Great Model Railway Challenge - Channel 5

[reevesthecat]

Next year we shall have Strictly Come Modelrailroading. That will be such fun, especially when they get to Blackpool. The viewers must have the final vote and fake tans should be applied by Airbrush only.

P

 

Sorry if they are finishing in Blackpool it has to be a tram layout!

Mark

[Robin2]

Actually off camera Kathy Millatt is a really lovely person 

I did not get any other impression from her on-screen appearances.

 

...R

[Robin2]

The trend to tell someone with whom you disagree to "get over it", 

I was foolishly under the impression that if I avoided all references to nudity and under-garments that would have been sufficient not to upset the delicate English psyche.

 

...R

[NHY 581]

PL10-E have the extended actuating arm and don’t need the large baseboard hole. There’s nothing wrong with blade contact, two of my layouts Albion Yard and Shelfie use it with very rare contact failures.

  

 

I believe that the excellent layouts of the Sheep Continuum use the same methods.

Thank you and yes. No point motors or associated bits and bobs were harmed during the making of the Sheep Chronicles.....

 

 

 

 

Rob.

[sb67]

Ok well don't know if any of these are near to you. I'm displaying 'Cato Pass' at all of these except the first one:

Romford Nov 3 2018 (this weekend) with 'Dunmovin Mine' 

Royston Nov 17

Guildford 20 Jan 2019 

Tenterden 23-24 Feb

Trainwest 13-14 Apr

Basildon 7-8 Jul

Medway 7-8 Sep

Sudbury 5 Oct

Warley 23-24 Nov 2019 

More dates to be added throughout the year no doubt. 

 

Do say hello. Is always great to chat to people and I can give them some behind the scenes information ;-)

 

Good to meet you at the show Saturday, I enjoyed the layout, did the cow get run over eventually?;-) and enjoyed chatting about your model. Hope to see you at one of the other shows.

Steve.

[Crewlisle]

Me and the team displayed our Blackadder themed Heat Layout (from ep 2), at Signals Mod Shop in Midsomer Norton yesterday for their 10th anniversary, for the first time.

 

Was great to see how many people turned up for a look at the layout. One kid, who had his photograph last weekend at RAIL-EX Taunton with me and another team member, had been driven all the way up from Devon by his mum to come and see the layout.

 

He was amazed to see it in the flesh, and went around pointing out all the details as seen on the show, including all our teams scratch builds. What really made his day was when we let him fire the Railgun, and then drive the trains! The look on his and his mum's face was priceless! Really made his day!

 

With reference to the last paragraph, more layouts at exhibitions should try it!  All children & visitors see is 'Do Not Touch' notices on layouts & sometimes find it difficult to attract an operator to ask questions across a baseboard.  I noticed this many years ago at exhibitions so on 'Crewlisle' I arranged for one operator to be positioned on an outside corner of the layout with a duplicate control panel to operate points on the high level & locos anywhere on the layout.  Visitors find it easy to ask questions about the layout & are delighted when asked if their child would like to have a go. 

 

So sharing the controller with the child & the operator's finger hovering over the emergency stop button, it makes their day!  They can drive a loco onto the turntable, turn it (it is hand operated through Meccano gears) & then drive the loco away or drive it around the main line & stop it in the station.  Nothing is better PR for the hobby than to let the kids have a go.  No matter how detailed or complicated your layout is, look for something simple children can operate even it is only a signal!

 

Peter 

Edited November 4, 2018 by Crewlisle

[Hobby]

DCC does make life a lot easier in not having to wire up so much, and making a lot of other features like lights and sound on the trains possible (things the production team encouraged) as well as enabling the trains to run at realistic speeds without having to be poked by finger. Getting the track clean enough for good DC running of the 350s in the time would have been impossible.

 

At least one layout failed because of having DCC though!

 

We went for DCC to add the theatricality of sound. It also saved a lot of time on wiring complexity. and gave us smooth, faultless running.

 

I would question that, in your case it worked but from what I could see several of the layouts were just pure ovals which would have worked just fine as DC, and be simple enough to wire, but without the lights! Why did they give you what appeared to be a Gaugemaster DC controller if they didn't expect you to use it? It looked like it was the choice of the builders which was used?

 

Just out of interest how many were DC and how many were DCC of the ones made so far?

[Golden Fleece 30]

With reference to the last paragraph, more layouts at exhibitions should try it!  All children & visitors see is 'Do Not Touch' notices on layouts & sometimes find it difficult to attract an operator to ask questions across a baseboard.  I noticed this many years ago at exhibitions so on 'Crewlisle' I arranged for one operator to be positioned on an outside corner of the layout with a duplicate control panel to operate points on the high level & locos anywhere on the layout.  Visitors find it easy to ask questions about the layout & are delighted when asked if their child would like to have a go. 

