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Great News from Lehmann released today....

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Great News from Lehmann released today....
Posted by gtrainman1 on Friday, October 6, 2006 3:55 PM
To All,

I happened to find some good news for the day!

FYI,

The LGB Loco is Steaming Again!

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

The temporary bankruptcy trustee, Dr. Steffen Goede, together with the Richter family, announced at a factory meeting on October 5, 2006 that the continuation of the business under temporary bankruptcy administration has been assured. Production has resumed in all areas of the factory, and LGB products are being distributed according to plan.

These positive developments were made possible with the cooperation of the local Sparkasse bank and the City of Nürnberg. Also, the further cooperation of our suppliers ensures the well-known quality of our LGB products. These are very important steps for the preservation of the jobs and the production facilities in Nürnberg.

With friendly greetings,
Ernst Paul Lehmann Patentwerk
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Posted by jamesbaker on Sunday, October 8, 2006 11:29 PM

That is Great News. I am stocking up on my G scale stuff for a future Garden Railroad! I have been buying nothing but LGB track! I can say that I still need alot of track.

Thanks for to great news!
Baker

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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 7:36 PM

I have been thinking a fair bit about this LGB financial thing and one thing has stood out like a sore thumb and no one has mentioned it and it adds credibility to the hostile takeover business.

Why was a lawyer, Dr Stephen Goede appointed to the position of trying to get them out of the poo instead of an accountant? Would it mean that their problem is more legal than financial; or is it how they do things in Germany?

I have seen this sort of thing happen here in Australia often and a firm of international accountants are appointed and they charge so much the action is almost a kiss of death, for the company involved. It was interesting that the City of Nuremburg is backing LGB

The idea that the huge building they are in is eating its head off has occured to me and also that the company being an older style family unit have gone soft on their workers and they are not working at even half pace (i have seen this myself)

Unfortunately as i have got older i have become pretty cynical and really don't believe much of what i read.

Rgds ian 

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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 10:35 PM
Dear Ian,

Dr. Steffen Goede was appointed by the insolvency court!  His job is to salvage what is salvagable of Ernst Paul Lehmann Patentwerk.

That boils down to finding a buyer or buyers who will assume the company including whatever liabilities. As an alternative he may sell off parts or parcels of the company, provided he can find buyers for those.
If neither is the case he will decide if liquidation will at least cover some of the outstanding loans which precipitated the insolvency. According to press reports the outstanding loans are approx. 20 million Euro; LGB's total gross sales (turnover) for the latest reported 12 months period were approx. 20 million Euro.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that KPMG provided a reorganization study on the situation.

Best regards

ER



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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, October 12, 2006 7:11 PM

Thank you for that information Elizabeth; but as do many people when answering a question they do not understand that question and that is, why was a lawyer appointed to a position normally held by an accountant?

When i retired i was a marketing manager to an instrumentality of the Chinese government. I have had a lot of business management experience and i have seen many insolvency situations and i really cannot see how what you had to say had anything to do with my question.

Rgds ian

 

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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, October 12, 2006 9:28 PM
Dear Ian,

The insolvency court appointed Dr. Steffen Goede as the interim trustee and since the proceedings are a legal matter it is quite logical to appoint a lawyer to that position. While an accountant - if appointed to the trustee position - would be able to give an authoritative opinion on accounting matters, he wouldn't be able to do the same as far as legal matters are concerned, nor would he have standing, as far as legal matters are concerned, before the court.
OTOH a lawyer (or law firm) as the trustee will be able to obtain any expert opinions and statements from an accountant they retain. When the lawyer presents those opinions/statements they have full legal standing by virtue of who presents them.

Does that clarify your question?

Best regards

ER

PS the German legal system is substantially different from systems derived from the British system.

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, October 13, 2006 9:03 PM

Thank you; it does a bit but it is till a very murky situation to me. If they are going to sell it off, why has a major bank stepped in and why is the City of Nuremberg backing the entire matter.

