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Channel 4 model railway challenge


Nearholmer

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Coming up on the final two weeks in June and according to the BBC Weather app, its piddling down at Fort William and will continue mostly so until Monday, the prediction for the week is overcast, but it may well change quite rapidly....

 

Take your waterproofs!

And Good Luck!

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The BBC is very good at telling you what the weather was like yesterday, but not so good about what it will do today and useless about the prospects for next week, I find! Many's a time that I've read the weather forecast off their site as being a perfect sunny day, as the rain barrels down outside. I don't think they have a window to look out of, you know?

 

Incidentally, Sports Direct have 70% off some good waterproof jackets at the moment. They are in the golfing section. 

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The BBC is very good at telling you what the weather was like yesterday, but not so good about what it will do today and useless about the prospects for next week, I find! Many's a time that I've read the weather forecast off their site as being a perfect sunny day, as the rain barrels down outside. I don't think they have a window to look out of, you know?

 

Incidentally, Sports Direct have 70% off some good waterproof jackets at the moment. They are in the golfing section. 

You should see the weather forecast on RTE then. :)  I find the BBC NI seem to be reasonably accurate with their forecasting.  As they say over here in Ireland, stick you head out the door and see if its raining. lol... :sungum:

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You should see the weather forecast on RTE then. :)  I find the BBC NI seem to be reasonably accurate with their forecasting.  As they say over here in Ireland, stick you head out the door and see if its raining. lol... :sungum:

Also have to disagree, the BBC hour by hour forecasts on-line for where I live are also pretty accurate over both the short and the longish term. Perhaps Bolton has a weather peculiarity.

 

What is often noticeable though on the TV coverage from the Beeb is that the national forecast often differs from the regional and as we live on the boundary between SW and S coverage the local ideas being put out by Plymouth and Southampton can differ.

Edited by john new
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They have started filming. Notice at Neptune's Staircase Fort William.

 

 

 

post-7191-0-20377700-1498248807_thumb.jpg

 

Not sure what gauge it is though.

 

 

 

post-7191-0-35140400-1498248869_thumb.jpg

 

Edit: sorry about rotated pics. Working from phone.

Edited by BoD
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They have started filming. Notice at Neptune's Staircase Fort William.

 

 

 

attachicon.gif20170622_155054.jpg

 

Not sure what gauge it is though.

 

 

 

attachicon.gif20170622_155117.jpg

 

Edit: sorry about rotated pics. Working from phone.

 

Good luck to everyone involved. Hope you make the target.

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This whole thing is so far removed from railway modelling it's ridiculous, just look at that ridiculous 'track'. I know it's supposed to be all fluffy & nice & reckoned to help bring/introduce people to the hobby but come on what a shower of crappy shite it looks the be. People camped out along the route with production crew in toe no doubt lathering the whole thing in false jeopardy. As is the way with most 'let's build a thing' TV these days.

How hard would it have been to get half a dozen decent modellers to gas on about their layouts & how they created it & spread that out over six of so episodes. This would have been far more valid rather than just creating some lowest common denominator TV.

Cheers
Chris

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This whole thing is so far removed from railway modelling it's ridiculous, just look at that ridiculous 'track'. I know it's supposed to be all fluffy & nice & reckoned to help bring/introduce people to the hobby but come on what a shower of crappy shite it looks the be. People camped out along the route with production crew in toe no doubt lathering the whole thing in false jeopardy. As is the way with most 'let's build a thing' TV these days.

How hard would it have been to get half a dozen decent modellers to gas on about their layouts & how they created it & spread that out over six of so episodes. This would have been far more valid rather than just creating some lowest common denominator TV for plebs.

Cheers

Chris

Not hard to do at all BUT probably unsaleable to a network to then get shown.

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This whole thing is so far removed from railway modelling it's ridiculous, just look at that ridiculous 'track'. I know it's supposed to be all fluffy & nice & reckoned to help bring/introduce people to the hobby but come on what a shower of crappy shite it looks the be. People camped out along the route with production crew in toe no doubt lathering the whole thing in false jeopardy. As is the way with most 'let's build a thing' TV these days.

 

How hard would it have been to get half a dozen decent modellers to gas on about their layouts & how they created it & spread that out over six of so episodes. This would have been far more valid rather than just creating some lowest common denominator TV for plebs.

 

Cheers

Chris

Given that such a thing doesn't yet (AFAIK) exist on YouTube, in spite of the fairly low barriers to entry, I'd guess actually quite hard.

