Channel 4 model railway challenge

[lochlongside]

Came late to this  as I was a bit dubious about something a Mr Strawbridge (professional moustache wearer with no known model railway track (!!) record) was presenting - so am watching on catch up but actually quite interested to see if they make it without too many fiddles. I will certainly watch the remainder.

For me the (large scale!! garden !?) railway modelling is secondary. The programme is entertainment with a common not a competitive aim. It is fascinating to see the team worker/ team leader/ project manager interaction (having spent a lot of my life in such positions). Questions that come to my mind include how were team leaders picked (by lottery?) - some of them are actually natural leaders with a "maintenance of the aim/lets get it done/all in this together" attitude and  one or two are possibly in need of a little time to mature.

I do agree that the overall design team appear on occasion to have slipped up in their briefing of what the individual team leaders needed to do to meet their tasks. Some of the demanded changes seemed a bit late in the day but that might be down to a production drama/cutting room floor issue or cloth ears (out of sight of camera )- it happens in even the best projects, and it is not clear how much guidance the teams are really given in developing solutions.

One special mention however - Having spent innumerable periods in the West Highlands I take my hat off to the gentleman(team leader)  who gave his Argyll midge net to a team worker who had lost his own - thats a real sacrifice - the man is a true hero   - one can live with the wee haar (as my scottish mother referred euphemistically to persistent low drizzle!!)  but the b****y midges are appalling - we used to end sailing early up there between end May and September to avoid the purgatory of having to pack up in the company of evening hordes of mini-Draculas. Anything other than bright sunshine or a howling gale and the little s*** are there. They do say that highland productivity would increase by over 15% if wasn't for the little blighters. So well done to all the participants many of whom without nets are obviously wearing crosses or garlic!!.

[Mallard60022]

Hard Sun......I'm obviously not a 'hardened' watcher of violence as I was thinking this would be a great Sci Fi drama similar to Edge of Drkness and it turns out to be a horror of huge proportions. Graphic beyond the need IMO. Shall I watch it all? Unsure about that after the last one.

Apologies for OT comment. 

Phil

[Captain Kernow]

Hard Sun......I'm obviously not a 'hardened' watcher of violence as I was thinking this would be a great Sci Fi drama similar to Edge of Drkness and it turns out to be a horror of huge proportions. Graphic beyond the need IMO. Shall I watch it all? Unsure about that after the last one.

Apologies for OT comment. 

Phil

Why watch highly stressful carp, when life's stressful enough as it is?

[Legend]

I'm always amazed at the popularity of shows such as Casualty, Holby City . Through my parents illnesses I saw plenty hospitals and frankly would be happy if I never saw one again. How people can think this is entertainment on a Saturday night, puzzles me .

 

On the model railway program , it is all a bit contrived. I'm getting a bit fed up with Mr Strawbridge saying me must do this or that. Its not as if the world will end if he doesn't make it to Inverness . That said the trestle across the river was impressive. I saw them in episode 2 building a viaduct across a flood plain but I don't think I actually saw a train cross it. Did I miss it or is it yet to come ?  Still entertaining and better than the alternative Midwives on Ice  or whatever.

[BlackRat]

I'm still waiting for the 4 and 20 virgins to come down......

[Hroth]

I'm always amazed at the popularity of shows such as Casualty, Holby City . Through my parents illnesses I saw plenty hospitals and frankly would be happy if I never saw one again. How people can think this is entertainment on a Saturday night, puzzles me .

 

On the model railway program , it is all a bit contrived. I'm getting a bit fed up with Mr Strawbridge saying me must do this or that. Its not as if the world will end if he doesn't make it to Inverness . That said the trestle across the river was impressive. I saw them in episode 2 building a viaduct across a flood plain but I don't think I actually saw a train cross it. Did I miss it or is it yet to come ?  Still entertaining and better than the alternative Midwives on Ice  or whatever.

Isn't it 100 Midwives on Ice with Paul O'Grady?

 

What gets me with Casualty/Holby City, they're supposedly set in the same hospital...

 

 

Hard Sun......I'm obviously not a 'hardened' watcher of violence as I was thinking this would be a great Sci Fi drama similar to Edge of Drkness and it turns out to be a horror of huge proportions. Graphic beyond the need IMO. Shall I watch it all? Unsure about that after the last one.

Apologies for OT comment. 

Phil

 

More bodies in the first programme than an entire season of Midsomer Murders.  I've still not decided whether to watch the rest.

