Pico
| Piko Spielwaren GmbH
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| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 1949 |
| Seat | Sonneberg , Germany |
| management | René F. Wilfer |
| Number of employees | Sonneberg 170 Chashan (China) 400 |
| Branch | Toy industry |
| Website | www.piko.de |
| Status: January 22, 2012 | |
The pico toys GmbH (proper spelling PIKO) is a German manufacturer and model of model trains and accessories shall next Maerklin , Fleischmann and Roco as the fourth large manufacturers with a complete range in the sizes Model G, H0, TT and N.
Piko was a publicly owned enterprise (VEB) of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), which produced electromechanical toys as well as model trains and accessories. The model railways were manufactured in the nominal sizes H0 (since 1949) and N (1964–1989) and sold at home and abroad. In 1992 the VEB was privatized and now operates as Piko Spielwaren GmbH .
history
1948 to 1990
The Soviet Military Administration in Germany ( SMAD ) decided in 1948, before the GDR was founded, to develop and produce an electric miniature train, because after the currency reform in West Germany , the inhabitants of the Soviet occupation zone no longer had any model train parts with the currency still valid in the GDR could buy the Reichsmark . Production then began in Chemnitz at the former Siemens & Halske plant , which was known as Gesellschaft Kabel in Soviet ownership (later RFT device plant) and had previously manufactured measuring instruments.
The first two toy train sets of size H0 were presented at the Leipzig autumn fair in 1949 under the name Pico Express . The train sets contained the electric locomotive ME 102 on the one hand and the streamlined steam locomotive with a tender ME 101 on the other . It is unknown where the spelling of Pico with c came from; but it can be assumed that Pico Express would become the counterpart to Trix Express .
After a few years, the demand for model railways could no longer be met by the Chemnitz location , which is why production was relocated to VEB IKA Oberlind in Sonneberg in 1952 . This factory produced next to electrical installation articles and household appliances now also model trains under the trade name Piko (short for Pi onier Ko nstruktion). For the new production branch model railways, IKA Oberlind founded its own development department, of which Erhard Fickert became the head. In 1959, the company, which has since been renamed VEB Elektroinstallation Oberlind (EIO), established a branch in Radeburg for the development of model railways of the H0 size .
In 1962 the VEB Piko Sonneberg was founded, which took over the model railway division of the EIO and to which the VEB Feinmechanik Sonneberg was attached. The new plant was to develop and manufacture mechanical and electromechanical toys. The building complex of the former Luftwaffe clothing office, which had been in the city center of Sonneberg since 1937 and had been used by the city and the district as an authority building from 1948 onwards , became the main operating facility. The first manager was Eugen Furch, who was replaced some time later by Hans Schau. In 1963 the EIO branch in Radeburg was assigned to Piko. She had to design new models and produce locomotives and cars herself. From 1964 the development and construction work of the nominal size H0 was mainly relocated to Radeburg, while production and sales remained concentrated in Sonneberg. In addition, the N-gauge was developed in Sonneberg. In 1965 the branch in Radeburg was closed and Piko in Sonneberg took over all development and production tasks for the H0 gauge.
In 1968 the GDR's first learning computer was developed, the Piko dat .
Piko now also took over the distribution of the products of the VEB Modellbahn Zubehör Glashütte , the VEB Modellbahn Oybin (from 1990 Sachsenmodelle) and the VEB Modellbahnwagen Dresden (formerly Shift ), which manufactured model railway cars and accessories in the nominal size H0.
With the establishment of the Piko Sonneberg combine in 1974, the previous production of electromechanical toys was expanded. Other companies such as Elmes (later VEB Anker-Mechanik Eisfeld ), Prefo (VEB Prefo Dresden) and Presu (later VEB Press- und Spritzwerk Suhl ) were directly subordinated to VEB Piko Sonneberg in order to expand the range and optimize production. Piko has been expanded over the decades as a leading company for mechanical and electromechanical toys.
In 1981 there was a further concentration with the Kombinat Spielwaren Sonneberg , as a result of which the Kombinat Piko Sonneberg was dissolved. The VEB Piko Sonneberg was assigned to this new combine and became the product group lead company for model railways. The model railway products have now been protected with the trade name Piko . The model railroad items sold by the Quelle mail order company were also Piko products. In 1989, Piko consisted of 15 parts of the company with around 1000 employees.