This to me, being the eternal optomist means that they are trying to save it as an operationg entity; which of course is a very good thing and important to LGB users and owners of about $30,000 of their equipment., like me.

Rgds ian

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, October 13, 2006 10:34 PM
Dear Ian,

In many instances of this type the best information is obtained from the local press. Nürnberg has two major newspapers - "Nürnberger Nachrichten" and "Nürnberger Zeitung" -  both provide an Online edition. The only additional requirement to benefit from that information is full fluency in German and a good grasp of how the German business world functions.
Translating by means of Google or BabelFish results in Germlish i.e. plenty of English words but not sufficient sense or context to be clearly understood.

However there are people who take the time to translate the German texts into plain Northamerican English. A sample can be read at  http://www.bigtrainoperator.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1382

For clarity the original German text precedes the Northamerican English translation. Happy reading.

With best wishes

ER

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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, October 14, 2006 2:24 AM
I hope it can be saved but my personal suspicion is that most options for saving the company will involve sourcing  components or entire products from China .Its a competetive market and LGB prices  are increasingly  looking high by comparison , Yes i know quality sells and the products last for ever but  that is not what  a lot of the market wants , better to have an entire train running that lasts 10 years than one wagon sat still that lasts 40.
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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, October 14, 2006 7:40 AM
I will continue buying LGB product so long as the high level of quality, reliability, and the rarely needed (in my experience) after-purchase service is maintained, no matter where the trains are manufactured.

I'm by no means on an unlimited hobby budget, but don't mind paying a premium for quality (a main reason I enjoy both LGB and Marklin trains).  It may mean buying fewer items overall, but I would rather have one good locomotive that I had to pay rather handsomely for instead of three problematic models that I got at budget pricing.

I've often said that hobbyists are their own worst enemy when it comes to assuring the long-term health and growth of this hobby.  Too many want too much for too little--something I see on all model railroading threads, not just Large Scale.  That, in my opinion, is a sure recipe for strangling any of these firms over time.

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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, October 14, 2006 8:20 PM

I must agree the problems with LGB stuff; is few and far between and the very worst thing LGB could do is to try to compete on price.

I am similar i am a retiree and i do not have an unlimited budget or even a renewable one. However i would rather pay more for and item and have less items; rather than buy stuff that really isn't what i want.I am commited to DCC and LGB and it would be very hard me for to change my stance at this time.

Elizabeth, I do understand a bit of German but i'm not actually fluent in it, Ilived in Bremen for a short while. I do understand that German translated into English asn't all that underatndable; i think this where LGB have gone wrong with their instructions.

I also resent your reference to North American English i and my my fellow Australians do not subscribe to what you have said at all and some of the other stuff you have said as well.. Our Asutralian version of English is of quite a high standard and is certainly more true to the proper and correct version; which of course in British English.

Rgds Ian  

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Posted by Anonymous on Saturday, October 14, 2006 9:18 PM
 iandor wrote:

Elizabeth, I do understand a bit of German but i'm not actually fluent in it, Ilived in Bremen for a short while. I do understand that German translated into English asn't all that underatndable; i think this where LGB have gone wrong with their instructions.

I also resent your reference to North American English i and my my fellow Australians do not subscribe to what you have said at all and some of the other stuff you have said as well.. Our Asutralian version of English is of quite a high standard and is certainly more true to the proper and correct version; which of course in British English.

Rgds Ian  



Dear Ian,

Perhaps there is a slight misunderstanding, the reference to Northamerican English was meant as a qualifier i.e. it isn't the Queen's English or, for that matter, Australian English. Having resided in Canada since 1971 - my husband HJ even since 1969; he does the translations, I do the proofreading  - naturally we use Northamerican English as used in Canada.
That is as logical as speaking the Swiss dialect when we're in Switzerland, rather than "Hochdeutsch" which we use with our German friends.

