Roco, based in

Salzburg Salzburg is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020 its population was 156,852. The city lies on the Salzach, Salzach River, near the border with Germany and at the foot of the Austrian Alps, Alps moun ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, is a manufacturer of model railway equipment.

History

The company was founded in 1960 by Ing. Heinz Rössler and started with a plastic Minitanks series of military vehicles. After export to the USA became successful, the model line was expanded with model trains in HO scale and the smaller N scale.

TT scale TT scale (from "table top") is a Rail transport modelling, model railroading scale at 1:120 scale with a track gauge of 12mm between the rails. It is placed between HO scale (1:87) and N scale (1:160). Its original purpose, as the name suggests ...

was also subsequently added to the product line. The model rail product line covers many European countries including Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden and the Netherlands, and also the USA. In 1974 and 1975, Lionel HO trains were produced by Roco before starting to move production to the Far East in 1976, completing the move by 1978. Some of Lionel HO trains between 1974 and 1978 were made by Athearn. On July 15, 2005 ''Roco Modellspielwaren

GmbH (; ) is a type of Juridical person, legal entity in German-speaking countries. It is equivalent to a (Sàrl) in the Romandy, French-speaking region of Switzerland and to a (Sagl) in the Ticino, Italian-speaking region of Switzerland. It is a ...

'' was declared

bankrupt Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the de ...

and taken over by the creditor Raiffeisenbank. After restructuring, a new company ''Modelleisenbahn GmbH'' was formed to consolidate the model railroad market. The Roco brand and associated logo continued to be used. To sharpen the focus on model railways, on October 1, 2007, the 'Minitank' product series was divested to the German model car manufacturer Herpa. In February 2008 Modelleisenbahn acquired Fleischmann from the owner family. Moving some production to lower cost factories like Slovakia and later Vietnam, the companies saw profitability again. Roco and Fleischmann continue as separate brands under Modelleisenbahn GmbH, while benefiting from

economies of scale In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of Productivity, output produced per unit of cost (production cost). A decrease in ...

through joint development projects, marketing and procurement.Modelleisenbahnen: Fleischmann und Roco wechseln das Gleis
Handelsblatt, dpa, 14. Juni 2011Spritzgussproduktion wird aus Gloggnitz in die Slowakei verlagert
OTS, 2 March 2018

Products

2016 Nuernberger Spielwarenmesse - Fleischmann Roco - by 2eight - 8SC3062

From 2019 Roco is focused on HO gauge railroads, while Fleischmann is focused on N gauge railroads. Roco has also focused on innovation in digital train control for multiple gauges under the Z21 brand, where users can use iPhone/iPad/Android devices to operate railway models. With these strategies Roco/Fleischmann is the number one company in the DC railroad market segment in Europe, and number two company in the overall railroad company after

Märklin Gebr. Märklin & Cie. GmbH or Märklin (stylized as ma̋rklín) (MÄRKLIN or MAERKLIN in capital letters) is a German toy company. The company was founded in 1859 and is based at Göppingen in Baden-Württemberg. Although it originally specialis ...

which is focused on AC railroad models.Wer will Roco Fleischmann haben?
August 2017 Below are some examples of Roco train models. DSBs damplokomotiv N 202.jpg, DSB N 202 Roco M61 019.JPG, M61 019 Roco 63431 BR 132 201-5 DR.JPG, DR BR 132 201-5 DB E 144-5 Roco.jpg, DB E 144 480 Roco ACME.JPG, MAV 480 001

References

External links

{{Commons category, Roco (company)
Company website

USA Distributor

Model railroad manufacturers Austrian brands Model manufacturers of Austria