GMRC Series 2 - Episode 3 - 'Best of British'

[EWS FAN]

I really enjoyed tonight's episode. All 3 layouts were very good.

[nick_bastable]

the finish on those cliffs suggests the ladies are very talented 

 

Nick

[Howard Smith]

It's all-out British in heat three of the Great Model Railway Challenge as The Railmen of Kent, Cambrian Coasters and Loco Ladies battle it out.

 

Read our summary, here

 

[RedgateModels]

Oh dear, just seen the trailer for e4..... 

 

Full crosti with smoke out of the lighting up chimney

[LocoLadies CF]

Really proud to be able to tell you that the LocoLadies team are appearing as Special Guests at the Warley National Model Railway Show at the NEC 23/24 November 2019 with their Great Model Railway Challenge entry layout Bucolic Britain

[RedgateModels]

4 minutes ago, LocoLadies CF said:

Really proud to be able to tell you that the LocoLadies team are appearing as Special Guests at the Warley National Model Railway Show at the NEC 23/24 November 2019 with their Great Model Railway Challenge entry layout Bucolic Britain

 We would love to have you and your layout at the Mansfield Show in March, but as it's all for charity we can't run to accommodation. Would be great if we could work something out though

[TravisM]

I’ve just watched tonight’s episode and all three layouts were really good but I think The Railmen of Kent had the edge.  I liked the forced perspective and the crocheted trees made me smile.  

 

The hobby is all about “fun” and how we see the world; and I think as modellers on here, a lot of us take ourselves far too seriously.  Surely if a dad and his young son (or daughter) were watching this, I’m sure tonight’s episode showed that a model railway can be fun to build and if need be, a little silly.

 

It also seems that the production team have highlighted the female participants to show that this hobby is not male dominated.  Well done Railmen of Kent, bravo to Loco ladies and commiserations to Cambrian Coasters.

[LocoLadies CF]

16 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

 We would love to have you and your layout at the Mansfield Show in March, but as it's all for charity we can't run to accommodation. Would be great if we could work something out though

Thank you for the offer but we made the decision that as Warley is the pinnacle of exhibitions and the layout is rather large and cumbersome to transport ... we would only be showing it the once. 

[Steamport Southport]

42 minutes ago, RedgateModels said:

Oh dear, just seen the trailer for e4..... 

 

Full crosti with smoke out of the lighting up chimney

 

Oh dear.

 

I can put up with dinosaurs, UFOs and the like, but that's just wrong. 

 

 

 

Jason

[Georgeconna]

yeah I enjoyed this weeks episode, My 8 year old called it half way through for the Kent lads. I must admit not much gimmicky stuff tonight. Much better and the right layout certainly did win. Loads of Track, Loads of Trains, I Quite like the Union flag laid out as hedges, very very good. Was there a Britannia in the station too?

Edited September 29, 2019 by Georgeconna

[LNER4479]

7 hours ago, RLWP said:

This series is getting better by the week

 

Richard

Should be 'smoking!' by Heat 5 then...

 

I really liked the winning layout this week, the pre-build stations were stunning. The LU station area looked very good too, from what little we saw of it - would like to have seen more of that end of the layout being built but it just seemed to 'appear'. Was amazed therefore that the final build quality points for them was only 6, marked down from the provisional score of 8. That visible connector block must have cost them dear.

 

I also LOVED the crocheted forest. There was something very psychedelic / Sergeant Pepper about that which fitted the theme of the layout perfectly. Yah boo sucks to Kathy's put down comment.

[Neil]

I can't comment on the program as I'm without a telly at the moment but it was pretty obvious on day one that the Railwaymen of Kent were going to be odds on to win. Uncle Nik's buildings were both exquisite and impressive in scale. The Loco Ladies brought fresh ideas to the business of railway modelling and a gorgeous cake. We couldn't have wished for two more pleasant and friendly teams to go up against. Our own layout succumbed to component recovery within a week of returning home. The soup factory has been de-branded and the buildings recycled onto my York themed layout in the garage. The astute might put two and two together and realise this was also the reason why the soup train was headed by a K1.

 

Edited September 28, 2019 by Neil

[Aire Head]

32 minutes ago, Neil said:

I can't comment on the program as I'm without a telly at the moment but it was pretty obvious on day one that the Railwaymen of Kent were going to be odds on to win. Uncle Nik's buildings were both exquisite and impressive in scale. The Loco Ladies brought fresh ideas to the business of railway modelling and a gorgeous cake. We couldn't have wished for two more pleasant and friendly teams to go up against. Our own layout succumbed to component recovery within a week of returning home. The soup factory has been de-branded and the buildings recycled onto my York themed layout in the garage. The astute might put two and two together and realise this was also the reason why the soup train was headed by a K1.

 

So do you get to keep everything that goes on to the layouts? 

[Neil]

59 minutes ago, Aire Head said:

So do you get to keep everything that goes on to the layouts? 

 

Yes, you do. To be brutally honest if you didn't I probably wouldn't have taken part. The pre built items took up pretty much all my model making time for a couple of months so I was keen that they would have a life long after the program had become a distant memory.  The same practicalities drove the choice of stock, we all got something we could use on our home layouts. Though this is could be argued to be cynical approach I prefer to see it as not being wasteful; five minutes on the telly set against a lifetime of enjoyment at home.

