Faller Files For Bankruptcy

[jecorbett]

This is not terribly earth shaking news. Most of the Faller kits are too European looking to have a place on my railroad. I could probably count on one hand the number of Faller products I've bought in the last 30 years and nothing I couldn't have found a suitable substitute from another company. A few of their kits might look right on either side of the pond, but for the most part, there stuff was aimed at Europeans railroads.

If history is any indication, the dyes from some of their more popular kits will get sold off as part of the bankruptcy settlement and they will reappear under a new brand name.

This might be a red flag about the market conditions for other Euro companies like Vollmer and Heljan which do have more kits that don't scream European. There are a couple I have plans to obtain. Maybe I better not wait to get those kits.

[MisterBeasley]

Remember, they've announced they're filing for bankruptcy, not closing the doors.  Many companies have done this and emerged from the proceedings stronger and leaner, or at least financially solvent and able to continue doing business.  We still have GM and Chrysler, and a number of airlines have gone through this process as well.

I think their most interesting product is the Faller Car System, which someone mentioned back on page 1.  While it's a bit gimmicky and not terribly appealing for small-layout guys like me, it is an interesting bit of technology which can add something unique to "display" layouts.  Once again, though, its appeal is limited by the primarily European vehicle set, and the price tag is pretty high for individual cars and trucks.

[AntonioFP45]

Gentlemen, no one mentioned another cool product that Faller produced: 

http://www.midlandred.info/fcs.shtml

It's been my hope that American modelers would help make the animated Faller Car system more popular here.  Faller was producing some American cars, but a number of us were hoping that they would produce more layout practical vehicles like American transit buses, semi-trucks, garbage trucks, UPS type parcel-package trucks, post WWII taxi cabs, etc. IMHO, the Faller system would be an added plus to a club layout or home layout.

Of course, the price tags produce sticker shock for many of us. Just as with DCC/Sound, if other companies produced systems similar to Faller, the competition would help energize this particular market, help bring prices down, and could even interest people that are not model railroaders.
 

[blownout cylinder]

AntonioFP45

It's been my hope that American modelers would help make the animated Faller Car system more popular here.  Faller was producing some American cars, but a number of us were hoping that they would produce more layout practical vehicles like American transit buses, semi-trucks, garbage trucks, UPS type parcel-package trucks, post WWII taxi cabs, etc. IMHO, the Faller system would be an added plus to a club layout or home layout.

There was something similar to that that I remember seeing in a club layout in the 1970's. The vehicles were moved along a magnetic strip(?) under the roadway. Now if only I can figure out who put that together------

[SteamFreak]

AntonioFP45

It's been my hope that American modelers would help make the animated Faller Car system more popular here...

I think that responsibility belonged to Faller. The system might have been more successful, but the fact that they didn't broaden their market by producing more North American vehicles and promoting them here relegated them to a European curiosity. If the hobby is shrinking in Europe as many claim, then that should have given them even greater impetus to build an overseas customer base. You could find some of the items on Walthers site for list price if you knew to search for them, but that was about it. I'm not sure how many modelers in the U.S. would be interested in animated vehicles, but Faller sure didn't try to test the market. My guess is their prices would have remained prohibitive for the average modeler, though.

I posted a thread about the car system a few years ago when I discovered this video on YouTube.

Faller Car System

[chutton01]

AntonioFP45

Gentlemen, no one mentioned another cool product that Faller produced: 

Actually a number of prior posts in this thread, including mine, mentioned the Faller Car system - it just seemed rather expensive and somewhat restrictive in it's offerings.  An idea that probably needs (a lot) more work...

[steffd]

dknelson

 Although there are some superb European modelers, for those most part you see almost toylike looking track plans -- by which I mean fixed radius curves coming out of perfect tangents -- coming out of Germany, for all the advanced electronics and watch like runnng characteristics of the trains themselves.  As if something about flex track upsets their notions of form and order.   It is hard to imagine any of the German manufacturers getting to a modular type construction or actually crafting their kits to encourage kitbashing.

 I somewhat disagree. Perhaps some of those Toy like track plans are those you may have seen in some of the manufacturer plan books, something very much equivalent to the Atlas track planning books or some of the other track plan books we have here in North America. I would encourage you to look a little further into what exists on the other side of the pond; you may very well be surprised. Europe and Germany in particular possess the world largest and most comprehensive, detailed and technologically advanced layouts on the globe and actually have several permanent public exhibits showcasing these layouts, including modular layouts which are in fact very common. Here are just a few links to consider. Perhaps not everybody's cup but the craftsmanship and level of detail cannot be denied!

www.miniatur-wunderland.de

www.schwarzwald-modell-bahn.de

www.smec.at/german/index.htm   

 Cheers,

Stephan

  

[twhite]

One other thing that might not mean a lot to a great many modelers is that if you're modeling alpine mountain or ski areas out here in the western mountains of Colorado, Utah or California, you'll find a great many buildings that are of a kinda/sorta "Faux Alpine" design--Austro/German style chalets and A-frames and such.  I can travel east up Interstate 80 here in California and find a lot of them up in the high country.  And they've been there quite a while, too. 

A great many of the Faller buildings fall into the category that would look right at home in either the Rockies or the Sierra, either as private homes or hotels.  

So, don't discount those "German designs" so nonchalantly.  You might not use them, but some of us do, because they fit.   And Faller fills the bill. 

Tom

[blownout cylinder]

twhite

One other thing that might not mean a lot to a great many modelers is that if you're modeling alpine mountain or ski areas out here in the western mountains of Colorado, Utah or California, you'll find a great many buildings that are of a kinda/sorta "Faux Alpine" design--Austro/German style chalets and A-frames and such.  I can travel east up Interstate 80 here in California and find a lot of them up in the high country.  And they've been there quite a while, too. 

Leavenworth, WA along US 2 is one example of a downtown modelled after a 'Bavarian' mode. Another is the Vail/Aspen CO region----

BTW--the steep roof angles made snow shedding a lot easier---no excess weight of snow sitting on flatter roof angles.

[rstaller]

I guess that means the name will change from Faller's to Walther's.

                                                      R. Staller