ADE

Willy Ade founded Wiad with two partners in the early 1950s. It began with model buildings and added functional H0 accessories, including a gravel works, a sawmill and a working crane. After his partners died, Ade sold Wiad. In 1959 he founded Röwa Plastik GmbH with Horst Röchling, making plastic products for several firms and developing railway models, particularly for Trix. From 1960, Ade designed Trix passenger coaches; later projects included the Adler train, the VT 08.5 and Dutch ELD units. In 1964 Röwa developed and produced several passenger-train sets for Trix, and Ade also worked on locomotives to complement the ranges. Trix’s 1967–68 programme included detailed freight cars and the Prussian T 3. After the Trix collaboration ended, Röwa sold models under its own name from autumn 1968, expanding into passenger and freight cars, N scale and a track system. Röwa entered bankruptcy in 1975. That year Ade established Ade Modelleisenbahnen GmbH and made H0 passenger coaches in exact 1:87 length scale, including 26.4- and 27.5-metre types. Flood damage in 1978 disrupted production. The MIBA account describes Ade’s later move from Unterensingen and a return to small-scale production of coach kits by 2003. Modellbau-Wiki records a successor company formed in 1998 that went bankrupt in 1999 before production began, and a small production restart in 2002.