 

So sharing the controller with the child & the operator's finger hovering over the emergency stop button, it makes their day!  They can drive a loco onto the turntable, turn it (it is hand operated through Meccano gears) & then drive the loco away or drive it around the main line & stop it in the station.  Nothing is better PR for the hobby than to let the kids have a go.  No matter how detailed or complicated your layout is, look for something simple children can operate even it is only a signal!

 

Peter 

I do let children have a go with my 0 gauge layout handing the controller over the layout to them.  It is end to end and so far I have had no issues, and as remarked before, the adults and children love it.  I did also let a couple of children operate my TT layout and our 6 year old was the one to show them what to do.  I know a chap called Alex Garfield encourages children to operate his TT layout even providing a drivers hat for them.  It is all good publicity and can only benefit everyone. On the other hand I have seen some operators look down their noses when asked a question, more so if it was a child making you wonder why they bothered showing their layouts.  No matter how good or not a layout is politeness costs nothing and we are all the same even if the skills are not.

 

Garry

Edited November 4, 2018 by Golden Fleece 30

[traction]

With reference to the last paragraph, more layouts at exhibitions should try it!  All children & visitors see is 'Do Not Touch' notices on layouts & sometimes find it difficult to attract an operator to ask questions across a baseboard.  I noticed this many years ago at exhibitions so on 'Crewlisle' I arranged for one operator to be positioned on an outside corner of the layout with a duplicate control panel to operate points on the high level & locos anywhere on the layout.  Visitors find it easy to ask questions about the layout & are delighted when asked if their child would like to have a go. 

 

So sharing the controller with the child & the operator's finger hovering over the emergency stop button, it makes their day!  They can drive a loco onto the turntable, turn it (it is hand operated through Meccano gears) & then drive the loco away or drive it around the main line & stop it in the station.  Nothing is better PR for the hobby than to let the kids have a go.  No matter how detailed or complicated your layout is, look for something simple children can operate even it is only a signal!

 

Peter 

 

All of my layouts I've buily have been designed and built purely for the children to have a go.

The controllers sit at the front and the children just come up sit down and play trains.

 

 

The photo was from Mansfield 2013.

They can use either of the Selects or the big touch screen running Hornby Railmaster

 

Its before we opened as normally its surrounded!

 

Cheers

 

Ian

[davefromacrossthepond]

Actually off camera Kathy Millatt is a really lovely person and a truly gifted modeller in her own right. 

Kathy Millatt's youtube channel is one to check out.  Filled with great "how tos."  Warning though, make sure you have time . . . it is sooooo easy to say "I'll just watch one more."  

[LocoLaurie]

Good to meet you at the show Saturday, I enjoyed the layout, did the cow get run over eventually?;-) and enjoyed chatting about your model. Hope to see you at one of the other shows.

Steve.

 

Great to meet you too. Thanks for having a chat about the show. And yes the cow did eventually get hit by the loco but only because I moved it backwards on the rails to build up excitement for the viewing public. Cow survived and so did the loco.

 

Layout run all day fully automatically without a single stop, problem or derailment. Those inexpensive (£25) analogue SS2A shuttle + controllers from Block Signalling do a great job accelerating and decelerating the trains. If I did a series 2 of GMRC I think I'd put some in. 

[hicksan]

I was trying (obviously ineffectively) to make the point that they should not pretend that the now complete model is what was presented for judging and thereby creating the impression that the judges got it all wrong.

 

...R

 

Speaking for the Missenden team here, there is no question the judges got anything wrong, and there will be no pretence otherwise. The best team won, fair and square, and we acknowledged that on the day. We just have the small matter of 'manky roads, unpainted plastic cobbles and bare plywood with screws showing' to address, which were perfectly fair criticisms. The layout will be finished to the standard we would have wished, had we had the time and budget. There will be more buildings, including some replacements of better quality. There will probably also be display boards showing the layout as it was during the show, as well as detail on the movie scenes and prototypes we based it on. Our purpose always was, and remains, to demonstrate the best of what we have been taught at the Missenden Railway Modelling Courses; to produce an inspiring model we remain very proud of. The competition aspect was not important to us, despite what might have been suggested by a combination of leading questions and selective editing. We thought we made that point clearly enough when we unanimously decided to build the layout as designed, recognising the judges concerns as valid and accepting that we were effectively disqualifying ourselves. It is a matter for regret that the reasons for that decision, stated to camera quite clearly and unequivocally and including praise for our rival teams, were cut from the broadcast version, leaving an inaccurate impression that we were defying the judges and thereby reducing the show to an amusing pantomime. 