 

Back to the railway challenge...

 

As has been mentioned several times above, reality shows thrive on mild suspense, foreshadowing, "time constraints" and seemingly insoluble problems. As its all for entertainment the Trans-Caledonia Railroad is worth watching. Just don't take it too seriously!

[Coryton]

As has been mentioned several times above, reality shows thrive on mild suspense, foreshadowing, "time constraints" and seemingly insoluble problems. As its all for entertainment the Trans-Caledonia Railroad is worth watching. Just don't take it too seriously!

 

It often looks rather as if they write the script beforehand and then edit what they have to match.

[Mallard60022]

I'm still waiting for the 4 and 20 virgins to come down......

That's because they no longer exist....................................  

 

Why watch highly stressful carp, when life's stressful enough as it is?

Yes, that's right CK but I need to relax after dealing with the Pecoboo Bullshite and FSOOFFS threads.    

Stressed carp = 

 

I.M. Angling.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Mallard60022

[ejstubbs]

I saw them in episode 2 building a viaduct across a flood plain but I don't think I actually saw a train cross it. Did I miss it or is it yet to come ?

 

There was a brief shot of it at the start of episode 3 but the train didn't get that far up the line during the episode.  I think the viaduct is on the concrete spillway from the Caledonian Canal down to the River Oich just north of Bridge of Oich ie here.

 

Screenshot from the programme to compare:

 

 

As an example of how the edit plays a little "fast and loose" with the timeline, I offer this sequence from episode 3:

 

1) Aerial establishing shot of Laggan Locks.  Note that the lock gates 'point' north, so the loco will be arriving along the road which enters the frame at the right-hand side, and will need to cross the canal from right to left.  (Inverness is off the 'bottom' of the screen.)  You can see the truss bridge waiting to be deployed on the left-hand side of the canal.

 

 

2) The truss bridge deployment team standing next to the bridge and spotting the driving team approaching.  They're looking and pointing in the right direction in this shot.

 

 

3) Two seconds later, what is obviously meant to be understood by the viewer to be a shot of the driving team approaching Laggan Locks.  The only problem is, this location is actually a mile and a half further along the route, approaching the Laggan Swing Bridge at the south end of Loch Oich.  According to the narrative, the loco's not even supposed to have got there yet!

 

 

(Google Streetview image of the same location here, in case you don't believe me.)

Edited January 26, 2018 by ejstubbs

[Pacific231G]

It often looks rather as if they write the script beforehand and then edit what they have to match.

They'll have worked out the basic flow of the series in terms of "landmarks" and planned the challenges to make sure that there are a couple in each episode. The archive sequences were probably to some extent pre-cut, at least on paper, and some of the background stuff may have been pre-scripted in advance. They'll also have pre-planned to some extent the deployment of crews and special faciliities such as drones but a series like this does require a great deal of flexibility.

 

Trying to follow a rigidly laid out plan or an over detailed script would be exactly how not to do it. That's true of almost all television production; things simply never go according to plan and you're having to compromise all the time with your carefully laid plans.

 

I did once work as a location director for a producer who insised on trying to follow a very detailed script in great detail. He even tried to push each interviewee into saying exactly what he or she had told him while he was researching the programme and had those answers in the script. It was a total nightmare and the results were horribly stilted but I learned a lot about my craft from that experience!     

Edited January 26, 2018 by Pacific231G

[rockershovel]

.... I think we’ve already established that a programme which uses random “background images” including a single Fairlie in Snowdonia, probably isn’t going to be TOO rigorous in that respect.

 

David Attenborough took some stick a while ago, about footage of polar bear cubs. I thought that was grossly unfair, at least they were fitted seamlessly into the general narrative to make a relevant point. Perhaps he might grow a ‘tache?

[RJS1977]

They'll have worked out the basic flow of the series in terms of "landmarks" and planned the challenges to make sure that there are a couple in each episode. The archive sequences were probably to some extent pre-cut, at least on paper, and some of the background stuff may have been pre-scripted in advance. They'll also have pre-planned to some extent the deployment of crews and special faciliities such as drones but a series like this does require a great deal of flexibility.

 

Trying to follow a rigidly laid out plan or an over detailed script would be exactly how not to do it. That's true of almost all television production; things simply never go according to plan and you're having to compromise all the time with your carefully laid plans.

