whart57

One thing that probably wasn't clear from the edit is that the buildings on Luctor et Emergo were all based on real prototypes. As an example, here are those buildings made by Malcolm that Steve admired and below, a picture of them taken in the mid 1960s

13 minutes ago, caradoc said:

Agree with all you say Captain Kernow except part of the last sentence - I remain to be convinced that there are any benefits of a GWR branch line terminus !

 

Or a diesel depot ......

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?

13 hours ago, Captain Kernow said:

However, I'm beginning to find less and less credibility in the Scratchbuild Challenge. I do understand the raison-d'etre behind it and how it challenges one's ingenuity and inventiveness, but I think it's being done the wrong way round. I'd now prefer to see the judges say 'build us a whatever', whatever that might be, and let the individuals choose the materials they need to make the best quality model of a whatever that they can in the time.

 

Perhaps a range of materials, both traditional (eg. plasticard, card and wood) can be provided, together with some less usual stuff, such as kitchen utensils, items of clothing or garden furniture.

 

I stand accused of "throwing" the Scratchbuild Challenge, so may be I should be allowed an opinion.

I would have liked the producers to think a bit more deeply about the potential of the items they hand out. In other heats the materials the items were made of had some potential, in Heat 4 I couldn't see any. The plastic sword was made of that flexible polypropylene style plastic that is hard to cut neatly, impossible to sand and doesn't take glue well. Likewise the shuttlecock, an old-style feathered jobbie would have been better. You might have thought the parchment of the tambourine skin would be useful - i thought it might - but it doesn't fold or do anything really. I did, with the help of a lot of glue, manage to make a very bad effort of a tarpaulin covered load, but that was it. As for the jingles ......

Young Harun from the Thunderbolts did a damn good job in my opinion with what we were given. But I would make the plea of give the competitors things they can disassemble and reuse in other ways, then it becomes a meaningful challenge.

2 hours ago, hicksan said:

 The corrugation machine compared to stay-alive capacitors? No contest!

I wrote about the vac forming machine in my blog on here:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blogs/entry/20339-encouraging-my-little-entrepreneurs-or-a-saga-of-a-vacuum-cleaner-and-a-hot-air-gun/

On behalf of the 3 Millers can I thank people for the positive comments.

I agree our operation was a bit basic, but that wasn't the intention. We had planned a more extensive demo but electrical issues (which we managed to keep quiet from the producers ;-) ) and time - the flooding of the polder was not as fast as you might think from watching TV - meant we had to keep it simple.

I agree with the assessments made here that the best team won, but I think we gave them a good scare at times. WCR did stick to the format required a lot better than we did, in fact we probably did ourselves no favours regarding points on the board by being a bit pedantic and "purist" - as Steve Flint might say. In fact on the last morning Steve asked me if we were worried about our reputations. Well no, Steve, if we were worried about our reputations as finescale modellers we wouldn't have been within a hundred miles of Fawley Hill. Our red lines though were that the layout had to be consistent in terms of stock, scenery and historical context and that individual items were to be made to a high standard. Obviously tambourines and shuttlecocks presented a problem there.

What we hoped to show though is that it is possible to be serious railway modellers and still enjoy taking part in something like the Challenge. We just wish we'd still had the energy we had twenty years ago. And we hoped to show that it's possible to build a "proper" layout and still make something fit for TV. I think we achieved those aims.

24 minutes ago, RJS1977 said:

However they could have used TT for perspective modelling had they wished.

 

We did. Apart from the lineside cottage with the flags which was HO scale to match the stock, all the buildings were made to 3mm scale.

You know what I always think is a shame when I see those Hornby 4-wheelers is how they look so unlike Victorian carriages. They are far too tall. I suppose there was a bit of making them fit the profile of later coaches but to me that was an opportunity lost

The inspiration for the Three Millers layout can be read elsewhere on rmweb:

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/125424-overseas-railways-worth-modelling/&do=findComment&comment=2828722

2 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I think the competition works alright as a TV format- though series three will need some new ideas

 

People will no doubt get the chance to bend Knickerbockerglory's ears at Warley next month.

