Ixion railways

Have announced their first loco today at the Aly Palace show. This will be in N gauge

and it will be..... a Manor!

All orders through Dapol directly only. They were taking orders today and there seemed a high demand for them, to be released at the N gauge show in Warwick in September for collection or the week after for posting.

4 Will be done a run of 300 each as follows

7808 Cookham Manor Unlined Green GWR shirt button

7816 Frilsham Manor GWR unlined Green GWR on tender

7823 Hook Norton Manor BR unlined Black Early Crest

7800 Torquay Manor BR lined Green Late Crest

furtehr details http://www.ixionmodels.com

 

... And for those interested in seeing more than the CAD images of it i have these 2 shots which i took over the weekend at the Alexandra Palace exhibiton.

http://jennings-rail-photos.fotopic.net/p49394512.html

http://jennings-rail-photos.fotopic.net/p49394513.html

 

spot on

 

Is it just me, or that that tender not look quite like a GWR 3,500 Gallon type ?.

Is the thing tender drive ? the phot certainly gives that impression, after experience of Hornby 00 junk in the 90's and read a review of the new N Jubilee (tender drive too) which stated performance left a lot to be desired, i avoid tender drive like the plague.

Is it really worth the extra detail for p**s poor performance ?.

 

The model is far from the final example and will be corrected (Notice even Peco did the 4000 Gall tender for the Collett goods even though it was uncommon on that class, hopefully a year on and technology has moved on)

As for the drive, it will be like Dapol's Q1 and 9F, i.e motor in the tender but cardan shaft to loco wheels for drive.

As for the Jubilee, its not anywhere near as bad as a vocal minority have made out to be! most examples I've seen run fine, and the rigid bar coupling eliminates the obvious push from the tender of old models. For the ultimate in tender drive, see the peco collett........

 

I hope something will be done about the running plate. The curves front and rear of the cylinders are not sharp enough and the top corners should be square. Similarly the valance under the cab should turn up through 90 degrees and meet the running plate valance in a right angle.

 

I have read about 'that' model at Ally Paly, it wasn;t a 'true 'representation' of the actual model.

 

It was an engineers model to prove all the bits would fit, If it actually came out like that, we'd have lost several years of developments!

I expect Ixion will produce a corker!

 

Just found what Lindsay O'Reilly, Director of Ixion quoted on the N Gauge Group....

Hello all.

[Spanish Surrealist artist] Salvador Dali once said "Dali must always
be talked about, even if Nothing Good is said." Dali knew the value
of celebrity; he wanted people to know his name, if if they thought
he was barking mad.

I'm not sure Ixion as a company would fully agree with him, but we do
appreciate the fact that so many people really care about N gauge,
and its future, that anything new or different is a source of comment
and discussion. We still intend that the Ixion Manor will be the best-
detailed, best-running UK N gauge loco you have yet seen. That
technology comes at a price, however, and as the money to produce it
has solely come from the three directors, we have made our own
decisions about how to sell the model. (And, as I heavily extended my
mortgage to give this a go, any dud decision we make does have real-
life consequences.)

We have selected our fixed-price, limited-outlet distribution model
based on the experiences of the Australian HO scale manufacturers
Austrains, Trainorama and Eureka Models. Interestingly, if you check
out their websites, you'll see that they do offer price discounts,
but only for FULLY pre-paid customers, with a cut-off date. They then
sink that money into producing the loco. For a first model, from a
start-up company, we didn't think that would work. But maybe it would
work in the future - you can let us know what you think on this forum.

In Ixion's case, the first loco pays for the second loco, and so on.
Hopefully, at some point in the future, we can take our investment
back out of the company, and maybe even some profit, but it won't be
for a while. If we're wrong about the direct-selling strategy, the
market will let us know. If we're right, we can do Loco 2 sooner. But
it's the only financial model that allows us sufficient return to
permit us to stick to our planned release schedule. We know it's a
new idea in the UK: but, as N gauge Bob says, it is OUR choice,
doomsayers notwithstanding. (From our point of view, things are
looking encouraging; over 10% ordered in less than a week.) We think
once our magazine ads start to run we'll get a more realistic picture
of the market acceptance of the idea.

With regard to the photos of the EP (Engineering Prototype) that was
displayed at Ally Pally, Kevin Knight was quite right to draw
attention to them, because - as he said - he wasn't able to attend
the show and see it "in the flesh". However, Nick Meredith is also
right when he says that it's intended only to be a next step from the
CAD drawings; it's NOT a "test shot" from the tooling, as the tooling
hasn't been made yet! The eagle-eyed among you have already spotted
the corrections still to be made to the CAD models - fluted coupling
rods, whistle shield and reversing lever among them. An EP is a hand-
built 'representation' of the loco, built by a Chinese person will
little real concern for the OUTSIDE appearance, which tests the
engineering principles involved, most of which are INSIDE what you
can see - room for motor, gearbox, chassis, couplings etc. So we
don't mind it being on show, but I didn't post any pictures of it on
our website because it looks so rough!! But we hope its one more
proof we're serious about the whole business.

So if you want your own Manor, or simply want to encourage us in
order to see us survive to make the LMS, LNER and SR (listed in
alphabetical order!) locos that you really want, your interest and
kind words are much appreciated. And we aren't in the least bit
offended by speculation or criticism or commentary. As Dali famously
said...

Best wishes,

Lindsay O'Reilly
Director,
Ixion Model Railways Ltd.

 

The manors are almost all out, and look fantastic...

According to Model Rail mag, they are doing a 43xx next...

 

But not for a while, The 2 models that have been released from the original 4 at once are bring recalled and retooled due to the mould being 8% under scale....

 

8% over scale actually. Someone posted a photo on RMWeb showing an Ixion Manor and a Dapol 9F next to each other. Since when has a Manor been longer than a 9F?! Oops!

 

Nothing new in N as far as i can tell, My Farish V2 has drivers the same size or marginally bigger than their A4, prototype sizes are V2: 6'2 , A4 6'8 , do'h!.