[Robin2]

Speaking for the Missenden team here, there is no question the judges got anything wrong, and there will be no pretence otherwise. 

Your clarification is very welcome.

 

I have no doubt that the finished model will be the envy of most of us.

 

...R

[TouchCabMike]

 

Out of interest, if it's correct that all the layouts in the Final must be joined up and a train run between all of them, will this force the adoption of either DCC or DC by some groups, that might have otherwise used the other system?

 

 

The final is DCC. I wrote a set of instructions for all teams to fit a bus to their layout. My business, www.KMSRailtech.co.uk , supplied all the parts and the Aberdeen team prefabricated the busses for all teams. It was then operated using Aberdeen's Lenz sets and TouchCab. As far as I know, all wanted to use DCC anyway.

[TouchCabMike]

At least one layout failed because of having DCC though!

 

 

I would question that, in your case it worked but from what I could see several of the layouts were just pure ovals which would have worked just fine as DC, and be simple enough to wire, but without the lights! Why did they give you what appeared to be a Gaugemaster DC controller if they didn't expect you to use it? It looked like it was the choice of the builders which was used?

 

Just out of interest how many were DC and how many were DCC of the ones made so far?

 

What makes you think DC would be easier? In DCC, the whole layout is made live, then all the trains work. We were judged on operability. "Hang on a minute, I need to lift off this loco while I put on another one..." DCC is just better for operation on a show like this - disregarding the fact it is just better full stop!

 

The show supplied a DC controller "if you need one" but as far as I could see, DCC was the most common. Competitors were expected to take their existing DCC controllers for the heats.

Edited November 4, 2018 by TouchCabMike

[Butler Henderson]

Whether or not you let children play with your layout anyone running an end to end layout would be well to locate their controls to the front of the layout IME - obviously more easy with a dcc handset system as it immediately makes you part of the watching audience and readily open to conversations.

[hicksan]

With reference to the last paragraph, more layouts at exhibitions should try it!  All children & visitors see is 'Do Not Touch' notices on layouts & sometimes find it difficult to attract an operator to ask questions across a baseboard.  I noticed this many years ago at exhibitions so on 'Crewlisle' I arranged for one operator to be positioned on an outside corner of the layout with a duplicate control panel to operate points on the high level & locos anywhere on the layout.  Visitors find it easy to ask questions about the layout & are delighted when asked if their child would like to have a go. 

 

So sharing the controller with the child & the operator's finger hovering over the emergency stop button, it makes their day!  They can drive a loco onto the turntable, turn it (it is hand operated through Meccano gears) & then drive the loco away or drive it around the main line & stop it in the station.  Nothing is better PR for the hobby than to let the kids have a go.  No matter how detailed or complicated your layout is, look for something simple children can operate even it is only a signal!

 

Peter 

 

I have been taking my daughter's * layout - Oakworth to Maidbridge - (sometimes with her as well) to exhibitions over the last two years since it featured in Railway Modeller, and allowing kids to drive it, and we are always mobbed from the moment the public are allowed in till closing time. Parents and grandparents like to see something attainable built from commercially available parts yet to scenic standards comparable to the 'pro' layouts around us and laid out prototypically. Because it has no back (the back-scene runs down the centre, over the hinges) the whole structure is visible and the subject of endless conversations about how it folds away. The only problem we've had was when someone [young, male] was a bit too rough with the meccano-operated turntable (a conversion of the Airfix/Dapol kit) and caused a short circuit which killed one of the controllers for a few hours (until I fixed the problem by ripping a wire out). What I've learnt is that people really like layouts that are open to view, especially fiddle yards, and where the operators are at the front rather than behind and happy to talk. Layouts that kids can drive especially, given the rule that going at the right speed gets longer goes. It also gives the chance to talk about railways - like how are freight engines different from passenger engines (wheel size, number of wheels, livery) - that gets the kids thinking and interested.

 

* Girls can be train drivers just as much as boys. It's great Daddy/Daughter time building it together, gets domestic approval much more than a sole project would, and far more rewarding to build than a flipping dolls' house.

[Robin2]

 and far more rewarding to build than a flipping dolls' house.

