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Great Model Railway Challenge - "Melton Down" - Railway Video Division - Grand Final Layout


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Hi all, and welcome to another topic about our Team's (Railway Video Division) Second Great Model Railway Challenge - Our Grand Final "Journey Through Time" Alternate Cold War Layout, "Melton Down". 


 


After out success with our Blackadder WW1 Themed Heat Layout, "Go Forth", we received our brief for the 'Grand Final', which was a 'Journey Through Time'. We quickly brainstormed a number of ideas for what time period we would like to choice, and what to do in it. After passing around a few idea, we came up with an Alternate Cold War inspired layout, where Steam was never fazed out and the Cold War, was about to get Hot!


 


Like "Go Forth" we wanted to go all out with Animations and eye-catching scenes. So set about design a layout that would including smoke, a fully working Hump Shunt Yard, Exploding (ahem) Wagons and Missiles Launched from inside Two Massive Cooling Towers!  


 


Our Team the "Railway Video Division", also had a slight change of members for the final, as my Granddad, who featured in our Heat, sadly was on holiday during the Final, so Will's Dad stepped in. 


 


I think the best way to kick off this topic, is to take a look at a 'Behind the Scenes' video, of our Teams Time during the final, showing the construction "Melton Down". 


 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB8ePT00Y2k


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Edited by SDJR7F88
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Thursday 21st June 2018 saw Day 1 of the Great Model Railway Challenge Great Final!

 

After meeting crew and our fellow/rival teams, we set about bring our plan for our Alternate History Cold War Layout to Life! Got to admit, looking at a blank 10ft x 5ft baseboard on set was quite daunting! 

 

While Adi, our chief Scratch Builder, set about starting the first of the two 3ft Tall Cooling Towers (made of card), and Callum number 2 building a number of Metcalfe Pillboxes. Me, Adam, Will and his Dad, set about laying and testing our mainline, on which the Star/Time Train would ran. By Lunch, we had our first train moving, so set about adding the Nuclear Bunker Siding, before building up the landscaping for the tunnels and raised area, on which our Hump Shunt and Cooling Towers would sit.

 

By the end of the day, we were flying! With all the mainlines and Bunker Siding running and Ballasted, Hump Shunt plotted out, and Tunnel Mouths in position. We even got around to adding the lighting and mysterious figures to the bunker too! Wonder what they are doing?... 

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Edited by SDJR7F88
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I got the impression that none of the teams had got any trains running by the end of the first day?

We were one of the first along with the Family Flyers from what I remember. There's a train running in my behind the scenes video by lunchtime on there, making sure the track worked before we ballasted it :)

 

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I thought this was a top quality layout, and would have been as worthy winner had the judges gone that way.

 

Does it still exist?

Thank ever so much! Yes it does, just about. Will need a lot of work to fix it, but things like the towers are all safe and sound :)

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I got the impression that none of the teams had got any trains running by the end of the first day? 

 

As Callum has said, we had trains running very early on, contrary to what they say on the programme, no doubt to add a little more drama! Saying that I'm not sure whether we actually told the crew that we had tested our track. Pretty much the moment we finished laying it, we tested it! Getting the star line down and tested was our first priority, as we couldn't get the whole upper section of our layout down otherwise! 

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I got the impression that none of the teams had got any trains running by the end of the first day? 

Ian Morgan has set up pages for both Basingstoke Bodgers' layouts, and on the Brunel one he explains our delay as follows

 

"The reason we were not able to start laying track as early as the judges would have liked was that a considerable amount of carpentry work was required first. The central board was lowered about 4 inches to form the basis of the river that the bridges would cross. Then, the raised level for the N gauge loop had to be constructed."

 

The Maidenhead Bridge also needed building before we could consider laying the track let alone running trains!

 

Callum, sorry for the mini hijack of your thread.

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Day 2 of the Great Model Railway Challenge Great Final, saw the challenge of laying the Hump Shunt and Yard. Getting the right gradient on the slope was very time-consuming, making sure that the wagons didn't under or over shoot the yard. To operate the point-work, and alternate which road the wagons went into was done by setting piano wire into raise polystyrene on which the whole yard is set on. By the end of it we had so many wire ends in the fiddle yard the back, we had to all learn which lever operated which point!

 

Day 2 also saw the completion of the first of our massive Cooling Towers. Adi really out done himself on these! The heat in the art room was playing havoc with the glue, which meant it took a lot long for the card strips to hold their shape. After positioning on the layout, he then set about starting tower number 2! 

 

Only managed to get a few pictures from the day, including the infirmus Peacocks (though it was very appropriate to get a picture of them with that sign)! 

 

 

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Day 3 of the Final was by far our most productive. With most of the track and landforms in place, the team set about adding the scenery and buildings, before the momentous task of joining all layouts together!  

