The British Outline N Gauge Models Produced by British Minitrix

N Gauge model locomotives were produced by Minitrix for the British modellers from around 1967 for over 20 years. For the majority of that time Hornby were involved in shaping the development and in the marketing of the models, but the story doesn't start or stop with Hornby's Involvement.

The name Trix has a long history with model railways with origins as far back as the 1920s, and on the face of it there seem to have been two completely separate companies using the same, or a similar, name - in Germany and in Britain.  But it wasn't until around 1967 that any N gauge products were made using the Minitrix name in Britain.

British Celanese - a company whose primary business was with the working of various plastics -was owned by the Courtaulds group.  Trix had been in decline since 1948 with a succession of different owners, none of whom were able to turn the company around.  In 1963 British Celanese / Courtalds purchased 'the goodwill and patents' of Trix Products for £1 in 1963, and set up a base in one of their factories in Wrexham, N Wales as a new company called British Trix.

Seeing plastic as the way forward, most of the unmarketable assets of the old company, largely related to production of tin plate models, were dumped  in a big hole at the factory in Wrexham. The the new 'British Trix' company started a new range of models, some home made, some in plastic and some which were imported from Europe and repackaged.

1967

The Trix company in Germany was a completely separate entity, owned by Ernst Voelk.  They were producing zinc die-cast push along 1:180 scale models in the late 1950s under the name Minitrix.  None of their catalogues showed that any track for the 1:180 scale models was available.  It looked like these relied on 'carpet pattern' train tracks. 

In 1964 they introduced 'Minitrix Electric' scale 1:160 models and the catalogue for the year detailed just one motor powered model.  The catalogue also introduced "nickel silver profile model track with 9mm standard track width" - translated from the German - and in large, bold letters at the bottom of the page "Spur N" and "9mm".  Another extract hinted that that placed carefully on a 16.5 mm layout, this could offer a good impression of depth and perspective.  So N gauge starts life with the ambition of a being a walk-on part to a 'proper' OO gauge layout ?

The following year Minitrix Electric took off with catalogues detailing 5 electric 1:160 locomotives alongside as their 1:180 scale push-along models.   By 1967 their catalogue was entirely electric 1:160 scale with 7 electric locos and 6 complete train sets, carriages, rolling stock and track work.  Loco bodies and chasses were all die cast metal.

In Britain, by 1967, Courtaulds had started producing Kits and models for N gauge and their 'British Trix' brand was responsible for introducing two versions of the well known 'overscale 1:148' Class 27 Model with metal chassis and moulded plastic body.  'Minitrix' is written on the sheet that accompanied these models. I do not know for certain, but it seems likely that Coutaulds imported the ready built chassis from Minitrix in Germany and designed and manufactured the moulded plastic body, using their expertise with plastics.  The motor in the Class 27 is typical of the motors that were used by Minitrix, and the cutaway drawing of the Ellok E10  model in the 1968 German Minitrix catalogue has many similarities to the design of the Class 27 Diesel sold by Courtaulds in 1967. 

It seemed that the level of detail that was achievable with Courtauld's Class 27 plastic moulded body mounted on a Minitrix chassis was a marriage that the German Trix company could not ignore.  In spite of this landmark combination, Courtaulds were struggling. British Trix was bought by the German Trix company of Ernst Voelk, and the green Class 27 was featured as a brand new Minitrix model in their 1969 catalogue.  The caption highlighted the die cast metal chassis, 4 axles, 2 bogies and I think significantly, the plastic body.  Subsequently, from the 1969 Minitrix Catalogue onwards, many new models were introduced with Plastic moulded bodies.

An image that I obtained somewhere on the Internet.
An original Coutauld's box and exploded diagrams.  I assume that the model Class 27 is a British Trix too.