ixionmodels

i live in Newcastle NSW (Australia) and purchased my copy from the Titfield Thunderbolt last month. With international postage from the U.K. it was very pricey and I for one am thrilled by the value. As a previous poster noted, anything that give some pleasure in the reading and is a useful reference for years is a joy. I am so often disappointed by the constant whinging of modellers at the cost of things, including the gent who posted on this thread that when he compared the price to the number of pages he decided it was poor value and not for him. Without, it seems, reading any of the reviews or waiting for those who had seen it to give informed opinions on its value, which is very different to its cost! (Has he never bought a CD or LP? A few cents (pence) worth of plastic and printed paper - what a ripoff; and yet it can be a joy for years.) I first encountered Iain Rice's modelling and writing in his MRJ 'Woolverstone' article, and have been a fan ever since. Like a previous poster noted, this book has been on my chair arm, and by my bed, since it arrived. It has pointed me to a number of layouts I've never heard of, and researching them on the web has made it worth the price all by themselves. I love the idea of cameo layouts, of which there are almost none in Australia - perhaps the Wide Brown Land produces an expansive mindset not conducive to such little slices of the world. But, as a co-owner of Ixion Models, I can't use the excuse that some locos are expensive, when I can get them for free... I attended Railex in Aylesbury in 2014 with my friend and business partner Chris Klein, and met some of my modelling heroes; Gordon and Maggie Gravett and Chris Nevard foremost among them. Chris was there with his tiny 4mm layout 'Ironstone'; I was completely captivated and delighted by his method of refilling his wagons via the overhead hopper. Having, he said, tried all sorts of automatic 'ironstone' dispensers to ensure the wagons were not overfilled. In the end, he just picked up full wagons from the fiddleyard and tipped the contents via the hopper into the empty wagon below. Brilliant! I highly recommend the book, and Titfield's service. It's just a Good Read. Thanks Iain and Wild Swan; keep them coming, if you can. Lindsay O'Reilly.

I have commissioned my local printshop to produce a backscene 12' x 2'. It will be printed in one piece on vinyl and will have eyelets along the top to enable it to be hung from a lightweight frame. The bottom edge will be held in place with velcro attached to the baseboard frames. The resulting structure will be light in weight and quick to erect and dismantle with no unsightly joints. It will be ready next week and I will post more photos when I have built the supporting contraption. Stand by for further Charlie Charlie One sitreps. Chris, I've obviously been away from this thread for too long, as the progress is impressive! I have little knowledge of the prototype (despite living in [New] South Wales!) but the structures and track look great. Code 100 rail is the most commonly used rail on NSW 7mm layouts, as it represents the 65lb rail so common on our lightly-laid "pioneer" branchlines. Two Micro-Engineering sleepers are used per sleeper, and the resulting track looks prototypically 'spidery' and lifelike. Keep up the great work. Lindsay.

Impressive progress already, Chris. As my ignorance of the prototype is almost boundless, I am curious: apart from the Dukedog mentioned by an earlier poster in days long past, and the modded Fowler for the MOD purposes, what locos are suitable for the line? Will you have to build more, or does your existing roster cover the necessaries? Lindsay.

Marty, Nice pick-up. I had a black MW, and it sold off our website before I could put up the "Sold Out" sign. So I posted of my black one (tearfully) and retrained a lined blue one for myself instead. So. I confess to a twinge of jealousy! As Chris has said above, Phil Badger can print you the decals for a black 1021. Just contact him directly, or email me off-list with your address and I'll organise them for you. Cheers, Lindsay. Lindsay O'Reilly, Ixion Models.

Chris would have got the Grass Master (GrasMaster?) out because when we were at Railex at Aylesbury, we sat down with Gordon and Maggie Gravett who were doing demonstrations of static grass application. They made it look ridiculously easy: blob on the glue, ground wire clip onto a pin in the baseboard, turn on the unit and shake gently. It was quite magical to see the fibres stand on end as they land. Then it was a bit more glue, and bit more grassing and bingo, done! And it looks like grass! ** As an aside, I want to say how thrilled I was to meet some of my inspirational modelling 'heroes' - not the right word, as it devalues those men and women who do truly and sacrificially heroic things in the world - but I hope you know what I mean. For me, it was Gordon and Maggie, Chris Nevard and Giles Favell. I am a high school Visual Arts teacher in my real life outside of Ixion Models, and so it's the 'Art' of model railways that has always attracted me. Photography is a big part of this, and my Ixion partner Chris is a very good photographer indeed, as this thread shows. Some photographers have the 'eye' for how to make a great model railway look sensational in pictures. For me, the doyen of model railway photographers is Barry Norman. I first encountered his work in the Sept 1988 Railway Modeller, when he photographed the Railway of the Month, which was Dave Elbourne's 4mm scale "Scotland Street". I still go back to that issue to marvel at those B&W pictures. I wonder how many of our "hero" layouts are memorable especially because of the work of a great photographer; Chris (and other readers), what do you think? Lindsay O'Reilly. PS: at Aylesbury, I bought Gordon's latest Wild Swan book and got him to sign it for me. I made him a return offer, that if he bought an Ixion loco at the show, I would sign that for him. He didn't get back to me on that. **Whilst watching the Gravett's excellent demonstration, Chris - in the tiresome fashion of Britons everywhere - made the observation to Maggie that my wide eyes were primarily due to the fact that I was wondering how I would make this work here in Australia, where the fibres would have to fall UP in order to work. He thought her subsequent laughter was at his joke, but I know it was more in pity. She's a right lovely lady, that Maggie.