 

I did once work as a location director for a producer who insised on trying to follow a very detailed script in great detail. He even tried to push each interviewee into saying exactly what he or she had told him while he was researching the programme and had those answers in the script. It was a total nightmare and the results were horribly stilted but I learned a lot about my craft from that experience!     

 

And of course all sorts of unexpected things can happen which make make "better TV" than the original plan, like losing a quad in the canal!

[ForestPines]

.... I think we’ve already established that a programme which uses random “background images” including a single Fairlie in Snowdonia, probably isn’t going to be TOO rigorous in that respect.

I can see how the researchers - who won't have any specialist railway knowledge - made that mistake with Moel Tryfan. I just tried searching Google Images with the phrase "west highland railway black and white" (without the quotes), and roughly half the pictures returned were of the Welsh Highland.

[Zero Gravitas]

We wouldn't want people to get the impression that railway modellers are a bunch of po faced puritans who think "fun" is a sin.

Don’t let some of the contributors to the MRJ threads hear you uttering such heresy!

[45156]

Well it's on again tonight at 8 and I sincerely hope that they redress the balance a bit and show us a bit more of what teams C and especially D have been getting up to, other than the midge bites.  I often told non Scots about these vicious little varmints, but was not believed - some appear to be the size of a sparrow.

[Huw Griffiths]

I can see how the researchers - who won't have any specialist railway knowledge - made that mistake with Moel Tryfan. I just tried searching Google Images with the phrase "west highland railway black and white" (without the quotes), and roughly half the pictures returned were of the Welsh Highland.

 

Well, Wales is to the west of England ... .

 

 

Anyway, it could be suggested that images like these help to illustrate certain points.

 

Similar considerations might also account for the inclusion of different ways of dealing with various challenges along the route - like the "funicular" section for instance - and especially the "ferry", complete with issues about stability and loading / unloading. Even the loss of radio control signal was of interest - as, in some countries, I don't think it's unknown for shunting to be done using radio controlled locos.

 

As for me, I intend to watch today's programme - but I'm looking at it from a different angle to some people. Instead of "model railways", I see it as an easy-viewing series about how a group of people solved certain challenges - engineering challenges - and the challenge of getting on with a group of (quite possibly "frazzled") individuals, the vast majority of whom had every intention of working as a team.

 

It doesn't surprise me that a number of these people appear to have maintained contact after filming ended.

 

 

Huw.

[JeremyC]

In episode 3 I wonder how many spotted the loco in the film clip used to illustrate the item on the Commandos training in the area looked to be a Gresley V4.

 

Regarding this type of programme, my ship was featured in one of those 'fly on the wall' series. It so happened that while we had the film crew onboard nothing interesting happened so a couple of incidents were 'invented'.

Edited January 28, 2018 by JeremyC

[andyram]

I watched the fourth episode tonight. Very enjoyable again. Such a shame that Jenny was sidelined and team D again featured only sporadically. Also a shame that Silver Lady was removed for part of the journey but the cynic in me wonders if this was planned so they could use the end of steam footage and then lead into the steam loco’s heroic return. Unfortunately this meant tha5 the battery loco crossed the viaduct rather than the steam loco.

 

Despite these little niggles I thoroughly enjoyed the episode and look forward to the conclusion next week.

[Huw Griffiths]

Also a shame that Silver Lady was removed for part of the journey but the cynic in me wonders if this was planned so they could use the end of steam footage and then lead into the steam loco’s heroic return. Unfortunately this meant that the battery loco crossed the viaduct rather than the steam loco.

 

This sort of thing wouldn't surprise me - and nothing cynical about that. After all, when the production company were phoning people up to "scope" this series, they were also seeking advice on a number of issues - including what sort of propulsion to use and (if they went electric) whether to go for on-board power. Even from the initial "scoping" phase, I think it was pretty clear that on-board power (of whatever sort) was the way to go.

 

OK - with my background (and my interests), I might have quite enjoyed seeing an electric outline loco drawing juice from a pantograph - but transmission losses would have made such a scheme a non starter. Anyway, James May's BBC series had already made it clear that even getting reliable connections for externally powered electric traction would have been a very tall order with any outdoor "model railway" challenge using hastily assembled track.

 

 

Additionally, a lot of the stuff in the series appears as if it might have been included to illustrate different real-life railway challenges - ways of dealing with them - and decisions that affected full sized railways. I, personally, don't have a problem with this - especially as the production company also appear to have used things that happened during filming, together with key parts of some volunteers' "back stories", in an effort to make a more interesting series (and generally show the volunteers in a sympathetic light).

