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Great Model Railway Challenge - Channel 5


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Well done another Rmweb crew. The Walford layout was pretty close to a model railway but the RVD had hit the design brief spot on in providing all the features.

The time constraint doesn't show the abilities to their best and I think Steve Flint was right about rough round the edges. Inevitable trying to get so much done with multiple animations.

I don't feel they are capturing the fun of it particularly well though. There was a hint of it with Callum and the howitzer but his enthusiasm was disjointed by the editing. Ah well it's a bit of coffee table tv and got two non train mates texting me as they watched. I doubt they will convert but they weren't taking the pee either. One did point out they missed a trick not having Thomas as he has a tv show! ;)

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I did like the Walford layout and I was impressed by their tower block. Also, maximum respect to them for laying track that required a 3rd rail! (and did I see a 4th rail section as well, the LUL bit, presumably?).

 

But the RVD layout was very well conceived and well done, especially with the time constraints.

Edited by Captain Kernow
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Although I enjoyed last weeks episode I thought tonight's was better.

 

Think the judges summary was spot on. Not sure i would have spent time installing a third rail for a time limited competition! Shame the Watford one had running issues as it looked the best layout visually and that may have made the difference.

 

Spot on Terry it a model railway not a train set. My wife laughed at that as she has heard me say the same often enough.

 

A good advert for our hobby, well done to all involved.

 

The third rail should really have got a mention - that sort of thing is what modelling is about: a lot of labour for a small but vital enhancement. 

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Really enjoyed this weeks show ,and thought the blackadder layout was great ,even more so with the time constraint

 

Brian

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Again, I think the best team won, though I did notice some Portillo-style editing when the black ROD 2-8-0 kept turning into a brown 43XX mogul and back again!

 

 

Would have been fun to see someone doing a model of the Fawley Hill Railway with GMRC as the TV theme.... :-)

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Just seen episode two (missed the first one) and I really enjoyed it - no making fun of people for wanting to play with toy trains, or filling it with cliches like "hitting the buffers". Even an explanation that people tend to prefer not to call a layout a "train set" - and a short demo of static grass.

 

I'm impressed with how much the teams managed in such a short period of time, and enjoyed the novelty of the Doctor Who themed one.

 

Overall I think both the television company and the participants did a really good job, and hope there will be another series.

 

I don't watch much television but this is something I'll make the effort to watch again.

 

It would be nice if more material could be shown on-line - they must have used a fraction of what they filmed.

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Good show, even Julie seemed to get interested in it and she hasn't been so kind about our hobby since we measured a PLAICE * loaded with very fine sand in a wind.

 

That photo of the NG Baldwin crossing the bridge is amazing for a layout built in 24 hours. DSC09233

 

Edited to add, interestingly this week all the stock appeared to be suitable for the scenes being presented, unlike last week which had some correct and some very strange.

 

Paul

 

*  Bartlett, Paul W. & Mann, Trevor., (1985) Non Hoppered Steel Ballast Wagons. Part 4 The Plaice and Turbot. Model Railway Constructor vol 52 part 615 pp 418 — 422 & 444 — 445.

Edited by hmrspaul
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It was good. Could tell who would win from first 5 minutes.

Quite a few here talk about shortage of time, but firs rule of any project is to have a well thought out plan. Look at ways to make long tasks(eg track laying) simpler and therfore take less time. There was no rule to say flexi track had to be used, so using setrack curves would have helped a lot, especially when it came distance between tracks!

Reference to trainset/layout was good to hear, but again showing how a trainset could be turned into a train layout would be something interesting to see.

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Episode 2 better than the first ( or maybe I have become aclimatised to the format) . I thought the RVD were worthy winners. Nice to see MeRG style animations. Some very well thought out modelling. Of course, under the cosh, there will always be mistakes such as insufficient clearances and operating difficulties after all I make these at home with plenty of time.

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Again, I think the best team won, though I did notice some Portillo-style editing when the black ROD 2-8-0 kept turning into a brown 43XX mogul and back again!

 

 

Would have been fun to see someone doing a model of the Fawley Hill Railway with GMRC as the TV theme.... :-)

The issue there with that was that when we were filming all the close ups of the train, all the ROD liveried locos were DCC with realistic acceleration/deceleration, the City Class (from the Bachmann Ambulance set) was just DC. The camera wagon that they had wouldn't fit though our tunnel mouths into the fiddle yard, so we needed to be able to stop quickly before the wagon hit the tunnel! 

 

Pleased to see people have enjoyed what we created though. On the day itself we knew it was close between us and Walford, if theirs hadn't had the problems, they would've won for sure! 

 

Looking forward to seeing the final now! 

 

Adam - RVD 

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On the day itself we knew it was close between us and Walford, if theirs hadn't had the problems, they would've won for sure! 

 

 

 

Adam - RVD 

 

Why? You produced an operating, interesting model railway. The others appeared to be, dare I say it, train sets - tail chasers. Yes they had a lot of modelling but the trains were too secondary on the other two layouts. You combined the essence of model railways with the theme that you were asked to present, and did it well.

 

Paul

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I thought tonight was even better than the first week.

 

One bi-product of this series may be a broadening of what is seen at exhibitions. For years/decades the holy grail of exhibition mañagers has been the most prototypical realistic layouts ..... which has meant that many layouts we see are somewhat formulaic .... Bring on the odd-balls!

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Why? You produced an operating, interesting model railway. The others appeared to be, dare I say it, train sets - tail chasers. Yes they had a lot of modelling but the trains were too secondary on the other two layouts. You combined the essence of model railways with the theme that you were asked to present, and did it well.

