The Tradition

The model railroad hobby and even the job as a railroad worker has been pursued in the family with great enthusiasm for more than a hundred years.

• Great-great-grandfather Arnold Rommerskirchen was station master in Koblenz main station around 1915.
• During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), great-grandfather Walter von Oettingen operated a hospital train financed by donations for the Livonian Red Cross as a military surgeon. He owned a 1 gauge clockwork model railway and composed a railway song for his son Peter.
• Grandfather Karl Frobenius owned a spirit steam locomotive of the Vulkan brand and a Märklin model train with gauge H0. Both are still family-owned today.
• My father Hartmuth bought the first version of the Aster gauge 1 real steam locomotive Shay from 1977 in the late 1970s. This was followed at the beginning of the 1980s by the Live Steam model of the Bavarian S2/6 from Aster and several Fulgurex models of the famous Train Bleu from the CIWL.
• So I grew up in the household of a railway fanatic. Even when the age of the steam locomotive was over, I visited various museum railways as a child. Of course, the obligatory Märklin model railroad with the metal tracks could not be missing. At the age of 16 I assembled the first Aster kit. Over the years, other Aster locomotives of gauge 1 that run on alcohol or gas have been added to the collection. In addition to a large number of Märklin locomotives from the 1960s, a coal-fired steam locomotive T3 with a gauge of 5 inches is now also part of the inventory. I have been building and selling the TRAINBOX transport boxes since 2019.
• My son Leo is in no way inferior to his ancestors. At just 5 years old, the Brio wooden train with around 30 locomotives is his favorite toy. In addition, the Duplo, Märklin and Playmobil railways are among his favorites.