From 1991
After reunification in 1990, the companies belonging to Piko were either liquidated or privatized by the Treuhandanstalt . VEB Piko Sonneberg , where the off threatened, was developed by Dr. René F. Wilfer bought and since May 1st, 1992 has been called "Piko Spielwaren GmbH". In the long term, it turned out to be necessary to revise the range, to modernize production technically and at the same time to steadily expand the vehicle range in H0. Piko avoided multiple developments and consistently relied on models that were not or no longer offered by the competition. Only around 10 percent of the previous employees were retained. The facility was relocated from the building complex of the former Air Force Clothing Office from the city center to Oberlind.
In the late 1990s, the production of buildings for the nominal sizes H0, N and IIm (G) began. In 2002, the Piko-A-track was presented , making Piko a full-range supplier again in the nominal size H0. In 2005, the Siemens ES64U2 , the first Piko model for the nominal size TT, came onto the market. In 2010, another H0 product range came out with Piko-Expert . The prices and quality of the vehicles from the Piko Expert program are somewhere between the hobby program and the standard range. The Expert program is offered in the two-rail system as well as in the central rail system .
Since 1999, when Piko turned 50, the company has held an open house every two years.
Products
Historical
Piko, a center for the production of mechanical and electromechanical toys since 1961, manufactured model railways in nominal sizes H0 and N for children’s machine tools and household toys for girls and boys such as washing machines, vacuum cleaners, cash registers, drills and plastic toys for toddlers. At the Leipzig Spring Fair, at that time the international trade fair for technology and consumer goods, the child sewing machine elektra from VEB Piko Sonneberg was presented for the first time in 1968.
The model railway vehicles of that time impressed with a very high level of detailing; The products also reached the West German market via the Schreiber company from Fürth .
H0
The standard range includes numerous models based on models from the Deutsche Reichsbahn and Deutsche Bahn . These include, for example, locomotives of the DB class 82 or the DR class E 93 . Piko caused a sensation when, for the first time, inexpensive H0-scale locomotives were offered via Conrad Electronic -Shipment in 2001. So there were inexpensive and simple models for newcomers and fairway players. The product range was expanded to include the ÖBB type Siemens Taurus , the DB class 185 , 189 , DB class 101 and DB class 218 . The low price is achieved, among other things, because these models are purchased from a manufacturer in Hong Kong . Other providers like Märklin followed this example at times.
TT
Further inexpensive locomotives for the nominal size TT came into the sales facilities through Piko in 2005. The ICE 3 , the Herkules and the DB class 151 followed . This is how they entered the TT market, which was very popular in the GDR.
N
While the old N range had been completely discontinued before the fall of the Wall (only the form of a double-decker train found its way largely unchanged to Minitrix ), since 2010 there have been new N-gauge models from Piko, initially based on French models (in cooperation with the then importer of Piko). A short time later, a new range of German and international role models was launched.
G
In the summer of 2006, Piko launched a traction vehicle for the garden railway for the first time with the Taurus in nominal size G (IIm) . The range for the G gauge has been expanded rapidly since then, making Piko a full-range supplier of locomotives, wagons, tracks and building models for the G gauge. Since 2010 Piko has also been selling a digital system for garden railways. When developing vehicles, Piko focuses on standard gauge vehicles, which are designed for a model gauge of 45 mm and are based on a scale of around 1:26 to 1:29. Since then, 1 to 2 locomotives and some wagons have been produced every year as completely new designs and some variants for the G gauge.
Overarching products
In addition to a full range of H0 and G gauges, a small range of locomotives and wagons for TT gauge, Piko is a manufacturer of buildings for the nominal sizes H0, N, 1 and G.
The digital system from Piko was initially offered in cooperation with other companies [digital system for the smaller tracks from ESU, decoder / sound modules in G from Uhlenbrock, digital system in G from Massoth]; Here Piko initially refrained from in-house developments. Since 2019 there have also been decoders (SmartDecoder with and without sound) and digital components (SmartProgrammer, SmartTester, servo drive for pantographs) developed by Piko.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Model railway manufacturer Piko increases sales in WAZ on January 22, 2012
- ↑ Piko innovations in G gauge. Accessed on April 27, 2019 .