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Great Model Railway Challenge - Channel 5


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Tonight's winners built a lovely model railway but is a few Mica As and a couple of flickering LEDs really conforming to the theme? The Railway Children's layout did It showed Fire and Ice.

 

It got my vote. ;)

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Tonight's winners built a lovely model railway but is a few Mica As and a couple of flickering LEDs really conforming to the theme? The Railway Children's layout did It showed Fire and Ice.

 

Quite a literal interpretation....but I liked it.

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Watched tonight's with the missus and we both enjoyed it. The winning layout was brilliantly done but would question the link with the theme and just how much sticking to the theme affects the scores. Also Kathys comment about nothing moving on the diesel layout didn't take into account the start up of the sound chips.

Cheers

Mark

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Agree with Daftbovines comment, very hard to judge. well done to the winners, that was a very nice bit of modelling and I liked the other two, although I was a bit nervous of the Andrew Barclay bombing round the top of the layout, thought it was a cert to fall off!

Enjoyable telly, really loving this show.

Steve.

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Agree with Daftbovines comment, very hard to judge. well done to the winners, that was a very nice bit of modelling and I liked the other two, although I was a bit nervous of the Andrew Barclay bombing round the top of the layout, thought it was a cert to fall off!

Enjoyable telly, really loving this show.

Steve.

 

It being my Barclay I was rather nervous as well! It was completely safe though thankfully, haha.

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I think the Railway Children's entry was the most impressive given their experience compared to the others, and I thought their commentary on the layout was by far the best. If I was judging I would have been tempted to choose them.

I don't know how it was decided to allocate teams to heats and maybe (for everyone) it is only possible with hindsight to think that the Railway Children might have done better in competition with some of the other teams.

 

Looking at it politically (small p) it would have been nice to see the Railway Children win as encouragement for other young folk.

 

But, also looking at it politically, it would be difficult not to award the win to such an obviously well made "traditional" railway model as the Fawley folk produced. There has been enough carping here already from the traditionalists :)

 

...R

Edited by Robin2
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But, also looking at it politically, it would be difficult not to award the win to such an obviously well made "traditional" railway model as the Fawley folk produced. There has been enough carping here already from the traditionalists :)

 

...R

All the winners so far have actually been pretty traditional layouts. A few gimmicks have been used on some of the layouts, but so far we've had 2 pretty conventional WW1 scenes and an engine shed winning. The only one which has won which has been any distance from the mainstream is the Santa special, and that wasn't out there in the way that the studio tour theme park or sci-fi time travel layouts were.
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This episode was one of extremes, one beautifully modelled but rather unimaginative layout and one very imaginative layout that was thrown together. Then one that was somewhere in between. Not an easy one to judge.

 

Perhaps not - but I think we can all see the judges' priorities:

 

1. Does everything work as advertised?

2. Are there too many pre-builds?

3. What about build quality? (OK - there are time constraints - but they apply to all the teams … .)

4. Sticking to the theme might also help … .

 

 

As for my personal views, well I liked all this week's layouts - so please don't expect me to take cheap shots at any of them … .

 

I also reckon this heat's theme was probably the toughest of those shown so far - same goes for the scratch build challenge.

 

Somehow though, I could imagine a number of teams being wary of Faller Car System (or anything similar) in any future challenges. There have been a number of heats in which teams seem to have had issues with getting it to do exactly what they want it to do, when their efforts have gone in front of the judges.

 

This makes me wonder if "moving road vehicles" might just be one of those "nice to have" features that unfortunately require more time for "fine tuning" than teams can reasonably be expected to allocate in a challenge like this. After all, I think the judges have now made it clear that they see reliability (or "everything working as advertised") as priority #1.

 

This isn't a criticism of anybody - merely an observation of the sort of stuff teams in any future challenge would need to bear in mind.

 

 

Anyway, another enjoyable episode - I'm looking forward to seeing the remaining heat and the final - and I hope we soon get an announcement of future series.

 

 

Huw.

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First time commenting but the Fawley Flyers layout looked very impressive for three days work.  Ballasting, point rodding, signals, it was just a shame that the Kerosine Castle didn't get a run.

 

But fair play to everyone who has competed, it can't be easiy getting a layout together in 24 hours whilst under the scrutiny of the television cameras.

 

Having seen what the Fawley Layout looked like before we started building I can assure you it wasn't built in the three days of filming. They made a very good interpretation of the scratch built item rule, their item being most of the upper level of the layout, and ran with it.

Fair play to them.

The Dynamos (team I was on) came in with some track laid, and the railway children had a blank set of boards. Ours was about 30hours, as we did a little track laying pre build work, and the RC boys in the 24 hours.

 

We were also the first show to be shot so no one really had a clue what to expect. Poor old Missenden were the last show and the production team knew how to play things.

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I think the show needs to re-think it's music. Just my own opinion but that is one element that could have got people running to the TV screens - a great theme tune. Just ask Gerry Anderson :-)

 

 

I hope nobody minds me adding my personal opinion - but, before they started showing the series, I'd been half expecting "Coronation Scot" or "The Devil's Galop". With the latter, I could also have imagined a few bars of music (a bit like those they have on "GPs Behind Closed Doors") - with James Richardson doing an "edge of the seat" teaser - at any "jeopardy" moments and especially just before ad breaks.

 

OK - it wasn't to be.

 

 

Huw.

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Hi All....Hope all are well...?