 

 

However, for me, the real issue with this series is what they'll do for an encore. (I take it there will be an encore.) Let's face it - whatever our individual preferences on the series concept - despite a minority's extreme "negativity for the sheer b****y minded H*ll of it" style cynicism - I suspect that a number of people would reckon that the production company (and Channel 4) have something here with future potential. Anyway, even though this series isn't strictly about what some here would term "model railways", I suspect it's likely to have generated significant additional interest in the hobby. I'm sure it would also be possible to come up with related challenges elsewhere - perhaps building on experience gained during the current series to make improvements to the equipment (eg track) and methods used.

 

OK - as I've previously mentioned, the concept is a different one to what I would have chosen. Compared to what I, personally, would have opted for, it's less "Model World" - more a "reality TV" themed take on "Great Egg Race" or "Scrappy Races" - and nothing wrong with that. Certainly, the concept used here has yielded some very watchable TV. This series has also helped to identify a number of people who could prove very useful in other programmes in the future - either as "resident experts", or as presenters in their own right.

 

I'm definitely looking forward to next week's instalment - even though it is the series finale. I hope the people behind this series exploit the opportunity to use it as a stepping stone for further series. I also hope I encounter some of the people behind this venture in the future - especially at model railway shows. (You never know - if any future challenges don't involve "sleeping under canvas" - or trying to avoid midges - they just might get more volunteers. Whether they'd actually want them is another matter ... .)

 

 

Huw.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Huw Griffiths

[45156]

Nice episode, shame about Jenny's ankle, and again the team being mentioned only a bit - the editing is a little unbalanced in that regard.

 

Also disappointed not to see Silver Lady crossing the viaduct, and a buzz box doing the honours instead - would have made better TV to have steam (and it's pretty clear that there was a reserve loco in place as it was used in the funicular) and if substitutes were being allowed then that should have been used instead.  In fact steam on the viaduct would have been one of the highlights of the show.

 

As a matter if interest, when Stuck Drawbridge was trying to justify using the battery shunter, the reason given was the fact that Silver Lady had a high centre of gravity, hence the derailments, but with all the engineering experience on tap, a solution should have been possible using some additional weight low down?  It does appear to have spent just about as much time on its side than on the "track".

 

All in all, the engineering solutions have been very good indeed, the truss bridge, trestle bridge, viaduct, and spiral have all been well thought out  and proced to work (so far), and the "operation" of the loco has been somewhat of a curate's egg.

Edited January 29, 2018 by 45156

[ForestPines]

Even the loss of radio control signal was of interest - as, in some countries, I don't think it's unknown for shunting to be done using radio controlled locos.

Or, indeed, in Britain - at Scunthorpe steelworks for example.

[andyram]

In response to Hugh - I could not agree more. This series has been excellent and I am sure, if viewing figures have been good, there may be more to come in the future. The difficulty will be finding a different challenge. The running of a model along a long closed line, replacing lost structures in model form perhaps?

[RJS1977]

There's also a narrow gauge railway in Ireland where the passenger service is operated push-pull fashion, with the driver driving the loco by radio control from the carriage for the return journey.

Given the length of the journey and the need for regular fuel/water stops, wouldn't a tender have been a good idea?

[Osgood]

There's also a narrow gauge railway in Ireland where the passenger service is operated push-pull fashion..........

I read that and immediately thought 'oh yes - passengers helping out an ailing engine' ......

 

The art of tracklying has already been perfected by Aardman I believe:

 

http://i.imgur.com/jgHB8Dk.gif

Edited January 29, 2018 by Osgood

[Robin Brasher]

I enjoyed this episode and I agree with the recent comments. I liked the teamwork involved with building the plywood viaduct and helix and the trestle bridge. I also enjoyed watching the shots of model railways. Clare played a prominent part in this episode and this would help to dispel the popular conception of a model railway enthusiast. I was interested to see Dakota as he has organised a lot of model railway exhibitions in southern England including one near the Swanage Railway at Harmans Cross Village Hall.

 

One problem is where do we go from here? What is the next challenge?

 

In the area near the Swanage Railway perhaps we could have a temporary live steam railway along some of the disused narrow gauge clay tramways that are currently used as footpaths or bring back steam in miniature along parts of the Somerset and Dorset Railway or the Yarmouth to Freshwater Railway.