Company Profile: Noch
History in a Nutshell
Noch GmbH & Co. KG began as a plumbers
workshop, founded in 1911 by Oswald Noch of Saxony, East Germany. Then in 1930, his son Erich opened an engineering office as a subsidiary.
By 1935 they were distributing Märklin trains, and a year later the company's resident carpenter began making model
buildings. After the War, Erich made custom layouts for wealthy customers, and later began marketing his own scenery products.
After struggling for survival during the 1950s, Erich re-established the company near Munich, West Germany, and the business began to flourish. Erich's son Peter took over management in the 1970s, and Peter's son Rainer then managed it from the 1990s. Now offering over 1,500 products—still principally scenery items—for all mainstream modeling scales, Noch (pronounced knock) thrives to this day; they partner with Rokuhan, Kato and Athearn, and they've opened a manufacturing facility in Vietnam.
N Scale Products
Noch joined a raft of European manufacturers entering the N Scale market in the mid-1960s with prefab layout bases, vacu-formed tunnels and scenery materials. Their first product was a prefab layout base for Arnold Rapido track and trains. Today, prefab layout bases are no longer in demand, so they now make figures, structure kits and electronic gadgets in addition to scores of scenery items.
