Symposian-Verlag is evidently the publisher, and based on the number of used copies for sale (some quite cheap) on the internet, such as Abe books, it must have sold a lot of copies.
There was a time when compendiums of what was available were published in the US - not just the Walthers catalog but by others as well -- and there was also a time when model train firms such as Maerklin, Fleischmann, and Pacific Fast Mail in the US published beautiful and lavish color (colour?) catalogs with gorgeous photography to show off their models. This looks like a mix of the two ideas.
Dave Nelson
It's simply a compedium of the various offerings in HO. You gotta remember that Europe is a bunch of different countires with their own languages and (formerly) model RR industries, unlike the US where we speak mostly English and have different states but pretty much a national model RR market. Every country had its own model RR press.
The European Union wasn't fully formed yet. The consolidation of model RR mfgs had just begun.
Yet Europe is a small place, relatively speaking, with extensive cross-border traffic. Modelers typically didn't model just their national lines, but took a varying degree of interest in connecting RRs from different adjacent countries and those farther afield. I think the compendium was a way to serve those modelers in what was becoming a more internationalized hobby.
Customs duties often meant that the national RR attracted the most attention and products in hobby shops, but the growing interest in other RRs meant that modelers were interested in spending on imported models, too. This guide served that market.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
As a young kid, I cant remember how I got it or how it came to me, but I have this hardcover copy of a sort of a european/german model railroading catalog/guide that featured all sorts of brass, die-cast and plastic European and North Nmerican style equipment, altough mostly European.Reading model railroader as a kid (I am 26 years old in 2020 as of now) I was bewildered by what I was seeing, examples being unpainted brass trains and examples of three axle coaches & freight cars (two axles on either side and one in the middle). I even saw hook-horn couplers as well, and even a nearly fully incircled roundhouse which amazed me at the time.I am guessing it covered the years of 1978 and 1979, as I was not born then. I am a but disapointed most of the book was written in German, altough there was some english in the descriptions. I have to ask what the sifnificance of this giide was, and of there are other yearly editions and if it still has significanse today.I will have to get it out and look at it again. Here is a picture of the cover.