 

Many years ago I was privileged to meet the late Jack Ray in connection with his slideshow and commentary work for the Gauge 0 Guild. Lovely bloke and very experienced at what he did. However there's not a hope that his output would hold the attention of more than 0.0001% of the none enthusiast population.

 

Given the lack of current competition and the eagerness of many modelers to display their work to an audience the field Is wide open for anyone with a decent video camera, some people skills and a bootleg copy of Premier Pro, who thinks they can do better.

Edited by PatB
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I've often wondered about some sort of "Model Railway bake off" - start off with say a dozen contestants. Each week the contestants carry out a different task relating to a model railway (e.g. build the baseboards, lay track etc). The person judged to have done the worst gets evicted until the last 2 or three have built complete layouts.

Edited by RJS1977
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Realistic track, fluffy and unrealistic or not; the aim of this programme is to entertain. What we should hope for, as modellers, is that it promotes our hobby and gets new people interested. I agree that it would be good if it could incorporate some of the modellers involved sharing their constructions.

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I agree that it would be good if it could incorporate some of the modellers involved sharing their constructions.

Perhaps they will - or already have. But I understand that for fairly obvious reasons those involved have signed NDAs.

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Realistic track, fluffy and unrealistic or not; the aim of this programme is to entertain. What we should hope for, as modellers, is that it promotes our hobby and gets new people interested. I agree that it would be good if it could incorporate some of the modellers involved sharing their constructions.

  

Perhaps they will - or already have. But I understand that for fairly obvious reasons those involved have signed NDAs.

There would, however, be nothing to stop the production company putting together an article about what's involved in building the "permanent way" for this challenge - running trains - and filming it. There'd also be nothing to stop them interviewing some of the people involved - and compiling a programme(s) or magazine article(s) about all this stuff.

 

(It could also be interesting if they were to use this chance to explain their reasons for using this sort of track - I'd be surprised if expressions like "practicality" and "engineering compromise" were absent from such an explanation.)

 

After all, they'd be unlikely to have any shortage of photos, footage or other material for this purpose.

 

Whether magazine editors and readers - or TV viewers - would be interested in something like this is not for me to say. What I can say is that similar stuff - often for about ten minutes at the end of BBC science / natural history programmes - can often be of interest to some people.

 

As for the challenge itself, although certain aspects of this year's exercise wouldn't have worked for me, I'll still be interested in seeing the finished programmes - and I hope it all works out well for all involved.

 

My guess is that, whatever happens, the production company will generate a number of hours of very watchable TV from this endeavour - after all, they seem keen for there to be further series in future years. They are probably also keen to sell repeats of all of these programmes to other networks (like Quest, for instance).

 

 

I could also imagine the production company wishing to encourage further volunteers to get involved in any future series - for this reason, I'd be very surprised if they don't maintain contact with everyone who expressed an interest in the current series (even those of us who weren't ultimately involved in filming).

 

 

Anyway, let's get back to the trains.

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Filming was great fun. Really honoured to have been asked to take part. Great to meet some of you in person, and it's been a pleasure to work with everyone on location. Met a few real characters, and left Scotland with a lot of new good friends.

 

Don't ask about details of the program, because none of us are allowed to tell you about it until after it is transmitted.

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Filming was great fun. Really honoured to have been asked to take part. Great to meet some of you in person, and it's been a pleasure to work with everyone on location. Met a few real characters, and left Scotland with a lot of new good friends.

 

Don't ask about details of the program, because none of us are allowed to tell you about it until after it is transmitted.

Was one of the reserves so glad to hear you enjoyed it.

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Filming was great fun. Really honoured to have been asked to take part. Great to meet some of you in person, and it's been a pleasure to work with everyone on location. Met a few real characters, and left Scotland with a lot of new good friends.

 

Don't ask about details of the program, because none of us are allowed to tell you about it until after it is transmitted.

Glad you had a good time. Won't ask about details but I'll regard the fact that filming was enjoyable as being a positive sign for how the finished product may turn out.

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I suppose we should be grateful for any TV coverage that doesn't actually set out to extract the urine.

 

My own idea for a TV programme would be a bit like Dragon's Den. Random modellers would rock up with their ideas for a project, and a panel (preferably made up of actual top modellers and not "personalities") would choose the winner - which would then be built and exhibited.

Edited by Poggy1165
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My own idea for a TV programme would be a bit like Dragon's Den. Random modellers would rock up with their ideas for a project, and a panel (preferably made up of actual top modellers and not "personalities") would choose the winner - which would then be built and exhibited.

Or based on another old program format....

 

"Tonight, Matthew, I'll be building a model of The Fell"... :jester:

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