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dougattrenholmebar

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Everything posted by dougattrenholmebar

  1. Here's a video depicting traffic movements from the early sixties. A class 20 in charge of ex Gresley suburban stock arrives at the north bay and the runs around its train whilst a couple of four car DMU's come and go in the main station. Recorded under the new lighting in the train shed.
  2. This is another short video to test the new lighting I’ve installed in the train shed. This is one of a series, details are explained in ....New Lighting Test Video 1.
  3. This is another short video to test the new lighting I’ve installed in the train shed. This is one of a series, details are explained in ....New Lighting Test Video 1.
  4. This is another short video to test the new lighting I’ve installed in the train shed. This is one of a series, details are explained in ....New Lighting Test Video 1.
  5. This is short video to test the new lighting I’ve installed in the train shed. The original lighting was installed over 20 years ago. Needs change and the original fittings are coming the end of their life. An aim of the layout was to be able to see far in the distance, as in real life. Good high quality lighting is essential to enable the videoing of the layout and to add special effects. Originally, 27 off 5 foot fluorescent lights mounted at right angles to the baseboards. At the time of the building of the train shed, these lights were the only real way of lighting a large area. The original lights have been retained in position, I thought it was too dangerous to take down the old fittings over the layout. There are now 43 LED 4 foot fittings mounted in line with the baseboards, giving a much better even distribution of the light. The improvement is significant. There are further adjustments to both the camera and the software to get the best from it the change. This is the third major project carried out on the layout throughout this summer. Also completed, The new carriage sidings adjacent to the Lower East station and the replacement of the Lower Marshalling Yard throat (about 25 new points and about 29 yards of track) and, Replacement of many of the layout edge boards with those covered in blue photographic material for use when making videos.
  6. Back in the 2,000's when the rolling stock was being assembled for Trenholme Junction there was lots of shortages especially in, my chosen product, the Bachmann Mark1 rolling stock. Of the then new coaches, brake vans were particularly difficult to source. One dealer told me the were being used up in sets to launch the new range. My rakes of maroon Mark 1's always had lots of different brakes and some blood and custard to make them up. During this summer I have corrected this anomaly and the layout has two new prototypical length trains of maroon Mk1 stock. I don't think there is anything as relaxing as sitting watching trains go by and here I'm using one of my favourite and, and most complex, country scenes to frame as these trains pass by. Work on replacing the lighting in the train shed is ongoing, no new full length videos for the time being.
  7. Continuing with work around the new Carriage Sidings at the Lower East Station this video shows a new train, a Jubilee with a train of marron Mark 1 coaches making a stop and dropping off a pair of parcels vans. The parcel vans are then removed and sent into the bay platform for loading, after the DMU has left. Some experimenting with the lighting on scene 1 has probably not turned out as expected, but all the ceiling lighting will be changed from fluorescent to LED in the coming weeks which should address this issue in this part of the train shed. Fluorescent lighting causes flicker on the camera and although the camera can be set to correct this, its not always successful. There is no flicker on LED lighting. Production of the videos is a lot slower whilst the physical layout is updated, this and other work will soon be finished. There is also new software to learn and implement in future.
  8. This is the second video based around the new junction and access to the carriage sidings which been added to the layout during this summer. There are four trains passing through the station, and then some activity around the carriage sidings showing the additional operating possibilities from this new facility. It is also an experiment, as far as the technical side of producing the video, is concerned. I usually use a special effects package to blend the real world with the models, but on this video I have used the editor instead. There is a difference in quality of the real world using this method, which shows but it is restricted in its flexibility.