 

Paul

 

As I said, it was a close thing, but even we have to admit ours was still a bit rough around the edges (as the judges pointed out!) a little more so than TLNs. Yes all of our trains ran perfectly, we got lucky as it was VERY warm inside there, and TLNs track suffered unfortunately. 

 

And I have to say, I still don't know how they got that little man to fly out of the Queen Vic! 

 

Adam - RVD  

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Hi Guys....

 

Again I enjoyed the programme, it's harmless and entertaining stuff, with some good, personable souls on show from all the teams taking part.... All doing something which they enjoy within a time constraint and carried out genuinely within the spirit in which the programme is devised to put on show to the general 'non-modelling public....

 

Regards always

Bob

Edited by BobM
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I did like the Walford layout and I was impressed by their tower block. Also, maximum respect to them for laying track that required a 3rd rail! (and did I see a 4th rail section as well, the LUL bit, presumably?).

 

But the RVD layout was very well conceived and well done, especially with the time constraints.

Laying third rail doesn't have to be time consuming, a significant element of the challenge aspect is applying your own thoughts to come up with a method to make installing it during the competition as quick as possible, such as using pre-bent rail from N gauge setrack or soldering it onto brass screws?

 

I used to avoid such "done in a week" layouts because they'd have usually ended up twice as good if the builder had had a whole fortnight available, but nobody has an infinite amount of modelling time, and the naysayers could do with watching to see and think how their own efforts could be speedied up when under such time constraints.

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As I said, it was a close thing, but even we have to admit ours was still a bit rough around the edges (as the judges pointed out!) a little more so than TLNs. Yes all of our trains ran perfectly, we got lucky as it was VERY warm inside there, and TLNs track suffered unfortunately. 

 

And I have to say, I still don't know how they got that little man to fly out of the Queen Vic! 

 

Adam - RVD  

Adam

 

It wasn't simply that it ran well, it had points and several locos able to operate at the same time, and a narrow gauge and... and ...Did the others have more than a circle or two of track? Maybe I didn't pay enough attention?

 

OK so you didn't have a dinosaur, Fortunately, there were enough samplers for next week to let us know the dinos are back.

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I thought tonight was even better than the first week.

One bi-product of this series may be a broadening of what is seen at exhibitions. For years/decades the holy grail of exhibition mañagers has been the most prototypical realistic layouts ..... which has meant that many layouts we see are somewhat formulaic .... Bring on the odd-balls!

Well if you go to the Rainhill show at the end of the month you’ll see my rail served chocolate factory. In practice a souped up inglenook, but certainly an odd-ball. My previous layout featured a broken biscuit repair factory!

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It was good. Could tell who would win from first 5 minutes.

Quite a few here talk about shortage of time, but firs rule of any project is to have a well thought out plan. Look at ways to make long tasks(eg track laying) simpler and therfore take less time. There was no rule to say flexi track had to be used, so using setrack curves would have helped a lot, especially when it came distance between tracks!

Reference to trainset/layout was good to hear, but again showing how a trainset could be turned into a train layout would be something interesting to see.

 

We were expecting to be up against top modellers, so settrack was out because we would not be able to hide the corners from looking like corners, and we wanted it to look really good, so the track layout was planned with medium radius points and transition curves since we were able to make that fit in the space and give a nice lead in to the island platform where network rail splits from the underground (it was all 4-rail except the network rail only platform which was 3-rail). None of us are used to working in such a confined space with such tight radius so track did not quite get laid where it should have been - but we learned from the excercise! It was not until we laid the track that we discovered that the Bachmann trains do not work with a central conductor rail out of the box, and we had to file an awful lot of plastic away from under the bogies - even on the S-stock!

 

 

The track laying was all timed in the plan and was laid in the expected time, and really does not take that long when compared to most of the scenic tasks. What really let us down was not having anywhere to test the trains beforehand - they were all brand new and we expected them to just work - but we had to fettle the pickups as well as having problems with the bogies clearing the conductor rails. The S-stock was especially problematic having two motors that are not electrically connected and with the inertia in the decoders the two ends were never running at the same speed, and the 350 struggled to get up the 1 in 30 gradient hence the one on the inner track had to be shortened to 3-cars. You will see a few clips here and there of the 350s running - we did get there in the end and the crew had great fun filming them, and after the filming with a couple of days work (including a trip to Coastal DCC) I got the S-stock in a good state of running too.

 

 

It was really fun to do, and we would have kicked ourselves if we had not over challenged ourselves and finished early with time to spare. RVD did an excellent job of completing what they set out to do with a great impression of the feel of the space, and Team Sci-Fi did an excellent job of building pretty much the whole of their layout in the last four hours - they really need a medal for that!

Edited by Signalist
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Callum’s team was miles ahead of the competition, pure and simple. It’s a good thing that Bob Syms is no longer with us, he must be spinning in his grave. Lightweight presentation and ignorance should not be the format, if we the modelling public are to be taken a little more seriously, and not seen as “little boys that haven’t grown up. It seems to me, at least that real ignorance is championed, rather than educating and informing in today media rich (sic) world. As for the other competitors, too many gimmicks, school bit errors and an overall lack of imagination, a bit like the shows format. The idea that , it must be good it’s on tv at least, should rather be, nice try, but, needs much improvement. Slapdash production, must not be footnoted as quality! That my opinion anyway. We, as they used to say, will have to agree to disagree.

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