Liliput - L260903 - Maintenance of Way Equipment - Deutsche Bahn - 979 4 192-9

Prototype History: The definition of "Maintenance of Way" is the upkeep and repair of a railroad's fixed property (as track and bridges). Railroads have always used specialized and modified rolling stock and motive power for this purpose. Types of equipment run the gamut from snow plows to ballast spreaders to cranes to dedicated passenger cars.

Some equipment is purpose built such as modern ballast spreaders, while other equipment can be modified from revenue generating equipment such as gondolas, boxcars and passenger cars. Usually yhe equipment is painted in distinctive patterns to clearly indicate that these cars and locomotives are not being sued for revenue-generating service.

Road Name History: Deutsche Bahn AG (abbreviated as DB, DB AG or DBAG) is a German railway company. Headquartered in Berlin, it is a private joint-stock company (AG), with the Federal Republic of Germany being its single shareholder. Deutsche Bahn describes itself as the second-largest transport company in the world, after the German postal and logistics company Deutsche Post / DHL, and is the largest railway operator and infrastructure owner in Europe. It carries about two billion passengers each year.

Deutsche Bahn (literally "German Railway" in German) came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn ("German Federal Railway") of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn ("German Empire Railway") of East Germany. It also gained ownership of former railway assets in West Berlin held by the Verwaltung des ehemaligen Reichsbahnvermögens (Administration of the Former Reichsbahn Assets).

Brand/Importer Information: Liliput was founded in 1947 by Walter Buchel in Vienna with six employees, the original company name was "Liliput - R. Cvetkovics und Co.".
The company ran into financial difficulties at the end of the 1980s, and initially the car model manufacturer Herpa appeared as a new partner. However, Herpa's activities were only a short interlude, because in 1992 the British model railway manufacturer Bachmann Europe Plc., a subsidiary of the American Bachmann Industries took over Liliput and transferred production to the parent company, Kader Industrial Company Ltd. to Hong Kong. Since then, Liliput products have been developed and sold by the German branch in Altdorf near Nuremberg.
Due to the various changes in ownership of the company, a distinction is made today between Liliput Vienna, Herpa-Liliput and Liliput-Bachmann when classifying Liliput models over time.