415 - Technofix "Alpine Express", tin toy, mountain railway with three cars and "Alpine-Station"

Technofix "Alpine Express", tin toy, mountain railway with three cars and "Alpine-Station" Tin, colour printed, Technofix company, Gebrüder Einfalt, Nuremberg. "Alpine Express", tin toy as an ascending mountain railway landscape with starting ramp in brick wall decoration, pond with embossed wave relief, tunnel portal, bridge arch, mountain peaks in relief and station building "ALPINE-STATION", side walls printed with alpine landscape, viaduct, station, campsite and petrol station "SHELL". With three cars, two blue with red roof, one red with yellow roof, two of them inscribed "GE 300". Triangular mark "MARKE Technofix" next to the pond, on the edge of the track "MADE IN WESTERN GERMANY", "D.B.G.M." and "BRIT AND U.S.A. PATENT PEND.". Clockwork, key present. In working order. Good condition commensurate with age, one car defective. 80x16x15 cm (LxWxH). The Gebrüder Einfalt Mechanische Blechspielwarenfabrik was founded in Nuremberg in 1922 by Georg Einfalt, his brother Johann and Franz Heussinger; the brand name Technofix first appeared in 1926 on a Kosmos construction kit for Franckh-Kosmos. Until production ceased in 1978, Technofix produced, alongside wind-up cars and construction kits, tin tracks and tin landscapes with around 100 different scenes. The "Alpine Express" with model number 300 appeared in 1961 and is one of the brand's mountain railways. The vehicles are driven on a rack section via a disc on the underside and then roll downhill by gravity; a lever at the hairpin bend releases the next car, which waits in an opening in the roof of the station.