Ixion at AMRA Liverpool Exhibition

If you are going to the AMRA model railway exhibition this coming long weekend, call in and see Ixion on the Gopher Models table, Stand 75. Look for the big red ochre Ixion pull-up banner. Phil Badger will be there all three days, and Lindsay O'Reilly will be there Saturday and Sunday. We'll have Ixion O gauge locos for sale, we can organise your purchase (pre-release) of the HO scale 32, and Phil will happily fill all your N scale needs from his Gopher Models and Badgerbits ranges. Lindsay will even answer questions about the proposed crowd funded Pioneer Models brass O Scale 32 Class. 
No matter what your scale interest, we'll have something for you!

Next Running Samples

We received confirmation today from the factory that they are working on our painted, running samples of the C32 from the corrected tooling. They are doing four, in these numbers and liveries:
1. 3265 (lined maroon, curved footplate, bogie tender)
2. 3258 (curved footplate, red edge, bogie tender)
3. 3333 (angled footplate, plain black, bogie tender)
4. 3298 (angled footplate, plain black, 6-wheel tender).

More news about these, and photos, when they arrive.

Loco artwork received

Last Friday we received the artwork for our 32 Class livery variations. These need to be approved by Ixion's Technical Director Phil Badger, but these images give a good indication of the amount of work that goes into designing the spray painting and pad printing. We are especially thrilled with the 'NSWR' emblem on 3265.
Note that the colours are representative only: the artwork shows which colour goes where, not exactly what the colour is. Thus the black locos appear grey, for example.

As always, click on the pictures for a larger version.

The Right Colour

One of the locos we are modelling is 3265 "Hunter" as preserved. This is a beautiful loco, in an accurate re-creation of the 1930s lined maroon livery.

We have been challenged by the issue of matching the colour; we have used photos, and observed the real thing. We made up a range of colours, and compared them to the real thing. In the sunlight, 3265 appears to be a purple shade of maroon; but even parked in the sunlight, it's one colour on the sunny side, and another on the shades side. And it's a completely different colour inside, under artificial lights. 

So, what to do?

By a small miracle, completely by chance, our Technical Director Phil Badger met the man who painted the loco at the end of its restoration. He identified the colour as as shade called 'Claret', from a well-known commercial paint manufacturer. Phil obtained the paint... but, despite being EXACTLY the correct, real colour, it looks wrong on the model! 

So Phil has experimented, adding white and black in tiny increments to try and represent the colour of the loco, seen at a distance. Well, we've settled on the shade of the paint to be applied to the HO scale 3265. I don't doubt that people will debate whether we've got it right; just don't let it be said that we were lazy or sloppy in the process used to select it!