GMRC Series 2 - Episode 8 - The Final - 'Surprise Surprise' - 5.40pm

[t-b-g]

2 minutes ago, LNER4479 said:

If I can reiterate that the rule change was really the ONLY thing that gnarked us re KBG. Overwhelmingly they were a brilliant company - to provide some balance, here's some more details in terms of what actually happened:

 

In the final, mad hour, 30 mins, 10 mins of actual build, it became increasingly clear that our layout simply wouldn't look finished. As soon as the 'step away from your layouts' moment happened, Ben Cook (series director) came over and said to me: 'Look - we deliberately held off a close up on your layout in those final moments. You're free to do whatever you need to do to make the layout looked finished for the filming tomorrow'.

 

I thanked him profusely but at the same time felt it was something we shouldn't take too much advantage of, as I'm sure all teams would have liked to spend more time modelling. In the end we limited it to adding a few figures, sticking a few bushes over some of the more glaring holes whilst I spent some time fixing the bridge supports in place for the bridges on the right-hand side (which were otherwise suspended in mid air) - that side of the layout at least looked reasonable for demo filming.

 

The thing that upset most was not having the chance to finish the layout to the standard we were capable of in the time available - that's just a matter of pride as railway modellers and nothing to do with winning and losing per se.

 

For that reason, as Andrew (D9003) has already mentioned, we have resolved to rebuild the layout as we intended and that work is already well in hand. You might be interested to know that that truly awful looking grass mat covering was unceremoniously ripped off within 10 mins of the last bit of filming! 

 

As I said, under the circumstances I feel that you did the right thing and acted in good spirit. I really don't see how throwing teddy out of the pram and walking off set, as has been suggested, would have made anything better but it may have made it worse!

[LNER4479]

4 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

Does anyone know which of the layouts will be at Warley? I know we've been promised the winning layout, but is that just the final layout or does it include the full three-layout set? And will any of the others be there, too? I seem to recall reading that Loco Ladies will be present, but will anyone else?

I shall be bringing one board of our Heat (Swiss) layout for my display (layout planning & design) in the demo area. I plan to give over part of the display to the planning / design of our GMRC layouts.

 

Any more than that wouldn't be fair on Railmen of Kent as they've earned the right to be the 'star' billing in the GMRC area.

[noiseboy72]

Just now, D9020 Nimbus said:

I also think linking the layouts together was a rather pointless exercise. Also, there should have been only three teams in the final unless the final was given more air time. With these issues we saw far less of the final layouts than the "heat" and semi-final layouts. Also, if there had been only three layouts in the final, there might not have been any need to reduce the build times. (You could have had the winners of each of the semi-finals plus the highest scoring runner-up.)

Ahem... As the highest scoring runner up team - scoring more than the 2nd place team in Semi-final 1, we wholeheartedly agree with this suggestion    

 

I do however think the linking thing is a good idea though, as it forces you to think about the bigger picture during planning for the whole competition. WCR in particular managed to link their layouts together very successfully from a design point of view and in my opinion, this should have got them extra marks.

 

Personally more flexibility in terms of layout size and gauge would add interest. The whole "We need to send the camera train around" thing is something of a red herring, as it could easily be adapted to larger scales and the current use of the mini-jib for the smaller scales would still give plenty of interest. As we have a couple of modellers who like O Gauge and larger, I think we could create something pretty cool given a bit of flexibility around the size and shape.

 

 

[PhilJ W]

The Royal British Legion are out selling poppies in the lead upto remembrance day. Locally they are offering crocheted poppies, I wonder where they got the idea from?

[steve1]

Quote

The only real change I would make would be to omit the requirement for all three layouts to be connected together; this seems a bit pointless and detracts from the final layout entry.  

 

Hear, hear.

 

steve

[2mmMark]

5 hours ago, noiseboy72 said:

Ahem... As the highest scoring runner up team - scoring more than the 2nd place team in Semi-final 1, we wholeheartedly agree with this suggestion    

 

I do however think the linking thing is a good idea though, as it forces you to think about the bigger picture during planning for the whole competition. WCR in particular managed to link their layouts together very successfully from a design point of view and in my opinion, this should have got them extra marks.

 

Personally more flexibility in terms of layout size and gauge would add interest. The whole "We need to send the camera train around" thing is something of a red herring, as it could easily be adapted to larger scales and the current use of the mini-jib for the smaller scales would still give plenty of interest. As we have a couple of modellers who like O Gauge and larger, I think we could create something pretty cool given a bit of flexibility around the size and shape.

