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GMRC Series 2 - Episode 5 - 'The Sky's the Limit'


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I may not be popular by saying this but on the theme of annoyance I must say that I find Ms. Millett generally rather harsh and negative in her comments  ( I have seen some of her YooToob videos and they can be helpful overall to anyone wishing to adopt her own modelling methods ).

 

I wonder what she would be able to produce as part of a team under pressure, and how she would receive judgemental comments, now that I would very much like to see !

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, whart57 said:

Team Grantham deserved to win on the grounds of that radio telescope and the fact they actually did some shunting. Good quality build, reliable running but I'm afraid a bit bland for me. And you didn't need the rocket - was that Pat Doyle's insistence?

 

One gripe for all teams - and I suspect I know the reasons - and that is all that British stock. Flying Scotsman in Switzerland? Pre-Group locos shunting on Mars (where the thin atmosphere would make interesting physics for steam engines)? A 1930s express in Space City?

No worries about your comments - Stern Steve alluded to a similar thing. For what it's worth, after 13 years on work, Grantham still needs a general coat of weathering - the buildings, signals, canopies are far too CLEAN compared to contemporary photographs. Clearly not one of our strong points.

 

Re the rocket. NO, certainly no insistence from Pat Doyle or any other person in the production company. But, as explained earlier, we were required to have three animations so the rocket launch was our third. One detail not previously mentioned is that the full title of the challenge for Heat 5 as presented to us was: 'The sky's the limit. The space race. To infinity and beyond'. Hardly surprising therefore that each of us had a rocket / space ship. Part of the inspiration for the rocket on our layout was the thought that the solid rocket motors for the space shuttle were transported to Cape Canaveral by rail.

 

Flying Scotsman in Switzerland? Why not - she's been to most of the rest of the world! Seriously though, the answer for us is simply that model European motive power is bloomin' expensive and would have blown the Gaugemaster budget in one single purchase. Far more useful stuff was available to us from Gaugemaster, mainly the Faller buildings. FS, the three MkIs and the ED were all Railroad items, thus making best use of the Hornby budget.

 

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7 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

 Part of the inspiration for the rocket on our layout was the thought that the solid rocket motors for the space shuttle were transported to Cape Canaveral by rail.

 

 

Unlike CC which users a huge crawler to transport launch vehicles to the pad the Russians do actually use a train:

 

 

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20 minutes ago, bgman said:

I may not be popular by saying this but on the theme of annoyance I must say that I find Ms. Millett generally rather harsh and negative in her comments  ( I have seen some of her YooToob videos and they can be helpful overall to anyone wishing to adopt her own modelling methods ).

 

I wonder what she would be able to produce as part of a team under pressure, and how she would receive judgemental comments, now that I would very much like to see !

 

 

 

 

You forget that any comments will have been edited to make interesting television and that means critical comments can and will be highlighted and even taken out of context. Several teams have explained the huge amount of footage shot but not used on screen. 

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17 minutes ago, Andymsa said:

A somewhat radical idea, how about the judges and presenters making a team up to see what they come up with in the same time scales and the other teams judge them

 

Another "let's punish the judges for doing their job" post. Both judges are experienced modellers and you can easily see their work.

 

If they did do this, all you would get is people rubbishing the results for too many/too few animation, not enough track, not finescale enough, not entertaining enough etc. 

 

Teams on GMRC are volunteers. No-one forced them to take part and the feedback is they enjoy the experience. They know what they are getting themselves in to. 

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Surprised at Tim's comments about cutting into the board. The eagle eyed may have noticed that on War of the Worlds we cut and lowered two sections of the board. The water that the Thunderchild sat in was below baseboard level, as was another patch of water which mysteriously disappeared overnight - the only magic that Aqua magic performed was a disappearing act. There was a whole frame built of 2" x 1" wood underneath to stop the layout from otherwise breaking in half as we had cut out so much.

 

I thought Grantham's build was very good on the engineering. I really liked the scale of the countryside. The radio telescope was also a marvel in miniature.

