Minitrix - 16871 - Locomotive, Electric, Series Re 486, Epoch VI - BLS (Bern–Lötschberg–Simplon) - 91 85 4486 503-6

Specific Item Information: BLS AG, Cargo Business Group, class 486 electric locomotive with the advertising lettering "Die Alpinisten" / "The Alpine People". Version with 4 pantographs. Use: Passenger and freight service.

DCC Information: Accepts NEM 651 Decoder.

Road Name History: The Bern-Lotschberg-Simplon railway (BLS), known between 1997 and 2006 as the BLS Lotschbergbahn, was a Swiss railway company. In 2006 the company merged with Regionalverkehr Mittelland AG to form a new company called BLS AG..

The Bern-Lotschberg-Simplon railway was the largest standard gauge network on the Swiss Railway system apart from the Swiss Federal Railways. The railway had not been built at the time that the Federal government took control of the five big Swiss standard gauge railway companies in 1902 and so it led a separate existence, being considered the largest of the Swiss "private" railways, although the majority of its capital was owned by the cantonal government of Bern, with the Confederation holding about one fifth.

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: Trix is a German company that originally made Trix metal construction sets. one of its co-founders was Stephan Bing, the son of the pioneer toy-maker industrialist Ignaz Bing. In 1935 the company began producing the electrically powered model trains that it became famous for, under the Trix Express label. Prior to the outbreak of World War II the Trix company produced a small range of fairly unrealistic AC powered three rail models running at 14 volts.

N gauge models under the Minitrix brand were made from the late 1960s mostly of European prototypes (German and British primarily). North American prototypes were also manufactured and marketed under the Aurora "Postage Stamp" brand; later these items were sold under the American Tortoise, Model Power and Con-Cor brands. Trix sometimes utilized North American consultants to aid in the design of this portion of the product line. The "Hornby Minitrix' brand was used in the 1980s for a short lived range of British outline models using the earlier product tooling.

Trix's owner in the 1980s and 1990s was Mangold, which went bankrupt in the late 1990s and Märklin purchased the assets in January 1997. In part, this purchase was a reflection of Märklin's need for added production capacity; Trix had been manufacturing certain items for Märklin in previous years. The purchase was also in response to the earlier purchase of the Karl Arnold company by the Italian company Rivarossi; Märklin were very keen to take over Trix market share in 2-rail H0 and especially Minitrix, until then Märklin had not marketed N gauge models. In 2003, Märklin introduced its first N gauge models under the well established Minitrix brand. A number Märklin H0 scale three-rail AC locomotives have also been introduced in two-rail DC versions under the Trix logo and many models are shared between the two brands.

From Wikipedia