A lovely looking EP. I look forward to the painted samples; Terriers came in such lovely liveries. Lindsay O'Reilly, Ixion Model Railways Ltd.

David, And a big "Bravo" from Newcastle, NSW. It is a very cool thing to make something that gives other people pleasure. That's why Ixion makes locos, and I hope you get that same buzz when you read the comments on this excellent series in the days and weeks to come, recognising the pleasure that this construction record has given your readers. The model is a triumph. I don't suppose you're going to Railex in Aylesbury in May? Chris and I will be there on the Saturday - I'd love to shake you by the hand in person. Lindsay O'Reilly Ixion Models Australia.

The larger scales have that effect! It is something to do with our sense of perception. I think it's related to the 'camping in a tent' effect: if you've ever done it, you'll know that the tent seems quite spacious when you're inside it. Then, after a few days, you pack it all up and look at the yellow spot on the green grass where the tent was and think: "My tent is never THAT small!" If you've built a house, the same effect is experienced in reverse when looking at the slab, and then standing inside the finished rooms. I call it the optimal viewing distance, or The Twelve-Foot Rule*. At normal layout viewing distance - about arm's length - we have a field of focused vision about a metre wide. On an N gauge layout, that equates to about 500 feet - almost a third of a mile. On a 4mm layout it's half of that. However, once you have been working on larger scale models, 7mm and up, what you can see at arm's length becomes 'normal' detail. Whilst three layouts, one in the three major, scales might all be 12 feet long, if from your viewpoint you can't see what you think is normal detail, it looks further away. Smaller. Tiny. The actual detail - up close - might be there, but you can't see it. (And this is why good layout photography is a such a fabulous boon to modellers; you CAN see what's there.) I'm about to embark on a large scale (1:20.3) exhibition layout in a space about 10' x 3'6"; so I shall have ample opportunity to test my own theory. Lindsay. * The most dramatic example of this effect I ever experienced was at a 'blockbuster' art exhibition in Sydney. As a I walked in, I looked to my left. What I saw was a painting that was a mess; blotches and blobs, no rhyme nor reason. I walked away from it and BAM! Everything resolved. It was one of Monet's paintings of Rouen Cathedral - the first real Monet I had ever seen! Though I had taught my students about him for years. I was indelibly struck by the depth of his genius. How, when he painted it at arm's length, did he know what all those blobs and strokes it would look like from three or more metres away??

"I have often thought that Australia and Wales could usefully engage in an exchange of place names to balance the former's surfeit of vowels with the latter's glut of consonants." My dear friend and partner in Ixion Models delights in this joke at my home country's expense. Whilst he - Bristol raised - is entranced with all things Cambrian and the musical Welsh language, he misses the point of our Australian place names. They're FUNNY. The many languages of indigenous Australians have given us treasures like Wantabadgery, Grong Grong Matong, Kurri Kurri, Wagga Wagga, Bong Bong, Boing Boing and Burrumbuttock (all places I have been). But I sometimes yearn to have been a pioneer! Someone who got there first and named things. After lauding Mother England (Victoria, Queensland, Newcastle) and local dignitaries (Melbourne) there came a point when they just got fed up. "What'll we call that flat bit where the cows are?" "I dunno; call it Cow Flat". I imagine there are a great many Welsh places named just the same way... Lindsay.

Brilliant job, David. Who knew, when we chose this loco, that it would provide so much enjoyment not only for buyers-and-runners, but kit-bashes too. I have loved following this series since Chris pointed it out to Ixion's Australian arm. I look forward to seeing it painted, too. I don't know why you can't paint it now. It was 35 degrees C at my place today! Cheers, Lindsay O'Reilly, Ixion Model Railways Ltd.

David, The original CAD drawings we had done for the HC were of Easingwold No.2. However, we subsequently obtained lots more photos from a marvellous gentleman (thanks, Martin) which showed very few of the photographed models had the 'rivets all over and sandboxes above the running plate' appearance of Easingwold No.2. So we bit the bullet and had the loco redrawn to match the 1920s/30s style which you now see. The wheels altered too, so it sounds like one of the old images has snuck into the instructions, which would be entirely my fault. And thanks Matloughe for a fantastic review. It gives us a genuine thrill to know that something we have made gives other modellers pleasure. Cheers, Lindsay O'Reilly, Ixion Models.