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5 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Another "let's punish the judges for doing their job" post. Both judges are experienced modellers and you can easily see their work.

 

If they did do this, all you would get is people rubbishing the results for too many/too few animation, not enough track, not finescale enough, not entertaining enough etc. 

 

Teams on GMRC are volunteers. No-one forced them to take part and the feedback is they enjoy the experience. They know what they are getting themselves in to. 

 

Not at all a post about punishing the judges. Clearly they are experts and very talented like the teams involved. But like another member posted comments they can be harsh at times and it would be interesting to see what they come up with the same constraints

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11 minutes ago, Andymsa said:

 

Not at all a post about punishing the judges. Clearly they are experts and very talented like the teams involved. But like another member posted comments they can be harsh at times and it would be interesting to see what they come up with the same constraints

 

It doesn't matter what they came up with, people will delight in rubbishing it because they are hitting back at "the man". 

 

As for the comments being harsh, you can believe what the teams who took part say, which is positive, or believe everything you see on TV which has been edited for effect. 

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3 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

It doesn't matter what they came up with, people will delight in rubbishing it because they are hitting back at "the man". 

 

As for the comments being harsh, you can believe what the teams who took part say, which is positive, or believe everything you see on TV which has been edited for effect. 

 

I relise a lot of editing goes on but it does seem on the negative side most of the time. 

 

Thats is the point what they would come up with, I certainly wouldn't rubbish there attempt

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One thing that comes out of the edit is that Steve seems to talk teams up to the mark he gives making it seem like he is awarding points up to his final mark whilst Kathy comes across as taking marks off to bring the teams down to her score. I've noticed this in most of the episodes. Even if the marks they give are the same, it seems this is the way they put it across.

 

None of the teams were ever privy to this side of filming. We learnt what judges were saying about us watching the final episodes. Even the scores were a QI inspired mystery to us despite trying to cajol information out of the production crew.

 

I talked to Steve a lot, and got on really well with him on set. He wasn't like I expected, having only previously communicated with him via email. I didn't talk to Kathy much during filming as she kept herself to herself a lot when not filming.

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1 hour ago, bgman said:

I may not be popular by saying this but on the theme of annoyance I must say that I find Ms. Millett generally rather harsh and negative in her comments  ( I have seen some of her YooToob videos and they can be helpful overall to anyone wishing to adopt her own modelling methods ).

 

 

 

All I can say is that I found the judges to be very helpful with their comments off camera. I had a number of discussions with the judges during the production of this heat and the Semi final and I found both of them making helpful comments. 

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1 hour ago, LNER4479 said:

One detail not previously mentioned is that the full title of the challenge for Heat 5 as presented to us was: 'The sky's the limit. The space race. To infinity and beyond'.

 

Ah, that explains it. We had a nice snappy two word challenge, no extra phrases. I wondered why all three teams had rockets and why no-one thought of something like "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" which would have tied in more with railways. Given that those early flyers followed railway lines for navigation purposes you could even have dragged a biplane behind a train .....

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1 hour ago, LNER4479 said:

 

Flying Scotsman in Switzerland? Why not - she's been to most of the rest of the world! Seriously though, the answer for us is simply that model European motive power is bloomin' expensive and would have blown the Gaugemaster budget in one single purchase. Far more useful stuff was available to us from Gaugemaster, mainly the Faller buildings. FS, the three MkIs and the ED were all Railroad items, thus making best use of the Hornby budget.

 

To expand on Red Leaders comments, we did within our budget and products available try to incorporate as many 'flying themes' as we could from the Flying Scotsman, the Rocket exhibit on the station, the Skytrain livery on the coaches, wagons and rocket to the Per Ardua Ad Astra names for the two stations on the mountain branch.

Edited by LMS29
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5 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

Missed it as I went  put the kettle on/open a beer.

 

Watched on catch-up, best episode yet and the best layout won, ad it was nice to see the wildcard too as all three really were the best we had seen yet.  Well done guys n gals.

