Rokal
The company ROKAL (portmanteau of: RObert Kahrmann Lobberich (now city Nettetal )) from 1948 and 1974 the first Western European volume manufacturers of model trains of track TT (Table Top). In addition to model railways , the company also manufactured bathroom fittings and later carburetors and decorative strips for the automotive industry .
The history of the ROKAL railway
Prehistory 1946 to 1948
The low-voltage technician and engineer Eugen Engelhardt from Geneiken , a small town near Mönchengladbach , shared the problem of unemployment and the daily struggle for survival for himself and his family with many others in shattered post-war Germany . At the beginning of 1946 Engelhardt heard a news report on the radio that the production of toys had been released in the British occupation zone . It was the triggering moment for a spontaneous idea: “I'm building a train!” He shouted to his wife. Engelhardt sat down at the kitchen table and made his first design drawing of an electrically powered model steam locomotive.
At the same time, Engelhard already had a marketing idea. His model railroad should be adapted to the cramped living conditions in post-war Germany. That is why it had to be smaller than the already known H0 trains . But “tackling” - as Engelhard called it - you should also be able to do it. (Finally, model trains were at that time for children as target group designed.) Considerations, a gauge to choose from 8 mm were quickly discarded as too small, so the measure of a 12-mm gauge was built for his railroad, later known as Track TT awareness attained. It is not known whether Engelhardt had knowledge of parallel developments: Harold L. Joyce in the USA, WESA in Switzerland (13 mm gauge), the Comet train from the Freiburg company Lytax and the Stuttgart Löhmann-Präzix-Bahn ( both 12 mm track).
As early as the spring of 1946, a functional sample was created based on his design drawing . This alone was already a remarkable achievement by Engelhardt, if you consider the supply situation at that time: the motor was made from the trimmed sheet metal of a tin can; the lacquered winding wire came from an electric doorbell. Grandmother's alarm clock donated the drive gears, and the axles of the wheels were knitting needles. Engelhardt needed professional help for the wheels of his model locomotive. They were turned from brass in a locksmith's shop on a lathe the size that could have made real train wheels. The body of the locomotive was still hand-carved from wood, colored with black shoe polish.
Of curved curtain rods the tracks that have been pinned to a board created, and a bell transformer with 8 volts alternating current used for power supply. With that, all conditions for the maiden voyage were given. The little locomotive ran straight away and without stuttering. The beginning was made, but it was not yet a salable product, least of all to be mass-produced. This required injection molding technology and, above all, money that Engelhardt did not have. The search for a company that was familiar with mold construction and injection molding led Engelhardt to Lobberich on the Lower Rhine to Robert Kahrmann's company, which manufactured zinc injection molded parts for sanitary fittings and also made the molds for them.
Engelhardt stood in Robert Kahrmann's office for the first time in May 1946. The track board was placed on his desk, the locomotive on it, the plug in the socket - and again Engelhardt's model locomotive “little railway BABY” turned reliably round after round. Kahrmann watched the little locomotive with interest and then announced: "Mr. Engelhardt, we will assemble it if you want!"
While Engelhard immediately set about developing the first series-produced locomotive from his model locomotive, Kahrmann had a 40 square meter garage built in which model railroad production was to begin. At the same time, Engelhardt also began the necessary development of passenger wagons and professional tracks - not an easy task in 1946.
The drawing template for a passenger car was created e.g. B. with a notepad and pencil at the level crossing in Geneiken. The Allied North-South Express drove past here at a moderate pace every day at 4:00 p.m. Engelhardt drew the shape of the wagons in several stages, counted windows and noted further details until he was able to produce a construction drawing for the mold making.
Another and much bigger problem had to be solved with the serial production of the rails. Nobody really had the know-how on the universal milling machine available at Kahrmann for the milling work on the shapes of the threshold strips, and especially that of the switches . Chance provided a remedy. A company friend of Kahrmann's, the Gelsenkirchen company Wildfang, was partially paralyzed by a fire. However, Wildfang had an order to manufacture stroller wheels, for which injection molds were required. Kahrmann made his universal milling machine available to Wildfang in order to produce the shapes on it. An employee of the Gelsenkirchen company, Mr. Nehm, came to Lobberich. He also had the know-how to mill the molded parts for the threshold strips. In addition to his day shift, he also voluntarily milled the shapes for the sleeper strips for the rails and switches; Mr. Thieme from ROKAL told him every night the measurements from his positive drawing, which Nehm then milled negative.