  9. The lack of any storage on the inner passenger lines on Trenholme Junction was probably a failing in the original design. On both levels of the layout, the two inner lines are passenger and any movements to and from storage sidings have to cross goods lines. Additional coaching stock since the build has also added to some congestion. A further increase in the diesel locomotive stud has caused considerable overcrowding in the diesel shed. There was to be crossover at the southern end of the Lower East Station which was missed out of the original build. This omission means this station has no run round loop. The original intention was to have a roadway system incorporated in to the layout and a margin of about 120mm was left empty on the inner edge of the lower level. At the time, there wasn't any suitable systems available. I built a series of scenic 'cassettes' which were place along the margin. These cassettes are now worn and damaged so the have been retired. After nearly twenty years of operation and the production of over 600 videos have taken their toll on the layout some maintenance was required. There has been some movement between the two buildings which form the train shed and some track has distorted, especially in the Lower Marshalling Yard. Over the last few weeks I have been addressing the above issues. A new junction has been installed at the Lower East Station, providing a crossover and an entrance into the two new sidings which run the entire length of the station, marshalling yard and up to Diesel Shed, some 12 metres long. Several entry and exit points allow storage to be accessed at both the station and the shed ends. Significant more space is available for locomotive storage at the shed. This sidings area is installed where the road margin was and a new edge board has been installed (with chroma keying cloth) to allow videoing without limits of the layout edge. All the points and the tracks in the marshalling yard throat have been replaced. I took the opportunity to replace the insulfrog points with electro frog versions to give more reliable running with the short wheelbase loco’s. This video shows a train being made up by the 05 shunter and taken away by the Class 24 locomotives.
  10. In the last video in this series the Upper North station has had the 'walls' which bordered the edge of the baseboards, covered with cloth which allows the video editor to remove the background. In this video, the Upper West Station has had removable cloth backdrops (over the top of the walls) to give the same effects as the previous one, without replacing the physical walls. Four trains passing through the station watched from an adjacent road.
  11. This is the script from the video:- Hello, and welcome to Trenholme Junction. In this video I'm going to show some of the trains which run on this model railway layout which have had the standard tension lock couplings replaced the close couplings. Several trains have been converted, mainly those which are in semi permanent rakes. This first train is composed of Hornby coaches. This first scene is deliberately filmed straight on so you can see the size of gap which has been achieved. All the rolling stock in this video, have NEM pockets and were originally supplied with mini tension lock couplings. The bottom right hand corner of the screen shows the two types of coupling used here. The top one is the Hornby version of the lower original Roco. The Hornby version is longer, probably to negotiate the inner curves of their standard track. Using a pair of the Roco pulls the vehicles too close together and the buffers lock on all but the large radius points. Using a pair of the Hornby type doesn't look much different to using the tension lock. One of each, however, brings an excellent result. Another advantage of using this type of coupling, is a solid connection is made between the vehicles, so when the train moves off the whole train moves together and there is none of the slop which is present with tension lock. The second scene looks across the approach to the Lower East Station where there is a ladder of medium radius Peco points. The medium radius points are the tightest bends on the layout and there is no buffer locking when travelling the ladder in either forward or reverse. The remainder of this video shows a selection of trains which have the couplings installed as they traverse the ladder in both forward and reverse directions.
  12. There are some changes to the edge boards which are around the baseboards at Trenholme Junction. They were originally covered in stone effect paper and were alright, they gave a fair backdrop for filming. This essential piece of the layout, prevents any derailments from plummeting to the floor and cannot be done without. Most of the video work which involves the removal of the background is, up to now, achievd by hanging a coloured cloth behind the scene. This works alright, but, getting all the wrinkles out of the cloth, to give a clean key, is virtually impossible, especially if its being moved all the time. My solution is cover the edge boards with the coloured cloth which is pre-tensioned to remove any imperfections. The software now removes the background down to baseboard level and the stone wall has disappeared for good. This video is to demonstrate how effective this is on the upper north station which is the first part of the layout to be treated.
  13. Trenholme Junction was built to have cameras inside the trains and therefore all sides of everything has to be modelled. You can't have 'just the fronts' of buildings, you have to see 'all round' or it just doesn't work. The layout was built in the traditional manner with an operating well in the centre. It also has a 5 inch (125mm) margin running around the inner edge of the well in order to have an area to service the trains. Around most of the outside of the layout is a small edging board to stop any runaways or derailments plummeting to the floor. This was edging board was covered in stone paper and looked ok, but made all the videos have the same background. Most of the videoing was done from the well around the margin. I've recently been covering the stone edging board with blue photographic material to use the keying tools to add the live backgrounds. Doing this allows the cameras to look at the layout from the other way on from that of merely shooting from the well and hides 'the other side of the layout' Three of the scenes shot in this running session have not been videoed from the 'other way round before.