 

Loved the radio telescope.  Donk approved.

 

 

JD.jpg.da6eaa16c85f3a415ee10523a2698009.jpg

 

 

Radio telescopes and trains don't always make good bedfellows. Back in the 60s, astronomers at Joddrell Bank kept picking up radio signals at particular times of day and convinced themselves it was evidence of life on another planet - until someone pointed out that those times happened to match the times trains passed on the nearby newly-electrified Manchester-Crewe line.....

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4 hours ago, whart57 said:

I'm pleased the Muddle and Go Nowhere team got the wild card slot, I liked their approach, made a change to see a red layout, and I think they might have won any other heat, even allowing for the fact Steve and Kathy seemed to have found points unused from previous heats to spend. But guys, you were a bit blatant about using Channel 5's money to buy stock for your own layouts .........

 

Team Grantham deserved to win on the grounds of that radio telescope and the fact they actually did some shunting. Good quality build, reliable running but I'm afraid a bit bland for me. And you didn't need the rocket - was that Pat Doyle's insistence?

 

One gripe for all teams - and I suspect I know the reasons - and that is all that British stock. Flying Scotsman in Switzerland? Pre-Group locos shunting on Mars (where the thin atmosphere would make interesting physics for steam engines)? A 1930s express in Space City?

Us, order stock for our own layouts?? Never :)

 

In all seriousness, it wasn't actually a consideration  and all the models have stayed with the layout. we tried to pick locos and stock that even if not historically correct, looked right in the landscape. Everything was repainted or weathered, with a copper colour used to represent martian dust.

 

I understand all 3 teams in Heat 5 were reserve or late entries into the competition. We got a little less prep time than teams in other heats, but that didn't seem to slow any of us down. As my daughter Lucy was under 18, we gave the production company quite a lot more work, as she needed a performance licence, chaperone and shorter working hours. It was worth the effort and she enjoyed the experience as much as the rest of us. As my wife was the chaperone, we had a great extra family "holiday"!

 

There was quite a lot of our layout you didn't see. We 3D printed a 009 loco on day 1 and painted and detailed it on day 2. This was filmed, but didn't make it onto the final edit. In fact, there was more than 40 3D printed elements on the layout ranging from astronauts to buildings. We also shunted the passenger train and brought in a breakdown train as well. Don't forget each demo is probably 6-10 minutes and ends up as 2-3 minutes in the show, so some stuff must go.

 

We've put together a website with loads of info - https://www.mgnr.uk/ so please feel free to check this out.

 

Thanks for all the kind comments. We really appreciate it. We knew at the end of day 2 that Team Grantham were likely to win. Their modelling was simply superb, their pre-work faultless and they were all jolly nice chaps to boot! It was great to get the wild card - especially when we found out we had scored more points than some of the other winners. It's nice to know that Steve at least is a fan of our slightly chaotic style of modelling!!

 

 

 

 

Edited by noiseboy72
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7 minutes ago, Ian Morgan said:

We lowered the entire centre baseboard 4 inches for our series 1 final layout:

 

post-11458-0-31604400-1541977940_thumb.jpg

My eye was immediately drawn to your layout during last year's final for exactly that reason. But there was very little shown in the programme over how you went about it, it was just 'ping!' and there it was, which was a bit of a shame. It wasn't quite the case that we were inspired by what you did but I did think of your layout as I cut out our girt big 'ole for our riverbed.

 

Thanks for showing this. Am I right in saying that the N gauge Saltash bridge has now been finished off as an exhibit in its own right?

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7 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

And they put it up against Strictly come Dancing! Mind you on Fridays it was up against The Great British Bake-off which topped the viewing charts for Friday and it acquited itself well. This coming Friday it would also have clashed with the UEFA 2020 qualifying match, the Czech Republic v. England, that also may have prompted the decision to change the day.

 

I thought GBB finished ages ago.