 

We started off by painting the roads and concrete in and around the Power Station. The rest of the layout received a coat of Earth Under Coat, before a number of layers of static grass was added.  

 

Adi finished Cooling Tower number two, and set about painting and weather the pair, before placing them onto the layout. Hidden inside each tower was a pipe we drilled through the board on Day 1, which was connected to a Disco Smoke Generator. Just one which press of the switch would smoke the whole layout out! Also inside one of the Towers was our Ballistic/Stomp Rocket. As you may of seen during the Episode, this worked a treat!

 

Along side Towers, we added a number of Power Station Buildings, including Offices and Security Builds, as well as a number of other industrial items. The Hump Shunt also received it's control box, thank to Callum number 2! 

 

We also set about adding our little figure cameos, including our Power Station Workers, Military Personal and Protesters. 

 

Mid-After saw the challenging task of joining all 5 Layout together. As you saw on the program, it was a challenge (that's forgetting the moment we had our bus wire around the wrong way!). The biggest problem we had was connecting to the Fawley Flyer's Layout. Both layouts featured a lengthy tunnel, to act as a scene-break, however this meant our track meet in the centre of a single tunnel, that was nearly a meter long!!! To get around this the Fawley Flyer quickly manufactured a bridge to allow both layouts to connect. Once connect and leveled, we were the first teams to have our layouts joined, with the others, following shortly after. 

 

At the end of the day, we started getting most of our stock out, including our two Steam Repaints, Will's Stanier 8F in BR Blue with Yellow Smokebox and my Hornby TTS 'Flying Scotsman' again in BR Blue, which Class 47 Snow Ploughs and Full Yellow Tender End! The 8F managed to make a brief appearance during the show, sadly 'Scotsman' was just out of shot (however, I've got a full video to follow of the model in action on my own loft layout). 

 

Anyways, enough talk, here's a number of pictures from the day! Managed to get a fair few over the course of the day and hopefully it shows the layout in bit more detail. 

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Too many pictures, especially as we've seen so many before. Wouldn't it be better if you edited them to show only a few of the best ones; then people like me (assuming there are any) won't just ignore them all because there are too many and I'm insufficiently interested to spend time looking at them all. It's a consequence of the digital age; some friends recently sent us photos of their new baby. Did they just send us two or three to look at? No, we got over 50, unedited and unsorted, and I just can't be bothered to look through them all, particularly as they're all much the same.

 

DT (Woken up grumpily)

Edited by Torper
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Too many pictures, especially as we've seen so many before.  Wouldn't be better if you edited them to show only a few of the best ones; then people like me (assuming there are any) won't just ignore them all because there are too many and I'm insufficiently interested to spend time looking at them all.  It's a consequence of the digital age; some friends recently sent us photos of their new baby.  Did they just send us two or three to look at?  No, we got over 50, unedited and unsorted, and I just can't be bothered to look through them all, particularly as they're all much the same.

 

DT (Woken up grumpily)

Hi DT,

Sorry it was not to your liking. But the pictures show our teams experience and progress on the layout thoughout the day. Some people have commented on other topics about the show, saying there is not enough seen of the layouts, so though it was best to show it how it was.

Callum

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Had the pleasure of meeting this young man today. Great knowledge and enthusiasm, he is a credit to Railway Modelling.

 

Barry and Gill Williams

Widnes Model Centre

Thanks ever so much guys! Was great to meet you too. Really was a wonderful day! 

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Too many pictures, especially as we've seen so many before. Wouldn't it be better if you edited them to show only a few of the best ones; then people like me (assuming there are any) won't just ignore them all because there are too many and I'm insufficiently interested to spend time looking at them all. It's a consequence of the digital age; some friends recently sent us photos of their new baby. Did they just send us two or three to look at? No, we got over 50, unedited and unsorted, and I just can't be bothered to look through them all, particularly as they're all much the same.

 

DT (Woken up grumpily)

 

And yet you were sufficiently interested to post your unhappiness, most of which seems to relate to being shows a completely different set of photos of a baby. If you want to ignore then, fine. But don't take out your grumpiness on someone who took a lot of time to post the sort of behind the scenes photos other people have asked for please.

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  • 4 months later...

A quick video taking a look at a few Articles in both the Spring 2019 Edition of the Hornby Collectors  Magazine and the May Edition of Railway Modeller.
In the latest issue of the Hornby Collector's Magazine, there's a write-up about my Hornby Christmas Micro Layout, "Winters End", which fits inside a Wrapping Paper Storage Box. This was my first writing article about the build, and I'm over the moon to see it in print!
While the latest issue of the Railway Modeller features a full write-up by fellow Great Model Railway Challenge team mate, Adi, showing how he created our massive 00 Gauge Cooling Tower on our Great Model Railway Challenge 'Grand Final' Layout, "Melton Down". 
Hope you enjoy!
https://youtu.be/Dgkid0WeDsc

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