Minitrix - 12337 - Locomotive, Diesel, Class D220, Epoch V - Ferrovie Emilia Romagna - D 220.011 ER

Specific Item Information: Italian Ferrovie Emilia Romagna (FER) class D 220 heavy diesel hydraulic locomotive. The former German Federal Railroad (DB) class 220 was sold to Italy after being retired from service. Use: Medium and heavy freight trains.

Road Name History: Ferrovie Emilia Romagna (FER) is railway company serving the Emilia-Romagna region in Italy. The company also operates buses.

The company was formed in 1997 by acquisition by the Emilia-Romagna region of four previous state-owned railway companies:

the Ferrovie Padane (FP, which managed the Ferrara–Codigoro railway); the Ferrovia Suzzara–Ferrara SpA (FSF); the Gestione Commissariale Governativa delle Ferrovie Venete - Ferrovia Bologna-Portomaggiore (FBP); the Gestione Commissariale Governativa delle Ferrovie Venete - Ferrovia Parma-Suzzara (FPS). On 1 January 2008, it also acquired the railway branch of the ATCM of Modena, and, on 1 February 2009, Reggio Emilia's ACT, as well as FBV, becoming the only railway company in Emilia-Romagna.

Emilia-Romagna currently owns 59.44% of FER, the rest belonging to the provinces of Bologna, Mantua, Ferrara, Modena, Parma, Ravenna, Reggio Emilia and Rimini.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrovie_Emilia_Romagna

Brand/Importer Information: Trix is a German company that originally made Trix metal construction sets.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