 

It was against Gardeners World

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Just caught up on Episode 5 having missed 3 and 4 . Very enjoyable . I think the best team won . The rocket launch with all that smoke and flawless lift off was straight out of Gerry Anderson . Like Thunderbirds can’t help thinking that the guy out for a pleasant wee swim in the pool must get a helluva shock! . On the other hand one of the other teams had a decidedly shaky space ship that Blake’s 7 would be proud of .  The scenery was good and they actually did some Railway operation, with some shunting . Wow , who would have thought it in a Railway Modelling program, but I think this maybe the first time I’ve seen actual Railway operation as opposed to trains just going round a circuit. So I thought this was Railway Modelling and engineering wise it was very well done. 

 

As to themes . Why would there be a sparkly shiny new city in planet 16 , but the train be a Coronation Pacific ?  Doesn’t really go does it.. and what sort of backward community are they on Mars that use Radial Tanks, Fowler 4fs and a Coal Tank to shunt the rocket .  Where’s the Triang Battlespace Turbocar when you need it . 

 

Great if this is attracting new people into hobby , but Can’t help thinking that little Johnny or probably Brad or Josh  these days, might be a little disappointed on visiting their first show and not finding rockets , volcanoes and earthquakes . 

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On 06/10/2019 at 20:15, LNER4479 said:

My eye was immediately drawn to your layout during last year's final for exactly that reason. But there was very little shown in the programme over how you went about it, it was just 'ping!' and there it was, which was a bit of a shame. It wasn't quite the case that we were inspired by what you did but I did think of your layout as I cut out our girt big 'ole for our riverbed.

 

Thanks for showing this. Am I right in saying that the N gauge Saltash bridge has now been finished off as an exhibit in its own right?

 

We shortened the legs by 4 inches and added plywood end boards that reached up to mate with the ends of the two side boards. These were two bits of wood in the pile were brought with us that 'just happened' to be the right size. All this woodworking on the first day, plus waiting for the bridges to be built was why track laying was delayed (which was commented on).

 

The Royal Albert Bridge layout is being worked on, and was at TINGS a couple of weeks ago. We chopped over a foot from the front of the layout, so it is now 10 feet by about 3 foot 6 inches, and much more manageable.

 

This was it when the 'five minutes to doors opening' message came over the tannoy. All very familiar!

 

48739313008_092e8a2e69_o.jpg.2cad3e4c837eebb32e143f85c0c891a0.jpg

 

Edited by Ian Morgan
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18 minutes ago, Legend said:

...and what sort of backward community are they on Mars that use Radial Tanks, Fowler 4fs and a Coal Tank to shunt the rocket .  Where’s the Triang Battlespace Turbocar when you need it . 

I have my Dad's Triang collection in the loft, including quite a sizeable Transcontinental fleet. But neither of us where really bitten by the Battlespace bug. Although I did on several occasions nag ask if we could have turbocar, we never did get hold of one. Perhaps I should make amends and purchase one.... And a snipper car to go with the giraffe car. And a search light car, oh and the rocket launcher....... 

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26 minutes ago, Legend said:

 

Great if this is attracting new people into hobby , but Can’t help thinking that little Johnny or probably Brad or Josh  these days, might be a little disappointed on visiting their first show and not finding rockets , volcanoes and earthquakes . 

Well, we'd be happy to bring rockets and smoke effects to your local show...

 

 

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43 minutes ago, Legend said:

As to themes . Why would there be a sparkly shiny new city in planet 16 , but the train be a Coronation Pacific ?  Doesn’t really go does it.. and what sort of backward community are they on Mars that use Radial Tanks, Fowler 4fs and a Coal Tank to shunt the rocket .  Where’s the Triang Battlespace Turbocar when you need it . 

 

 

I once sketched out some ideas for a railway layout set in the 2080s. It's amazingly hard to do, and thinking up suitable locos for a Space City or Mars colony would be the same. At least the Coronation Pacific was streamlined, and thinking about it now the radials and coal tanks were at least from H G Wells' time.

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