  14. One of the design parameters when building Trenholme Junction was ‘to be see a train approaching in the distance but be far enough away so it could only be recognised when it was closer’. This video demonstrates that parameter was fulfilled. Here, we sit at end of the Main Station and look down the approach tracks. Lots of traffic today, a re-creation of the childhood days which inspired a life time of interest in the railways I grew up with.
  15. This, the third and final video in this mini series starts with a Class 47 with a parcels train thundering through the Upper North Station viewed from the roadside on the opposite side of the tracks. Once past the station, the four car Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) leaves the bay platform and follows the first part of the route followed by the trains in the previous two parts and then leaves through a 'tunnel' to terminate the service at the Main Station. Then, a passing Class 47 gently eases the latest addition to the rolling stock on Trenholme Junction through the station road. The superb Bachmann crane is temporarily teamed with a six wheel brake and a four wheel baggage van until the new Mess Van and Tool Van are released from Hornby.
  16. Here is the second of three videos showing the model trains travelling through the real world between the north and west stations on the upper level of Trenholme Junction. Some of the scenes from the first video have been omitted from this video. Two trains travel between the stations, a Class 47 on goods traffic and a Hymek on passenger. The layout is 57' * 13' (17.5m * 4m) inside a purpose built building. There is around 800 yds (730m) of track. Scale is OO gauge. The idea of incorporating the 'real world' sections is to give the layout a sense of distance between the five stations, otherwise trains would leave one major station and junction and arrive at the next one minutes later. The layout was built as a film set with movable scenery to give variety but has evolved so that now a lot of scenery has been removed and new videos only has real world scenery. I have plans (as time permits) to start a third phase of this project and build a further station (in a separate room) where the only permanent feature will be the track. This follows the idea of a theatre where the only permanent thing is the stage and the 'set' is built for each production. I intend to use different backgrounds and foregrounds in video format and a mixture of the many buildings and structures from the main layout. I am also are building a stock of other structures, not currently on the main layout, to add variety to the 'out in the country' scenes. The next video in this trilogy will follow a similar route as the first two but the last train will go to an entirely different end point and therefore demonstrating the flexibility of this idea.
  17. Back in the 1950's is was normal to get a train set at Christmas which was set up on the Dining Room table and then put away at teatime. Then came along the Model Clubs who produced layouts for display to the public. At this time they were inspirational, often depicting actual locations and also going from place to place rather than round and round on a table. To a generation of youngsters like myself we all wanted to build a 'layout' There were an increasing number of magazines which showed layouts built by others and lots of advice to achieve similar results, and, we all followed it. We all ended up with the same thing. A static diorama of grass made from coloured sawdust for grass and sticks with coloured sawdust stuck on to represent leaves and backgrounds badly painted on hardboard with model trains moving through. This state of affairs was probably acceptable when Triang were mass producing the awful 'models' of the time. All layouts produced from that time to now (including mine) have followed the same Static Diorama principle despite us having the most amazing Rolling Stock we have today. No matter what scatter you use or trees you buy or make, none of them look as real as the rolling stock does. And, its static. This project of mine has been running for twenty years and aims to address this anomaly and I use video (not static photos) for the background and foreground of these productions. All static things in the real world (such as buildings) are models.
  18. This video is a follow on from the one produced on Christmas Day, 'Escape from the Train Shed 1'. The idea of this type of production is to extend the model railway beyond its permanent home in the train shed. In this video there are some different 'scenes' to that of the first one, demonstrating how flexible this concept is. Any number of scenes can be created and joined together in any order. The 'weather' is dull and overcast. On the 'out of the train shed' scenes, there is some experimentation with weathering of the trains. This weathering is using the special effects package and takes the new look of some of the stock without spoiling the actual physical items.
  19. Here is a short video which is compiled from the clips originally intended to be part of the Christmas special '... Escape from the Train Shed 1'. Many model railway layouts are based around the idyllic summer day. Not mine. I am portraying Trenholme Junction (at the moment) as windy, dull and overcast. In order to do this I have to match the lighting in the Train Shed with the light used in the outside shots I'm using, so when they are put together, the finished product looks as one. These scenes are the final test shots. There are three camera angles here, south tunnel exit, signal box balcony and south end of the Main station. Seems a shame to scrap them. Just what I saw when sitting at the lineside when I was 9......