 

 

 

An O gauge challenge could be quite interesting and is certainly doable within the scope of the programme given the availability of set-track and RTR items. Might be a bit beyond the budget though and could soak up all the available RTR items on the market.

Edited October 28, 2019 by 2mmMark

[Pacific231G]

11 hours ago, 2mmMark said:

 

Steady on matey, my comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek. That's why I chucked in the "I'm all right Jack" reference.

 

 

That's good to know Mark and I might have taken it the wrong way  but there had been some apparently serious criticism of the production team, I don't think from the contestants,  Anyway, Isn't that why we have emoticons?

Edited October 28, 2019 by Pacific231G

[RJS1977]

5 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

The Royal British Legion are out selling poppies in the lead upto remembrance day. Locally they are offering crocheted poppies, I wonder where they got the idea from?

 

My mother's been making those as well - and teaching other people how to make them!

[RJS1977]

12 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

 

Does anyone know which of the layouts will be at Warley? I know we've been promised the winning layout, but is that just the final layout or does it include the full three-layout set? And will any of the others be there, too? I seem to recall reading that Loco Ladies will be present, but will anyone else?

 

Warley announced yesterday that all three of Railmen of Kent's layouts would be there.

[RJS1977]

12 hours ago, D9003 said:

 

 

Crashing the go-karts was purely an operator error owing to lack of rehearsal time, and our demonstration went downhill from there.

 

 

I thought the judges/TV comments were a little harsh on that - Go Karts spin off/collide from time to time, it's part of the excitement.

 

Maybe one of the go-kart drivers was Max Verstappen.....

[70000 Britannia]

Well done to all the teams that made the final and no doubt the behind the scenes work by the production teams required real commitment.

 

Personally, I thought the semi-final challenges, placed on the teams, somewhat trivialised the hobby - I would have expected the later stages to have focused more on actual railway modelling.

 

Still, the two series have no doubt been useful in exposing the hobby to more interest.  Overall, I have enjoyed watching the episodes.  It will be interesting to see if the programme endures.

[RJS1977]

Agreed that there's not a lot you can do with Myths, Legends and Monsters, but there are plenty of railway-related films (albeit not necessarily blockbusters) that could have 'proper' models made of them.  

[Phil Parker]

10 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

I thought the judges/TV comments were a little harsh on that - Go Karts spin off/collide from time to time, it's part of the excitement.

 

The way one swung out and the then collided with the other looked to me as though it was deliberate. I'd have lied and said it was... ;-)

 

[Phil Parker]

10 hours ago, 70000 Britannia said:

Personally, I thought the semi-final challenges, placed on the teams, somewhat trivialised the hobby - I would have expected the later stages to have focused more on actual railway modelling.

 

Yet the results were interesting and yet again demonstrated the creativity of people in our hobby. I prefer vague titles (it's why the Cake Box challenge ones are vague) as it allows room for imagination. The results were certainly spectacular and therefore televisual for a non-enthusiast audience. You got three different models too. There's no guarantee a "hardcore" railway modelling challenge would give as good results for the intended audience.

[LNER4479]

10 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

Agreed that there's not a lot you can do with Myths, Legends and Monsters

Well I know I'm obviously biased but we all thought it was a great theme and allowed our creativity to go into overdrive. It also felt right doing something completely different to our Heat layout which was, after all, traditional railway modelling.

 

Once we'd agreed on the medieval knights theme then it seemed obvious (to us) that a conventional railway would be just plain wrong. Thereafter we were free to experiment with scale. Wasted on a general TV audience but I'm sure you erudite folks picked up that we were in fact working in G scale (16mm). The big advantage of this was that everything was four times larger and therefore much easier to see (audience) and work with (us).

 

I also thought that the two Railroad 73 chassis did a sterling job rotating the not inconsiderable weight of the circulate stage (there was no central pivot involved). Rather reminded me of those old b/w pictures of three Hornby Dublo Deltics hauling a train of full size people on a raised track at an exhibition.

 

All in all, quite a bit of model railway interest within what is primarily a TV entertainment show. Just depends on your point of view?

[70000 Britannia]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Yet the results were interesting and yet again demonstrated the creativity of people in our hobby. I prefer vague titles (it's why the Cake Box challenge ones are vague) as it allows room for imagination. The results were certainly spectacular and therefore televisual for a non-enthusiast audience. You got three different models too. There's no guarantee a "hardcore" railway modelling challenge would give as good results for the intended audience.

 

I did not suggest it would but then, we have yet to see the viewing figure outcomes.  It would be interesting to know, just what the defined, target audience was.

