whart57

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Wagons too...

 

So we have Business Class and Executive class in the top train, Premium Economy and Economy in the second one. Plus ca change ......

On 06/01/2020 at 09:15, Hroth said:

In their 2020 range, Hornby have announced Rocket with three coaches....

 

 

 

Simon Kohler must have uncovered the old moulding tools

To say a kit was designed for Romford wheels is to open up a whole can of worms in 3mm scale. Originally Romford followed other manufacturers in offering products for the then new TT scale in the 1950s. Then when TT waned in popularity these wheels disappeared and people used small diameter OO scale wheels, as the TT gauge axles were still available. Later still Romfords disappeared and reappeared as Markits, one of whose products was a 16.5mm diameter wheel produced to 3mm Society specs and sold through the Society (though may also be available through 3SMR). This history means that "Romford wheels" covers a range of variations in number of spokes and crankpin throw.

Another issue with white metal kits and crankpin throw however is the basic one of white metal foot plates being vastly overscale in thickness. Even if the crankpin throw on the wheels is correct, the chances are with large wheeled locos - like 4-4-0s - that the coupling rods still foul the thick footplate. A bit of localised thinning is probably required.

If you are thinking of an airport then it might be worth seeing if you can find a copy of Issue 9 of Archive. This issue of the transport history journal appeared in 1996 and contains a piece on the earliest history of Gatwick airport and its "beehive" terminal. The "beehive" was Gatwick's passenger terminal from 1936 to 1958 so fits your period. It's also relatively small - about 12" diameter in 3mm scale (it's a circular building) - and like its successor South and North terminals had a connection with a railway station, albeit that the modern Gatwick Airport station is half a mile or so further North.

The Beehive still exists as an office building - not to be confused with the Wetherspoons pub inside the Gatwick terminals that has taken the name - so can be seen in real life, or through the many images posted on the internet. The Archive article has some drawings that could be used to inspire a model.

On the internet there's a company called Glencoe that does a 1:96 Vickers Viscount, which is very 1950-ish.

I would advise utmost scepticism regarding these reports of road steam carriages giving successful service. Firstly on the grounds that putting boiler, firebox and passenger compartment on the same frame proved next to impossible on the railways, even with the advantage of only needing the power to run on smooth rails and gentle gradients. And secondly that the only road steam vehicles we know that were successful were in effect mobile power units (traction engines) or highly specialised work tools (road rollers). There were a small number of successful steam powered passenger vehicles towards the end of the 19th century but, crucially, these appeared after Mr Dunlop had invented the pneumatic tyre. They, and the small number of steam lorries, also benefited from developments in steel making and working that were unavailable in the 1830s which made smaller boilers and geared transmissions possible.

We also have the evidence of the Rainhill trials available to us. Rocket and Sans Pareil were the successful designs (Sans Pareil failed on the day but went on to give as many years of profitable service as Rocket did), but Novelty failed to live up to the hype. And it's Novelty that deployed the technology that road vehicles attempted to use.

The December issue of Continental Modeller contains two articles on GMRC layouts. Team Grantham's Swiss-inspired layout from the heats and the Three Miller's Dutch floods layout are both given a decent spread over several pages

36 minutes ago, wombatofludham said:

One surprise that didn't appear was a miniature Cilla Black.  When I reworked "King's Oak" to include a model of Crossroads I included Jill, Adam and the Ghost of Meg stood talking outside the entrance whilst being filmed by ATV so I'm sure someone could have procured a mini Cilla.

Wrong "Surprise Surprise". In fact the producers were horrified to realise the theme could be interpreted as Cilla's TV show and told me at least that they didn't want anything Cilla-inspired

From the Three Millers team perspective, there's nothing to top the morning of the second day when we did the test of running a locomotive through the water. No, we hadn't sneakily tested it when the cameras weren't around, what you saw on screen was real "reality television". We hadn't even planned to do it that way, that was forced on us by both Ian and myself having forgotten to pack our multimeters. Of course I had dunked a piece of track in water and measured the resistance before we went anywhere near Fawley Hill but I wasn't sure whether the resistance was high enough to allow a train to run. So, it was a first for us as well as the judges, presenters and other teams.