Best regards

ER
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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, October 20, 2006 7:23 AM
<BLOCKQUOTE><table class="quoteOuterTable"><tr><td class="txt4"><img src="/trccs/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif">&nbsp;<strong>iandor wrote:</strong></td></tr><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4"><P> English asn't all that underatndable; i think this where LGB have gone wrong with their instructions.</P>
<P>I also resent your reference to North American English i and my my fellow Australians do not subscribe to what you have said at all and some of the other stuff you have said as well.. Our Asutralian version of English is of quite a high standard and is certainly more true to the proper and correct version; which of course in British English.</P>
<P>Rgds Ian  </P></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hey Ian

Have to comment on this;

1 - The average standard of spoken and written English here is not that great (I work in a regulatory role, and have taught at uni/TAFE).
2 - Colloquial Australian English has a well known name - used even in professional circles - "'Strine". (auSTRalIN - E)
3 - To which sub-language of "'Strine" are you referring - Queenslander ("'ay")? Sand Groper?, Welsh?, Victorian?, Crow-eater?, Bush? Taswegian?
4 - To which British English are you referring - Midland, Yorkshire, Cockney, Southern?

Please be careful about commenting on my behalf ("my fellow Australians"). I appreciate others efforts to share information, and understand that there will be difficulties in translating between any two languages.

Thanks to Elisabeth for translating German - an amazingly hard langauge to pick up, let alone translate into English.

Maybe you (Ian) can help LGB with its translations by proofing its English versions before they print it - I'd be happy to provide some advise on assessing instructions for error tolerability and recoverability. My correspondance with LGB suggests they like user feedback and comment.

Back to the topic - I am glad LGB has resumed production, and like others, am concerned it will off-shore and loose its quality.

I await the arrival of the new OBB 2095, and look forward to running it on the DB&DCR - even if it is the third one!
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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, October 20, 2006 6:29 PM
Hello Nic,

Thank you for your comments. Actually my husband HJ (short for Hans-Joerg) is doing the translating, I do the proofreading .

I haven't visited Oz yet, but HJ has been railfanning down there. However he is as nonplussed as I am at some of the expressions regarding the regional dialects.
Please tell us where are the 
Sand Groper?, Welsh? Crow-eater?, Bush?
variations spoken?

Thanks for your help!

Best regards

ER
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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, October 20, 2006 9:21 PM

Well Nic i disagree with you as well as Elizabeth; I was not talking about Strine and i would say that if you speak Strine you are in a very small minority. The English i was talking about is our version of the Queens English and largely as it is spoken over most of Australia; which is well regarded as being almost uniform or nearly so anyway.

I lived for 60 years in Sydney and now live in Queensland and have been travelling on business throughout Australia for about 40 years and am fairly unique in that i have visited all states of Australia and both islands of New Zealand several times. Really the variations i have encountered are quite small. Sydney talks a lot faster than anywhere else and i think this is due to its size and its London origins ( i have visited London several times as well). Here in Queensland we talk pretty slowly especially in the country and in Adeleaide they seem to have a more English accent than the rest. I know castle and caster as in Doncaster is pronounced differently in Melbourne and Sydney. But really i have not noticed much variation in the way people talk in Australia at all.

The various types of Australian you mentioned are peope from different Australian states and not any particular variation in language. Sangropers Western Australia; Crow Eaters South Australia, Mexcians Victoria (south of the border) Banana Benders Queensland, Cockroaches are from New South Wales particularly Sydney. but Welsh i have not heard of; which doesn't mean it doesn't exist. 

As far as LGB's instructions are concerned, i have no intention of doing anything like becoming a proof reader. The proof is in the pudding and i have taken a representative of LGB to court and i won the case on this very point in question.  

Just to tell you a little bit more about my travels I have visited 13 countries in Europe, 11 in Asia, 7 in Oceana, 2 in North America including 12 of the Untited States and one in Central America (Mexico). I have actually kived in England, France, Northern Ireland, Germany, Singapore as well as Australia. My wife and i are houseswappers of some experience.

Rgds Ian 

 

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