 

Of course, there has to be a strong theme of creativity; however, I am making the point that, for me (and many modellers that I have recently met), who supported the programme, the S/Fs were somewhat indulgent on the part of the programme developers.

 

 

[Hroth]

3 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

The way one swung out and the then collided with the other looked to me as though it was deliberate. I'd have lied and said it was... ;-)

 

Sort of Hamilton and Vettel, eh? 

 

 

[Phil Parker]

1 hour ago, 70000 Britannia said:

Of course, there has to be a strong theme of creativity; however, I am making the point that, for me (and many modellers that I have recently met), who supported the programme, the S/Fs were somewhat indulgent on the part of the programme developers.

 

They need viewing figures of a million and it doesn't matter how many railway modellers "support the programme" (whatever that means in practical terms) then you aren't going to hit that sort of number. This has to be entertainment with a capital E first and foremost. If your theme is "Great Western Branch lines" then forget it. As has been said many times before, this show is not being made for us. We just get to reap the benefits.

 

Look past the theme and there is a lot of useful modelling we can be inspired by. The challenge to move loads from one side of the layout to another produced many interesting devices that could easily be re-worked slightly to fit in a more conventional layout. Would we have seen these on something with a more serious theme? I suspect not as the modellers would be hung up on minutiae.

[LMS29]

3 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Once we'd agreed on the medieval knights theme then it seemed obvious (to us) that a conventional railway would be just plain wrong. Thereafter we were free to experiment with scale. Wasted on a general TV audience but I'm sure you erudite folks picked up that we were in fact working in G scale (16mm). The big advantage of this was that everything was four times larger and therefore much easier to see (audience) and work with (us).

 

To add to this, we were taking part in a TV competition but the real kick for us, came from challenging ourselves. Once we had agreed the theme for the layout there were then a number of challenges for individual members of the team which needed resolving on the day. I had never worked with G scale figures before and needed to construct the medieval Knights and followers. Graham and Andrew needed to scratch build the mechanisms to load the knight, make the lady rise from the lake and lower the drawbridge. Paul needed to build the scenery at 4x normal size.  We needed to work out how to load the knight on a horse and unload the horse again with the knight still onboard, to say nothing of picking up the sword and working on a jousting tournament.  Working with OO  railways and road ways were the easy part.  

[Ian Morgan]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

The challenge to move loads from one side of the layout to another produced many interesting devices that could easily be re-worked slightly to fit in a more conventional layout.

 

 

Like this?

 

 

[CharlieJohnson]

We just got confirmation today. 

Our Miniature Miniatur-Wunderland layout will be attending Warley as Guests of Bachmann Europe. 

 

So you will all get to see the full 3 boards of the winning team Railmen of Kent, plus the Loco Ladies layout and ourselves. 

 

Hope to see many of you again and see many on your there too. 

[Phil Parker]

1 hour ago, Ian Morgan said:

 

Like this?

 

 

 

Just that sort of thing.

 

We've seen animated features on layouts for years, but put them on the telly and suddenly they are "gimmicks detracting from the modelling". I see them as potential extra features - but then I love a Giraffe Car, so may not be the best person to judge!

[roundhouse]

Did some one mention a giraffe car??

 

A few fellow modellers often talk about putting that on a wishlist for a new version of the old Triang one.

Edited October 29, 2019 by roundhouse

[LMS29]

3 hours ago, LNER4479 said:

Once we'd agreed on the medieval knights theme then it seemed obvious (to us) that a conventional railway would be just plain wrong. Thereafter we were free to experiment with scale. Wasted on a general TV audience but I'm sure you erudite folks picked up that we were in fact working in G scale (16mm). The big advantage of this was that everything was four times larger and therefore much easier to see (audience) and work with (us).

 

To add to this, we were taking part in a TV competition but the real kick for us, came from challenging ourselves. Once we had agreed the theme for the layout there were then a number of challenges for individual members of the team which needed resolving on the day. I had never worked with G scale figures before and needed to construct the medieval Knights and followers. Graham and Andrew needed to scratch build the mechanisms to load the knight, make the lady rise from the lake and lower the drawbridge. Paul needed to build the scenery at 4x normal size.  We needed to work out how to load the knight on a horse and unload the horse again with the knight still onboard, to say nothing of picking up the sword and working on a jousting tournament.  Working with OO  railways and road ways were the easy part.  

[JohnR]

4 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

They need viewing figures of a million and it doesn't matter how many railway modellers "support the programme" (whatever that means in practical terms) then you aren't going to hit that sort of number.

 

Which they didnt get after they started moving it about the schedules. Will be interesting to see what the final got when the figures come out next week.