  20. Trenholme Junction is a model railway built in its own purpose built building and represents a view of British Railways in the mid 1960's, around the time I was growing up beside the railway line between Middlesbrough and Saltburn in the North East of England. I have regularly produced many videos which were all made within the confines of the Train Shed, but recently I have been working on additional 'scenes' which are 'off' the physical layout. These scenes are produced using the real world and models merged together into one video. The scenes take as much work as making conventional models (in a lot of cases, a lot more) and, as with the physical models, these scenes are re-usable and don't take up any physical space. This video, the annual Christmas Special, is a composite of scenes videoed both on the model and in the real world around the villages of Trenholmebar, Ingleby Arncliffe and Hutton Rudby in North Yorkshire, England. The time is late summer and the weather is dull and cloudy. Rain is not far away..... A very Merry Christmas to you all!
  21. This scene is out of sequence with the others in the 'Out in the Country' series. It shows the Class 20, before coming off the branch, onto the main line and portrays the train crossing a road on a stone viaduct. Much work has gone into matching the light on the models with the light in the real world videos. I have made quite a lot of bright sunny day videos, which incidentally, are most model railways settings, but, here in England, there are probably more dismal days than the latter. It's actually more difficult to emulate the miserable days than the bright. Rain is not very far away.
  22. This and the previous video (6) are a pair of scenes where the tracks open from two wide in the previous four videos, to four wide in this video, the class 20 running beside the original pair. The roadway also comes alongside the tracks and a couple of single deck buses pass by. Each of the scenes in this series are part of a library which can be used in the future.
  23. As each one of the scenes in this series is produced, proving the concept, I also want to improve the quality of the productions. All my videoing up to now has been using Gopro cameras. First the Session 5 and latterly the Hero 10. Both camera's have produced satisfactory results and can be squeezed into the tiniest of spaces, however, for close up work they are not the best for the job. In this video I have have recorded the trains and the buildings in 4k 60fps using my Ipad tablet. The trains have been processed through a colour corrector to give a dirty and faded look which was part of the scene back in the sixties. Work has also been carried out to blend the trains more naturally into the scene. We are using the same trains as in the other videos in this series, two more are added here, a Class 20 descending the bank from the branch and a 08 Shunter depositing some wagons into the goods shed. The detail on the Goods Shed is worth noting. Look through the windows at the back, you can see the goods train passing behind, through them. There are lights on inside which illuminate the wagons inside. Birds are flying and lots of bugs about. This video was produced by using only TWO railway tracks on a shelf. The four trains in the foreground were videoed first and the the two new ones afterwards and then the two videos were merged together. There's quite a lot of people don't like what I'm doing here, but making a video like this is equivalent to build a physical scene on a traditional layout and for anyone who has no room for a layout, a shelf with a piece of track can produce results like this. Doing this sort of layout is also ideal for those with disabilities who cannot build a physical layout, a shelf and a laptop is all you need.
  24. Continuing the journey away from the main layout of Trenholme Junction, two more scenes on the high level section of this country ride. There are 65 video clips and sound tracks included in these two scenes.
  25. I built Trenholme Junction mainly from the traditional approach. Baseboards, track, buildings and scenery. All assembled the same as everybody else does. The end result was very good, although I say so myself. I spent many hours making videos, re-creating my chosen 1960's timeframe. Very difficult to make convincing content when you can see the ceiling and the walls of the train shed. This made me think about all the things that go on around a real railway scene. You see, most (if not all) model railways are a diorama where the trains move and everything else doesn't. A couple of years ago I set out to tackle the surroundings in which the model is set and have put moving skies, trees, grass, smoke into my videos substituting real world items instead of poor and inanimate representations. Most layouts have the odd one or two of static vehicles standing say at a level crossing or at a bus stop. Some layouts have vehicles which follow a wire. I have to say neither are very convincing. When I started the layout, I had Minic Motorways. The quality didn't match the modern day models. The traffic required on my layout has to be from the 1960's. To try and film real vehicles to use is a non-starter, but, there are lots of excellent diecast models around these days and I have used some from the layout and animated them. This is an experiment to see the possibilities of adding moving traffic into future videos. The railway line runs just inside of the fence and the trains have been omitted in order to simply show the traffic.
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