Now the deed is done, the prizes awarded, the dust has settled, now the time has come to list those moments that remain stuck in the mind. One of mine is Team Grantham's captain starting their semifinal demo with:

"In days of yore when knights were bold, and Tim's jokes were already old ....."

40 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

 

I understood that James was talking about the height of the figures, not the scale, as 7mm equates to 5'9" in 00. (Though I'm sure Tim is much taller than that!).

Err 7mm equates to 1' 9" in OO. Even James is taller than that ......

36 minutes ago, noiseboy72 said:

Apparently the Surprise Surprise theme came from the Channel 5 commissioning editor himself!

 

It stumped us during our planning and had we made it through, planned to present magic tricks - all involving the layout. Quite how that would have worked with the way the demonstrations were orchestrated, I don't know, as we would have needed interaction with the judges and presenters to make it work.

Stumped us too. One "surprise" we had planned was to build the final layout using OO gauge track but with rolling stock to 1:32 scale. A couple of "Smokey Joes" would have been given big cabs and long funnels.

Our Luctor et Emergo layout was dismantled on its return home. It was never a practical proposition for the exhibition circuit and our team members either avoid exhibitions or are already committed to other layouts on the circuit. I did approach the Watersnoodmuseum in Zeeland back in April whether they'd be interested in taking it over after the recording but they never got back to me. Not until after our heat had been broadcast and they'd had a tip off from another source ..........

The upshot is that we are going to take some of the features - the lock gates, the signal cottage, the causeway - and make a small diorama which will then hopefully go into their museum.

I think I can give a quick plug here - the museum website is https://watersnoodmuseum.nl/, click on the union flag for the English language version. The province of Zeeland is a great place for a long weekend or week's holiday, only three hours from the Channel Tunnel terminal at Calais or a bit over an hour from Hook of Holland, with typical Dutch towns (Veere is particularly good tourist eyecandy), massive sandy beaches and, as you'd expect for the Netherlands, uber cycle-friendly.

Well the old uncle did it for the Railmen again, didn't he? What has set the Railmen apart from their competitors has been the quality scratchbuilding on the grand scale, real Bake-Off style "showstoppers". On the other hand Gwion and his boys have showed us what the future holds and that is quite exciting. OK, animated grazing triceratops may not be your thing but forget the plastic dinosaur, look beyond to what else can be made to move. I think that on the night the dead heat for the final was spot on, with the Railmen winning on the overall scores for the series. I would have liked WCR to win, but that's only because it would have been nice to say we went out to the eventual winners ........

But hey, did anyone really interpret the theme of "Surprise Surprise"? My suspicion this was a dud was somewhat confirmed. OK two great layouts emerged but either could have been built with a different theme heading.

1. O1, probably from the shot down Jidenco kit from 1980-ish

34 minutes ago, noiseboy72 said:

We had access to a certain amount of Bachmann product, but nothing much from the others you mention.

We ordered a couple of NS vans from Bachmann (Liliput) and I had an American ALCO Mogul, a "Western" style combine (aka brake 3rd) and a couple of box cars on the order for the semi-final. Whether those would have actually appeared if we'd got through is unknown of course. The Hornby International stuff wasn't available.

Nor was everything Gaugemaster had on their website, only certain manufacturers. I pointed out the the producers that as most Blockbusters were American it might be useful to be able to buy American style buildings and KBG did get GM to add the Walthers building products to the list of available products.

This replica of De Arend (Eagle) was built in 1939 for the centenary of the Dutch railways. Owing to the fact it was broad gauge it was not possible to send it round the country on tour so a short section of broad gauge track was laid in an Amsterdam park where it pulled some replica carriages. My mother remembered going on it as a young girl. (The replica that is, not the original!)

25 minutes ago, noiseboy72 said:

Would that count as a pre-build??

