INDUSTRY NEWS
Göppingen, Germany. Märklin & Cie GmbH has improved its financial position and expects to emerge from bankruptcy in January. The troubled company was purchased in May 2006 by a British investment group for a reported $38 million. At the time Märklin was suffering from weak sales and had approximately $70 million in debt. The new owners broadened its product line in 2007 by buying the remaining assets of bankrupt Ernst Paul Lehmann Patentwerk, owner of the G scale LGB brand. In February 2009, 151-year old Märklin filed for bankruptcy protection. The workforce in Germany was reduced from 900 to approximately 500. In addition, Märklin employs approximately 500 workers in Hungary. Hong Kong, China. Sanda Kan Indusrial Co. Ltd., has agreed to produce O scale products for several well-known brands including Aristo-Craft/RMT, Atlas O and Williams using tooling originally developed for K-Line Trains. The tooling, which is owned by Sanda Kan, became available earlier this year following Lionel’s announcement that it would discontinue marketing K-Line branded products after 2010. Sanda Kan and Bachmann are owned by Kader Holdings. Longmont, Colorado. InterMountain Railway Company is currently interviewing candidates to work full-time at the firms home office in Longmont as a dealer contact sales representative. For additional information call Richard at 800-472-2530 or send him an email at careers@intermountain-railway.com. Mansfield, Mass. The four-year old Craftsman Structure Show, which originated here in 2007, has shut down. The surprise announcement, jointly released by James Deignan, Doug Foscale, Hal Reynolds and Mike Sarno, said that a new partnership between RailroadKits.com, Fos Scale Models, Atlantic Scale Modelers and BEST Trains, will launch an entirely new event called The Fine Scale Model Railroad Expo (FSMRE). The show will be sponsored by NorthEastern Scale Lumber. In addition to continuing to highlight structure buildings, FSMRE will feature quality modeling as a whole in all scales including dioramas, scenery, detailing, weathering and rolling stock. Contests, clinics and special product demonstrations will also be scheduled. In an effort to establish a high caliber of model railroad craftsmanship and avoid the appearance of a flea market, vendor participation at FSMRE will be by invitation only. The new event will be held in the New England area at a location and date to be announced soon. Additional information including vendor applications is available at http://www.modelrailroadexpo.com.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Stacey Walthers Naffah has been promoted to the position of vice president of communications at Wm. K. Walthers Inc. She had previously been the company’s consumer marketing manager. Naffah will be responsible for corporate communications, public relations, promotions, events, sponsorships, research, and consumer and trade advertising strategy development and implementation. Together with Michael Stephens, vice president proprietary products, Naffah will be responsible for positioning Walthers brand products. She joined the family business in May 2009 following advertising and marketing positions with the J. Walter Thompson agency and People Magazine.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Kalmbach Publishing reports that it will reintroduce an updated edition of the Model Train Magazine Index in January 2011. The company said it was not feasible to upgrade the original data base when it terminated the popular index program last summer. A senior editor at Model Railroader magazine said that after canceling the program, Kalmbach's Information Systems department devised an efficient way to transfer the information to a modern database. The new program will offer data for more than two dozen model railroad and prototype railroading magazines from 1934 through 2010. Registration will be required by users who will then be allowed access to the index at no cost. Kalmbach will continue to update information on its own publications including Model Railroader, Trains, Classic Trains, Classic Toy Trains, and Garden Railways. Later in 2011, Kalmbach plans to offer other appropriate publications the opportunity to enter information about their own periodicals into the index. The offer will be to print publications only and will exclude online material and eZines such as Model Railroad Hobbyist.
Meanwhile, other sources are also developing a replacement index. With tentative encouragement from the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA), Clint Hyde and Dave Emery have been working for several months on a program based on 'crowdsourcing' in which individuals can be part of the update team to add or correct index entries. The expectation is that with a large number of volunteers each updating a few entries, the data base can be quickly brought up to date. The broad-based index will include both print and online publications. A beta test of the program is available for review at http://www.rrmagindex.org. Although the test program currently resides on a private computer with limited capacity, it is anticipated that NMRA computer servers will eventually host the index.
Montoursville, Penn. Bowser Manufacturing has issued a recall notice on the P&BR version of its HO scale VO-1000 locomotive. The error is in the cab lettering which should read Patapsco & Back River. The recall involves VO-1000 engines with road numbers 331 and 332. Information about returning affected models is available by calling 800-327-5126 or visiting http://www.bowser-trains.com. Orem, Utah. ExactRail currently has two full-time employment opportunities. The positions include a sales coordinator for the company’s dealer marketing program and a graphic specialist to coordinate artwork requirement from research to production. A detailed description of the positions and qualification requirements is available at http://www.exactrail.com/index.php/exactrail-blog. BRIEFLY NOTED AT PRESS TIME
Bill Schneider of Rapido Trains plans to announce a brand new HO scale freight car in January at the 2011 Prototype Rails meet in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Sergent ( http://www.sergentengineering.com) is now offering bulk pricing on its most popular HO scale coupler. A gross (144) of EC87 couplers in kit form is priced at $84. Athearn has been licensed by United Parcel Service of America to produce vehicles displaying the ubiquitous UPS logo. Coming this summer are HO scale versions of a yard tractor, 28 and 40-foot drop-sill parcel trailers and a Ford “C” delivery van. The Ford van will also be available in N scale, however, plans for a 1/50 scale model have been cancelled.
New tooling for an HO scale 53-foot container and chassis is nearing completion by Athearn with the initial release set for June. Road names will include CSX, UMAX, Pacer and CSX with “Give a Year, Change the World” slogan. They will be priced at $29.98 each. A July delivery date has been scheduled for a handsome group of early Chesapeake & Ohio EMD F units including an FP7 A and a matched FP7-F7B (A-B) set. Among the road appropriate details on the A units are eyebrow grabs, sunshades, nose-side ladder grabs and ladder-rest grabs. The HO scale Genesis series models will be available without sound or with factory installed onboard Tsunami© sound and DCC decoder. | 
