, the factory buildings were converted for residential purposes and new buildings were built on the free space.

In the period from 2009 to 2014, i.e. within 5 years, the annual turnover decreased from 18.2 million euros by around 20% to 15 million euros.

At the beginning of August 2015 it became known that an application for insolvency had been filed with the district court of Ansbach . The remaining 33 employees are now continuing business activities in insolvency proceedings under self-administration with the restructuring manager, Maximilian Breitling. On December 16, 2015 it was announced that Fleischmann could be saved and that the insolvency proceedings will be ended in January 2016 with a creditor rate of 16%.

In 2019, the remaining operations in Heilsbronn were discontinued. Fleischmann remains a brand of the Modellisenbahn Holding for railways in N gauge.

Trivia

In October 2012, on the company's 125th anniversary, the company succeeded in producing the longest H0 model railway track in the world, earning it an entry in the Guinness Book of Records .

Product range

H0 model of a class 24

N model of a tank car

Fleischmann offered a full range of vehicles, tracks and accessories such as turntables or locomotive sheds in the following nominal sizes :

Magic Train , 0e, scale 1:45, a robust fairway that runs on H0 tracks and is no longer in production.
H0, scale 1:87, primarily two-wire direct current system, sold under the Roco brand since 2019.
Piccolo , N, scale 1: 160, will still be produced and distributed under the brand in 2019.

There was also an attempt to enter the TT market with a turntable. In contrast to most of the big competitors, only a small number of the H0 locomotives are offered for the central conductor AC system by Märklin.

The range is characterized above all by a very long availability of the products, even for the more leisurely model railway industry. A few locomotives and wagons in 1:85 scale are still offered today - such as the 50 series . The H0 track system "model track" with a profile height of 2.7 millimeters was produced for more than 50 years from 1957 to 2008 - although technically obsolete. Some competitors have already brought two or three new track systems onto the market during this period.

The H0 models of the UIC-X passenger coaches (26.4-meter coaches) have been offered in a length scale of 1: 93.5 since the beginning of the 1990s, i.e. they are usually 282 mm long. This is also referred to by model railroaders as "crutch scale" and was initially only accepted very slowly, which was also made responsible for the temporary bankruptcy. The competitor Märklin used the former 1: 100 scale and produced models with a length of 264 millimeters for about ten years longer.

The longstanding advertising slogan "The Fleischmann-Bahn, remember that, the Bundesbahn is small" is still reflected in the range today. In contrast to most of its competitors, vehicles from foreign railway companies are rarely offered in Germany. However, there are special series for many countries that are only available there. It does not make a discernible difference whether the prototypes arrive in Germany or not - on the one hand there are locomotives that only ran in Sweden in the standard range, on the other hand, freight wagons that run internationally are only available in their home countries. Locomotives from private railway companies are generally only issued as a one-off series, whereas even individual Bundesbahn items, such as the blue / beige 194 series , are available for a long time.

In January 2010, the Modelleisenbahn Holding announced that Fleischmann would concentrate on historical models up to around 1950 in H0, but would continue to operate the full range in N. In March 2018 it was announced that the Fleischmann brand in H0 will be completely discontinued from 2019. The product ranges from Fleischmann and Roco, which sometimes overlap very strongly, are to be evaluated piece by piece and the better model in each case is to be sold under the Roco brand. The N range will be continued under the Fleischmann label.

Digital train control

In 1986 the company presented the digital multi-train control Fleischmann-FMZ . Like almost all digital systems of the time, this system is not compatible with other digital systems. The simultaneous operation of digital FMZ locomotives with analog locomotives was considered an outstanding feature. However, the system was unable to establish itself on the market in the long term and was subsequently supplemented by the twin decoders and the twin center , both of which support both the FMZ and the DCC protocol. In this way, existing first-generation FMZ vehicles with products from other manufacturers that use the DCC format can be controlled simultaneously on one system with the Twin Center. Fleischmann vehicles with twin decoders can also be operated on pure DCC systems. In the meantime, Fleischmann is increasingly offering only DCC products that are no longer FMZ-compatible.

exhibition

The world's largest Fleischmann exhibition is located in the Schwabach City Museum on 800 m².

The Nuremberg Transport Museum also has a demo system that is put into operation every hour for 10 minutes. The system is 80 m² in size, was built between 1960 and 1970 and is controlled by 5000 relays.

In the Lower Rhine Open-Air Museum in Grefrath there is a large system that is put into operation every day at 11:30 am, 2:30 pm and 3:30 pm.

Web links

Commons : Fleischmann - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Company website

Individual evidence

↑ Model railway manufacturer is insolvent. In: Handelsblatt. August 5, 2015, accessed August 10, 2015 .
↑ ^a ^b "Fleischmann has to reduce staff" ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Press release, Modelleisenbahn Holding, October 22, 2009 (PDF; 235 kB) @1@ 2

↑ List of models of the DRG locomotive BR_76. In: Modellbau-Wiki. Retrieved September 10, 2018 .

↑ ^a ^b Where manufacturers and bankers resided. In: Nürnberger Zeitung , January 4, 2012

^ See the text accompanying the interview with Doll's daughter Elizabeth Miller

↑ slotcar-treff.de

↑ "Model railway manufacturer Fleischmann is sold" ( Memento from March 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) In: Nürnberger Nachrichten , February 15, 2008