Nah, it's rolling stock isn't it

Anyway, we didn't make the semis so this is what you missed:

18 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

 

They have already been asking for teams - but in telly land this doesn't make a new series a certainty.

For series two KBG had already selected the teams for Heats 1-4 (Heat 5 was a late addition) when they made the final pitch to Channel 5. In fact teams had to provide self-taken videos to KBG which were then used in that pitch.

KBG will want to do a third series because that is their business. The decision will be Channel 5's though.

I would love there to be a series three. However if there were then I think there need to be some changes in format, either from the producers or from team captains. The layouts that worked best in my opinion were ones that had a consistent feel to them - well as Three Millers captain I would say that, wouldn't I. However I would say that the Railmen of Kent's two layouts seen so far also had that consistent feel as did the Team Grantham's heat offering. (I suppose TG's semi-final offering did too, but that had ceased to be a model railway, clever and well-executed though it was). I would propose that teams think first about what they are trying to achieve as a model railway and then only second about how many animations they need.

If there is a third series then I think a review of the "theme" methodology is required. Are there really another eight "themes" to be dreamt up before we get into the sillies. The final theme of "Surprise Surprise" is a horrible stretch. It may also be worth moving away from the standard 10x5 baseboard and have different shapes in different heats - 10x5, long shelf (15' x 2' perhaps), L shape etc. It might be also a challenge for the semifinal for teams to build a 6x4 "layout for the kids", testing their skills not just to build models but also to create a fun model railway

I wonder too if other scales could be incorporated. Could there be a running OO vs N gauge competition over the heats, the cumulative score being used to determine a wild card entry into a later stage

And the scratchbuild challenge .............

Well we all have our gripes about that, but the worst imo is that if you have a layout with a theme to it, or one that tells a story, then it's hard to fit in a random item

Maybe this is all a topic for another thread, but as a team captain I really enjoyed taking part. It was hard work, I slept for two days solid after filming - at least that's what it felt like. And it took a month or two before I could even contemplate modelling again. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world. I just hope that others get the chance to do this, but also that they do in a fresh manner and not just in a reheated series two.

22 hours ago, CharlieJohnson said:

Thank you. Tbh for about the first hour I was totally clueless about what to make using those items but did have loads of fun creating what I did. 

Your SBC in the heat was pretty good too.

(Steve Flint told me my effort was the most creative he had seen in a SBC, Kathy had a very different opinion though)

Gab gear only offers forward and reverse, not varying levels of cut-off. Which was the first engine with proper variable valve gear?

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

A nicely modelled vision of rural Holland.  The sailing barge even has the correct leeboards on the sides to stop it going sideways into the reeds!

 

But yes, in real life you'd see occasional disturbances in the water behind the swan, and a chuckle of water at the bow of the barge.  However, seeing as everything else apart from the trains were "frozen solid" I can forgive the lack of water animation!

I'd propose it's the sort of animation that would do more for the hobby than a volcano ........

1 hour ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

 

They may have been, but well into the 20th century sailing ships carrying cargo were still plying the world's oceans using manpower to do the hard work. While in the 19th century until steam power and coaling facilities both improved, sail was still used as a reserve source of propulsion. However this was really after steam power was first applied to propulsion of ships. So the use of a steam engine to power a ship was quite early and if memory serves was about coincidental with the first applications of steam power to create the proto-locomotives. It was really just like the early days of the automobile when their use had to be carefully planned to consider the availability of petrol stations, although I don't believe that anyone seriously considered extending the chassis to carry a horse in reserve.

The earliest examples of steam power on ships were indeed around the same time as the first steam locomotives. The fact that steam did not wholly supplant sail for another century or more (sailing barges were still plying the estuaries up to the second world war) is another example of economics being more important than technology. Steam power was simply not economic for most freight. The history of Cutty Sark shows that. Ships like that lost the trade in high value cargoes such as China tea decades before they lost to steam on lesser value cargoes such as wool where the cargo wouldn't spoil through delay and therefore the cost of coal was more significant