At Christmas 1948 the time had finally come. The first train set in the TT gauge with the name ROKAL was ready. A wooden box with a sliding lid, which was later given a sticker with a picture that also showed Robert Kahrmann's grandson, contained a tender locomotive , three passenger cars, an adjustable alternating current transformer, tracks and tools (screwdriver, tweezers and oil bottle). Around 150 pieces of this first edition are said to have been made. However, these did not find their way into the trade, but were mainly given away by Kahrmann to business friends.
The years 1949 to 1974
The “small electric train” made its first “big” appearance in August 1949 at the export fair in Hanover. In addition to the stand of Käthe Kruse's dolls, ROKAL demonstrated its TT track to an international audience on a small designed system. The train set mentioned above was offered for 108 DM (at that time about the monthly wage of a worker).
Engelhardt, the spiritual father of the ROKAL railway, left the ROKAL company around a year later - in March 1950. Before that, there had been differences of opinion between him and Robert Kahrmann.
After initial sales problems - the new product was difficult to establish - the TT-Bahn became increasingly popular with customers. At the end of 1949, the decision was made to abandon the complicated and technically expensive AC drive and to use direct current in the future. The real driving force behind the success was the smaller scale of 1: 120 compared to H0 - initially specified by ROKAL as 1: 125. Engelhardt's marketing concept of a space-saving train for the cramped living conditions in post-war Germany was a complete success. The growing model range also contributed to the success. Work has also been done to improve the models. For example, from 1958 onwards, the worm drive, which had to be repaired, was no longer installed, but only a motor with a gear drive. From 1960, plastic also found its way into the ROKAL models.
In 1960 the first, even smaller, model railway came onto the market: the company ARNOLD from Nuremberg presented the N gauge (scale 1: 160) at the toy fair . ROKAL's market share halved from around 1960 (~ 4%) to 1965 (~ 2%). Arnold's N-gauge had a market share of around 5% in 1965, a figure that ROKAL had never achieved. The decline of Rokal also contributed racetracks ( slot cars ) for that sold the mid-1960s well. All model train manufacturers recorded a drop in sales.
A slight recession set in in Germany in 1967 . In 1967 ROKAL brought out a completely new rail system: solid nickel silver profiles instead of the previous rusting sheet metal profiles .
For cost reasons, Kahrmann set all activities to zero, including in vehicle development. Rokal established contacts with the GDR manufacturer Zeuke & Wegwerth, who had also been offering a TT model railway for several years. In fact, such a collaboration came about for a short time in 1968: Zeuke & Wegwerth delivered wagons in exchange for foreign currency , which ROKAL then provided with in-house couplings and wheel sets and sold under its own name.
The last of ROKAL's own new developments was the E 03 (103) of the DB, which was presented and delivered in 1968 together with the two-colored TEE wagons.
But it was precisely this locomotive that also showed that ROKAL had missed out on the competition - and in this case compared to the N gauge - and had stuck to the level of production and quality of the 1950s. The E 03 was a bit too high, probably due to the standard engine used. In addition, one could clearly see a slit between the movable buffer beam and the vehicle body. In order to switch the locomotive to overhead line operation, a lever protruded from below the edge of the roof, and the weights were clearly visible in the red stripe of the locomotive with a black screw.
In 1968, offering such deficiencies to an increasingly demanding public with the advertising slogan “This is exactly the gauge that allows maximum faithfulness to the model with a minimum of space required” was probably not trustworthy. The high prices did not match the quality offered and the margins for traders were relatively small.
For the first time, ROKAL was not present at the 1970 Toy Fair. Rumors of ROKAL's financial problems made the rounds. It was known that ROKAL and the Röwa company had had sales talks that had been broken off.
ROKAL sent dealer communications and placed advertisements to counter rumors about the end of ROKAL. The headline of these reports read: “The ROKAL-TT no longer drives. Who says that? ”In fact, ROKAL was about to end. While the “Who said that?” Campaign was still running, the house bank froze ROKAL's loans, which made the ongoing sales negotiations with RÖWA difficult.
The solution then looked like that, in exchange for a 2/3 stake in RÖWA, ROKAL brought all the production machines, molds and know-how to RÖWA. In 1971 and 1972 ROKAL injected a total of around 1.5 million DM in cash on a credit basis, but RÖWA was unable to establish a financially viable TT production. Ultimately, ROKAL's DM 1.5 million was deprived of liquidity. The participation in RÖWA was on paper, but did not bring any money to ROKAL's coffers. In 1974 ROKAL finally went bankrupt.
The bankruptcy trustee of ROKAL demanded from RÖWA back the outstanding participation claims in the amount of 1.8 million DM; RÖWA could not raise this and on April 1, 1975 filed for bankruptcy itself. 1975 ended the production of TT model railways in Western Europe.