Maker record
Maple Leaf
Maple Leaf was a Dutch toy and model railway maker active in the late 1940s. Its known train was a tinplate 00-gauge electric multiple unit modelled on Dutch National Railways’ streamlined Mat ’35 trains. The three-part set had a centrally mounted motor, three-rail AC operation and interior lighting. Its track was supplied by the Swiss firm Junior. The train was presented at a trade fair in Utrecht in 1947 and is a rare example of Dutch postwar model-train production.
- Founded
- 1947
- Final year
- 1949
- Countries
- The Netherlands
- Locations
- Amsterdam, Holland
- Founders
- Bernardus Leonard Peuschgens
The story of Maple Leaf
On a trade show in Utrecht in April 1947 Bernardus Leonard.Peuschgens, owner of the “Mechanische Speelgoedfabriek Maple Leaf “ (Mechanical Toy Factory Maple Leaf) in Amsterdam, showed an 00 gauge train set, based on the streamlined electric trains introduced by the Dutch railways in 1935. The train, with a length of 46 cm, was made of tinplate, had a centrally-mounted AC 3-rail motor and was fitted with interior lighting. The train and motor were made in-house, the track was bought in from the Swiss firm Junior. The set was offered under the name Maple Leaf and sold for a price of 115 Dutch guilders, including a transformer, in late 1947 (around €1600/$1850 in 2025). It didn’t sell well (today only about 5 surviving sets are known) and in July 1949 Maple Leaf went bankrupt. As Peuschgens had borrowed money from two different parties and had given both the rights to his production machinery as security, court cases followed, which were taken as far as the Dutch Supreme Court in 1953. It is certain however that no Maple Leaf trains were produced after early 1949.