It was going really great until you got to that bit 

 

 

...R

[Jeff Smith]

Years ago (30+) there was a feature in one of the magazines, probably RM, that showed what could actually be achieved in 6'x 4' using I think Setrack and ready made buildings. It was an oval with single face through station and a couple of sidings. I can't remember if there was a loop, possibly. There were tunnel mouths at each end and a reasonably high hill right across the back. Anyway the scenic side was extremely good and went a long way to disguise the simple nature of the track plan and tight curves.

[Nimbus]

Referring to Strictly,

 

Looking at :-

 

A/   How popular the show is

B/   The increase in participation in ballroom dancing since the program started

C/   How the celebrities love being on it and take it far more seriously

 

Would be wonderful if our hobby could become more popular due to the show and competitors  

Has anyone mentioned how many "perfectionists" are on that show, and how they neither get denigrated for it, nor that it has a discouraging effect on wider participation in their art?

 

The Nim.

[hicksan]

There were a few teams that were not able to fully exploit the rules due to mainly logistical and personnel problems (getting a tower block on the plane or not having a full set of modellers in the team for example), and very few cases of exceeding the rules (wrong configuration of baseboards, too many rows of terraces!) that were picked up by the judges, so in the main the rules as finalised worked quite well in the end - the rules were just a bit late getting finalised (more probably would have had fiddleyards if their designs had not been finalised before the rule change).

 

Everyone (modellers, viewers, judges, and especially the production team) want to see something that is approaching a finished model that works, so it is a key aspect that some structures can be pre-built to add a nice quality focus to key areas of the layout, and getting a working animation done in the 24 hours is really pushing it so encouraging those to be pre-built is also an excellent idea (as yesterday's heat showed - the animations were delightful). I am not convinced that there is any need to pre-lay some of the track, but if it allows better modelling then I guess it has to be a plus.

 

I am sure that anyone reading this thread (and some of the layout threads) will have a pretty good idea of what is involved if they want to take part, and anyone who has taken part will have a really good idea of what the judges are actually looking for, so series 2 will be absolutely superb!

 

You would know as well as the rest of us that participated that all teams were required to submit detailed plans, diagrams, schedules, budget breakdowns and lists of pre-builds in advance. Missenden certainly did so. Does anyone still seriously doubt that we wouldn't have directly asked the production team specifically for confirmation that our plans were within the rules and have had extensive discussions with them on this question? We were scratch-building nearly a hundred houses, in several different scales, not just knocking up off-the-shelf kits. And there were plenty more to build on camera. The production team encouraged us and were excited by our design and ambition. I do not think we were set up but quite clearly there was a breakdown in communication somewhere between us and the judges, for which - in the final analysis - we have to take responsibility and did so on camera.

 

Clarification of the rules for next year will certainly be helpful, but I caution against making them too limiting because it penalises any team that wish to go beyond commercially available card kits or resin casts and excludes scratch-building on any scale pretty much completely. While encouraging a level playing field it would be a pity if any modellers felt unable to participate because they found the rules too demeaning for any design that were remotely ambitious or so unclear as to risk theatrical humiliation on national tv and subsequent trolling on social media if they accidentally found themselves on the wrong side of the line.

 

(not as good as Laurie's drawing, I admit...)

Edited November 4, 2018 by hicksan

[NittenDormer]

Have I missed the bus in complaining about the bagpipes announcing the arrival of the Aberdeen team? It's not like there was Morris dancing music each time an English team turned up. [Ducks as thread disappears up another blind tangent for a few pages]

[TouchCabMike]

Whether or not you let children play with your layout anyone running an end to end layout would be well to locate their controls to the front of the layout IME - obviously more easy with a dcc handset system as it immediately makes you part of the watching audience and readily open to conversations.

 

 

This is why we've used TouchCab as a club for the last 10 years, and why we own and develop the app now. We operate on the viewing side with iPads and iPhones and encourage the public to engage with us and hand over the throttle to them to "have a go". Even on DC layouts, we have a workaround that allows us to use the app

 

Slightly off topic though!

[hicksan]

It was going really great until you got to that bit 

 

 

...R

 

I did offer. She asked for a railway instead. Sensible girl.

[Nimbus]

I would have thought that brand new electrofrog points would perform perfectly satisfactorily for the very limited time that they need to under these competition conditions. Assuming un-painted and with limited ballasting. After all many people rely on this feature and never add additional switching and wiring.

Indeed, and this may actually be giving the impression that delicate soldering to pointwork is necessary. Given the demonstration runs shown so far amount to little more than a single successful traversal, the wiring certainly doesn't need to cater for an intensive exhibition schedule as seems to have been the assumption by the teams so far. Maybe future teams will learn to economise where they can afford to.

 

The Nim.