Maker record
Wiad
Wiad was a German maker of model railway accessories founded in the early 1950s by model railway designer Willy Ade and two partners. Its products included building models with movable shutters and functional layout accessories, such as a gravel works, a sawmill with a working saw frame and a mobile bridge crane. The range combined scenic structures with working mechanisms for railway layouts. Ade later sold Wiad after his partners died, then turned to the development and production of model railway rolling stock through Röwa.
- Founded
- 1952
- Countries
- Germany
- Locations
- Unknown
- Founders
- Unknown
The story of Wiad
Willy Ade founded Wiad in the early 1950s with a tax adviser friend and the owner of a plastics injection-moulding business. The first products were model buildings with movable shutters. Wiad then made functional accessories for railway layouts, including a gravel works described in MIBA in 1953, a sawmill with a working saw frame and a large Krupp-Ardelt crane designed as a mobile bridge structure.
After both partners died, Ade sold Wiad. In 1959 he founded Röwa Plastik GmbH with Horst Röchling and shifted his work toward developing and producing model railway vehicles and components for other makers. The MIBA account identifies Wiad’s early-1950s founding and subsequent sale, but does not provide the sale year or a dated end to Wiad production.