 

Another enjoyable and entertaining show......Good fun and a deserved win for a traditional layout, full marks to other teams too...everything carried out in the spirit of the ethos of the programmes format.......

 

Regards always....

Bob

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I don't know how it was decided to allocate teams to heats and maybe (for everyone) it is only possible with hindsight to think that the Railway Children might have done better in competition with some of the other teams.

 

Looking at it politically (small p) it would have been nice to see the Railway Children win as encouragement for other young folk.

 

But, also looking at it politically, it would be difficult not to award the win to such an obviously well made "traditional" railway model as the Fawley folk produced. There has been enough carping here already from the traditionalists :)

 

...R

I'm quite certain that the two judges are judging fairly on the basis of which layout in their considered opinion is the best of the three on the criteria given, not "politically" or on the basis of the line-up the producers would like to see in the final. From what I know of the two judges I don't think they'd let themselves be compromised in that way and, from my impression of the production company, I don't think they'd try.  

 

I thought tonight's winner was frankly a no-brainer even though the Fawley Flyers appeared to totally ignore the given theme, (which to be fair seemed a particularly difficult one) and simply build a fairly conventional exhibtition layout. That must have made the judges wish that one of the others had come closer in modelling terms- but in the end they didn't. The Fawley modellers did demonstrate something of what goes into building such a layout rather than a frantic race to the finish so that's probably good for public awareness. What I didn't get this evening was what had been each team's six pre-made items. I did think I'd seen a very sophisticated control panel, not one put together in a couple of hours, but would that count  as one of the six prebuilds?

 

What I am liking about this series is that it reflects a further move away from the "freak show" approach to controlled reality programmes to one where the participants are given the respect they deserve for whatever it is they are pasionate about. To be fair, I saw that in last year's transcaledonian railway challege as well and I think it's also what has made Bake Off such a huge success.

Edited by Pacific231G
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Tonight's winner was frankly a no-brainer even though the team appeared to totally ignore the given theme and simply build a fairly conventional exhibtition layout. That must have made the judges wish that one of the others had come close in modelling terms- but they didn't. 

 

It wasn't obvious to me.

 

Given a different weighting to the criteria, the Fawley layout could have been rejected for not properly meeting the theme, something which had been said to be very important.

 

I think one thing that this programme shows is that on the whole we aren't a terribly competitive lot!

 

And I still think that while a bit artificial, the scratchbuild challenge can really show off someone's modelling skills - the Fawley entry was superb.

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The last model railway layout programme aimed more at modellers was Model Town also shown on Discovery Shed channel a few years back it has not been repeated nor has it ever come out on DVD. It showed several techniques from track laying and ballasting to building construction and weathering. If I recall it was built in one of the buildings on the Bluebell line and displayed there for a while. It also had an entertainment aspect to attract the occasional channel hopper with a back story based on a murder, spies and a radio-active tin mine.

 

Richard

By coincidence spotted that series on YouTube yesterday (after searching for something else) but have not yet had any time to watch it.

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Has anyone else taken to shouting, “Pipes! Silo! Lighthouse!” or whatever, as the scratchbuild items are produced each week? Tonight’s items seemed a lot easier to deal with, and possibly required less imagination than the previous shoes or plungers - although maybe that put more onus on the contestants to come up with something not so obvious. The effect, and importance of weathering ( a dark art to me) was demonstrated tonight when the rusty old industrial gubbins won the challenge - imaginative and showing what can be achieved with everyday objects. This was my favourite episode so far, three entertaining layouts, and another great winner.

 

JD

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Has anyone else taken to shouting, “Pipes! Silo! Lighthouse!” or whatever, as the scratchbuild items are produced each week? Tonight’s items seemed a lot easier to deal with, and possibly required less imagination than the previous shoes or plungers - although maybe that put more onus on the contestants to come up with something not so obvious. The effect, and importance of weathering ( a dark art to me) was demonstrated tonight when the rusty old industrial gubbins won the challenge - imaginative and showing what can be achieved with everyday objects. This was my favourite episode so far, three entertaining layouts, and another great winner.

 

JD

 

Tonight's episode was the first to be filmed and the scratchbuild items seemed less "unusual" than the likes of a high-heeled shoe of episode 1 (the last to be filmed). I wonder if the items were picked in advance before any of the shows were filmed, or did the production team come up with a different idea on a weekly basis as they saw the results of the filmed shows?

 

Cheers,

Mick

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Enjoyed tonight's episode, the first one I've seen. Congrats to Drew/Castle and his team on winning the heat. I too was unsure how the judging would go.

 

Do they mean Ally Pally when they say 'most prestigious exhibition in the country'? I can see why, the Alexandra Palace is one of the most significant exhibition venues in the country.

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Enjoyed tonight's episode, the first one I've seen. Congrats to Drew/Castle and his team on winning the heat. I too was unsure how the judging would go.

 

Do they mean Ally Pally when they say 'most prestigious exhibition in the country'? I can see why, the Alexandra Palace is one of the most significant exhibition venues in the country.

 

Warley, I think.

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Close call, although now thinking about it now the show did have a feeling that it was the pilot/first episode to be filmed. I wouldn't like to have thought that the Dynamos lost it on the strength of the lorry crash though.

 

But a big thumbs up to the Fawley team and #GMRC, my LT Pannier now has an orange LED in the Firebox area. What other modelling have readers done after being inspired by the programme?

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