Ixion D-GWR GWR No.1 Fowler 0-4-0 Diesel Mechanical Shunting Engine O Gauge

£225.00
MRP £299.00

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(Product Ref 47903)
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Made in the same Chinese factory which produced the Ixion Hudswell Clarke this model will feature:

  • An injection-moulded, painted, ready-to-run body and chassis
  • Finescale wheels
  • 5 pole flywheel-equipped motor.
  • Four-wheel electrical pickup
  • 40:1 precision gearbox
  • DCC and sound ready
  • Sprung chassis
  • Cab detail
  • Sprung buffers
  • Hook draw-gear with three-link couplings
  • Choice of two liveries: GWR lined green No 1; unlined, un-numbered green
  • Included is an etched brass fret containing cab-side maker’s plates, nameplates, and engine number plates
  • Also included is a set of injection-moulded 7mm scale lamps and loco tools.

The GWR and Swindon is often criticised for the stagnation of innovation in the 1930s, however it is often forgotten that, by 1940, the GWR was possibly the largest user of diesel traction in revenue service in Britain. A highly successful fleet of streamlined diesel railcars had been put into service, the fleet being expanded during the war yaers with a new more angular design. These cars featured a very similar mechanical drive layout to the BR DMUs of the 1950s and in later versions a multiple working control system allowed once driver to control a second trailing railcar from the leading cab.

These were not the GWRs only internal combustion engined traction, the company had purchased 5 standard gauge 40hp Motor Rail Simplex petrol mechanicals in the 1920s, using them on light duties in engineers yards and at Bridgewater docks, eliminating the need to maintain and crew a steam locomotive for the very occasional shunting needs at these locations. 4 further narrow gauge locos were bought for the engineers use, most of these locos lasting into the 1950s.
The GWR was more cautious with larger diesel shunting engines, however the use of the Fowler 0-4-0 diesel mechanicals by several customers quite possibly prompted the GWR to try one of these units.
Aparantly used mainly at Swindon works, where G J Churchwards experimental oil fired 0-4-0 tank number 101 had also been tested, no doubt number 1 was tried out at a number of locations where potential savings might be effected by using a single-maned, start-up and go diesel shunter in place of a steam engine.
The experience was clearly not overly successful, as No.1 was withdrawn at the start of WW2, being sold to locomotive dealers George Cohen, who were collecting equipment for the War Department at the time. It is quite possible that the Fowler simply proved underpowered, as in 1936 the GWR had purchased a larger 0-6-0 diesel electric shunter from Hawthorn Leslie, powered by the familiar 350bhp English Electric 6K engine which the GWR kept, though loaned out to the MoS during the war, to become BR 15100, withdrawn in 1965.

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