From the TV programme point of view a roundy-roundy has the advantage that it's easy to keep something moving in the background during all the retakes

12 minutes ago, Neil said:

We were trying in the sense that we wanted to be satisfied with the work we did, even if we weren't bothered if we won. 

I think a lot of the competitors felt that way. You want to be proud of what you produce under the circumstances but you aren't that bothered about beating the other guy

11 hours ago, Neil said:

That would be my mate Ian and I would respectfully refer you to my earlier post about the majority of our team having little interest in winning despite the best efforts of the production company to get us to pronounce otherwise.

That did get a bit wearing. Though I can see KBG's point, it's a competition, if you don't want to win then why are you here? We took the line that we wanted to achieve something memorable. You'll have to watch this Friday to see whether we achieved that

2 hours ago, Aire Head said:

So do you get to keep everything that goes on to the layouts? 

Well it becomes yours to dispose of, yes. Most of our stuff went either to clubs or to enthusiasts in straitened circumstances

9 hours ago, RedgateModels said:

Oh dear, just seen the trailer for e4..... 

 

Full crosti with smoke out of the lighting up chimney

I can assure you though that model railway history was made

Well if we're going to get stuck into pedantry .........

When Wells wrote the book, would he have been aware that Mars' gravity is a fraction of earth's? Since that would be determinable from basic Newtonian mechanics you would expect him to know that, but have his Martians accounted for that in the design of their tripods?

Also what were Wells' politics? Was his story of invasion by aliens with vastly superior weaponry a bit of a nudge to his readers of the time. A sort of "hey you smug Brits, when we conquered the Empire, we, with our Gatling guns and artillery were the Martians, and the natives with spears and clubs were the earthlings"

1 hour ago, LocoLadies CF said:

You might want to look out for something that I said to the “interrogator” if you watch our Heat tomorrow. Her name is Suki - she was lovely really but........ 

I'm hoping most of my footage with Suki ended up on the cutting room floor, as they said in pre-digital days. But I will watch tomorrow.

We met you guys briefly in the hotel car park btw, we were arriving for Heat 4 as you got back from Fawley.

Ah, yes, the interrogator ........ 

The one on the left is Maddy from the production office, on the right is the assistant director who was in charge of all the head and shoulders interview shots at Fawley Hill.

10 hours ago, john new said:

How do the figures include recorded and watched later? We did that due to two shows we wanted to see being on at the same time.

They don't. When we were at Fawley Hill the producers stressed to us that we should encourage people to watch live and not on catch up as it is the BARB live figures that C5 will use to decide whether to commission a series Three.

Mind you, if the viewing figures stay North of one million per heat the chances of another series are good.

I did suggest to the producers some months before recording that a Scrapbox Challenge might be more realistic. Give the contestants a selection of broken Dinky toys, half-built kits and off-cuts of Plastruct and see what they come up with

Strange bins that have three of each item in though .......

22 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

 the real ship on which Wells based Thunderchild, HMS Polyphemus, was one of several ships with that name.

 

As Polyphemus was, in Greek mythology, the son of the God of Storms, I suspect Wells was showing of his Classicism.

Polyphemus was also the cyclops (one eyed giant) blinded by Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey

It did seem that more time was spent in this episode talking to team members about their models. Bodes well for future episodes

11 hours ago, PhilJ W said:

They stated at the beginning that they were going to bring it forward in time (The war of the worlds) to the present day. After all they could have selected 'The time machine' as their theme.

Yes, but they still had a gunboat on the lake though - which is rather Edwardian.

Having been a team captain and thus seen what teams could get in terms of rolling stock I suspect pre-Group stuff might have been a problem. Teams were restricted to what suppliers like Hornby and Bachmann had available at the time of order.  While there are lovely Edwardian locos and stock advertised on websites that doesn't mean that was in warehouses available to ship. I certainly had to scale back on what I envisaged through lack of availability.

On 17/09/2019 at 17:16, D9001 said:

But to me this programme isn’t about model railways at all, it’s about gimmicky, and frankly ridiculous, animations such as volcanoes made from old clothing. The actual model railways seem secondary to the silly animations and, as with series 1, i have watched one programme but won’t be watching any more.

 

In which case you might be giving up too soon. I like to think that the animations we provided in a later heat were an integral part of a layout with a story