[298]

I thought a good point well made by a Judge was the comment that forced perspective works best if there is less detail towards the back of the layout. Which is why when you're painting a backscene you don't try to paint every leaf and branch but use artistic techniques (which is the bit I struggle with) such as brush stippling to represent trees. So did crocheted trees also have the same effect..? Probably, until they are noticed or talked about, and then the eye would keep being drawn into them. 

[whart57]

9 hours ago, RedgateModels said:

Oh dear, just seen the trailer for e4..... 

 

Full crosti with smoke out of the lighting up chimney

 

I can assure you though that model railway history was made

[whart57]

2 hours ago, Aire Head said:

So do you get to keep everything that goes on to the layouts? 

 

Well it becomes yours to dispose of, yes. Most of our stuff went either to clubs or to enthusiasts in straitened circumstances

[LocoLadies CF]

3 hours ago, Neil said:

I can't comment on the program as I'm without a telly at the moment but it was pretty obvious on day one that the Railwaymen of Kent were going to be odds on to win. Uncle Nik's buildings were both exquisite and impressive in scale. The Loco Ladies brought fresh ideas to the business of railway modelling and a gorgeous cake. We couldn't have wished for two more pleasant and friendly teams to go up against. Our own layout succumbed to component recovery within a week of returning home. The soup factory has been de-branded and the buildings recycled onto my York themed layout in the garage. The astute might put two and two together and realise this was also the reason why the soup train was headed by a K1.

 

Neil. Thank you for your lovely comments. We too had a great time and have very fond memories of working with all three teams. It was a really good experience. 

[noiseboy72]

Always worth checking out Kathy's photos, as she gets the bits of detail the TV program doesn't get time to show. - https://www.kathymillatt.co.uk/blog/2019/09/27/great-model-railway-challenge-2019-heat-3/#jp-carousel-16387

 

Edited September 28, 2019 by noiseboy72
Added URL to photos

[Nimbus]

14 hours ago, Aire Head said:

Surprised about the tree comment when episide 1 involved 2 active volcanoes in the British countryside!

Had the merry-go-round been in the vicinity of those trees, it would have created an affectionate nod to The Magic Roundabout (psychedelic period)!

 

The Nim.

[hicksan]

Really good episode this week. Railmen of Kent were the obvious winners - three circuits of track, loads of trains running and the wagon hoist that worked faultlessly meant that perfect 10 for functionality was well deserved. The quality of their trackwork was clear on day 1, so that was a bit obvious - a key thing to look out for in every episode: the teams that don't get track right, at the outset, don't win. The buildings were really nice and well made too. Quality only let down by that wiring block in the station that cost them 2 points. The whole layout looked really crisp and I look forward to seeing it at exhibitions.

 

The other two layouts were both great and each might have won against different opposition. Neither had anything like as much operational interest as Brittannia Park though and each had minor reliability issues. I agreed with Kathy's comment about the forced perspective - the contrast between the high definition of the viaduct and the undetailed skyline in front of it was too starkly in the wrong order. The crocheted trees were fun but never going to win even though the ladies brought a breath of fresh air to the programme. All three teams were clearly enjoying themselves, having a great time, and that's what matter most to the viewing public and the image of the hobby. Well done all round. Best episode so far this series.

[hicksan]

It was nice, also, briefly to see the layouts 'Kimble' (7mm, L&WMRS) and 'Clarendon' (4mm S4, also L&WMRS) flash past during the breaks. They should have a separate competition to "name that layout".

Edited September 28, 2019 by hicksan
extra detail in a comment

[AY Mod]

1 minute ago, hicksan said:

It was nice, also, briefly to see the layouts 'Kimble' (7mm, L&WMRS) and 'Clarendon' (4mm S4) flash past during the breaks. They should have a separate competition to "name that layout".

 

Another LWMRS layout which features in the idents is Duxbury, from a technical perspective these low-down shots have great depth of field. Someone did some great work in the post-production of these clips. Phil has some of the back story on these. 

[Pacific231G]

I think the best layout won and generally agreed with the order of judging. Because the competition inevitably shows what people can achieve in a mad dash 24-30 hour scramble it favours speed over modelling quality so it was good to see some very fine modelling in the pre-builds.

I didn't feel that quite so much imagination was evident this week except in the "scratch build challenge" where there was some clever lateral thinking and again I think the best won. I wasn't sure whether the winning layout was intended to be a model of a sort of Best of Britain's Railways theme park with full size trains but if they were, that was a clever idea.

 

What I find slightly bizarre with this format is that it's clear that we're not seeing the best of railway modelling, not even in what the team members are undoubtedly capable of, simply because that takes scores if not hundreds of hours and there are probably more modelling hours in one team's pre-builds than in what all three have in a heat. That does make this different from other skills based competitions from Bake-Off and Master Chef to One Man and His Dog which, though under time pressure, are far closer to what completing the task would take under normal conditions.

That's not a criticism, I can't think of a format that would work better in terms of the drama and incident that a TV competition needs. You could set teams the task and follow them episodically over a much longer period and there have been series that did that (though not about modelling)   but though that would be a better reflection of their real abilities I don't think it would work so well as a series. What is good is that we get to see a lot or ordinary modellers and that does show  that it's an accessible hobby.

[sb67]

Really enjoyed last nights show. thought the modelling was great, really liked the forced perspective and the Kings cross/ St Pancras  models. The loco ladies were great and I liked the hot air balloon, glad to see they're showing thier layout at Warley. All in all I think the series is loads better this year, well done to all involved.

Steve.