One of us

Without further ado, Marco Harz has converted the skewer into a coupling aid. With a concentrated look, he hangs on the last carriage of the legendary Rheingold Express and it can start with its trip over the plywood panel. In the past, the model railway enthusiast used a simple transformer controller to get the trains going, today, a digital control unit transfers the commands. In contrast to the good old transformer that could only go fast or slow, a digital jack of all trades is a marvel. Marco Harz: "For example, I can program the sequences so that several trains can travel at the same time, and many other functions separately from each other. Small and wonderful things that are a lot of fun."

Small headlights suddenly light up on the Rheingold, smoke pours out of the chimney of the steam train and the sirens of the fire engines that are standing in front of the roof truss of a just burned down model house, can also be switched from the digital control unit.

Marco Harz, incoming goods manager at HEROSE is a model railway enthusiast as they should be. He was hooked on to it since he was a child, as his father gave him a carpet railway as a present. "It was only put together for Christmas and then drove around the Christmas tree without stopping." At some point he forgot about it – "until I started it up again ten years ago."

And he was doing it right this time. In the cellar of his terraced house in Bad Oldesloe, a whole room has long been reserved for Marco´s hobby. But not all of the trains that Marco Harz owns are ready to drive, these are presented in showcases. Real treasures, such as the Hogwarts-Express from the Harry Potter films.

Its an expensive hobby. But Marco Harz has found a way to finance this: "I pay regular visits to model vehicle collectors' fairs", he said, "I buy broken locomotives and trains, repair them and sell them again." It is the desire for crafting, the joy of filigree that characterises real model railway enthusiasts anyway. And Marco Harz also says: "A real model railway will never be finished."

Marco Harz has been working at HEROSE since 2001. Being the head of the incoming goods department, with his eleven employees, he is responsible for everything that reaches the company from the suppliers – from ball point pens to raw material for the valves that weight tons. The department is responsible that everything waits at the right place for further processing - pretty challenging with a total quantity of articles that go way beyond a million. For example, 250,000 springs, 150,000 unfinished cast parts, 150 tons bar material. Due to the tremendous growth of HEROSE, storage space is becoming increasingly scarce.

Marco Harz: "That is a daily challenge." Tasks of his department still include the waste management at HEROSE and they also have the responsibility for the two degreasing plants in the company. Thousands of things that Marco Harz has to think about: "My little railway is just the right thing to help me shut down in the evening."