LNER4479

Yep, that was pretty much more or less how we faced up to the start of Day 1. Exactly my reaction as well! I told stern Steve what a boring trackplan it was ... to which he admitted that it was his design! Anyway, only a few hours to go before finding out what we did in the circumstances....

Classic design never goes out of fashion

Thanks Laurie - glad TB1 struck a chord. We (Team Grantham) are of a certain age that grew up with Supermarionation - Thunderbirds was a firm favourite of mine - so the opportunity to include our little homage was just too good to miss. It was also good fortune that the TB1 model fitted perfectly on a OO flat wagon!

Well, as a die-hard LMS fan (despite my Grantham inspired user name), with the 'Duchess' type being my all time fave loco, it worked for me every time. Although you don't get much time to admire other teams efforts, I did notice that the coaches had been repainted in the same colour scheme. When the space city buildings were (eventually!) brought in, the overall effect was most striking.

Thanks Andy, As RMWeb members tend to be interested in the background / logistics then I think I'm OK whetting your appetite as follows: For the semi-finals, all teams were presented with identical 'trainset' boards, ie with track already laid. You were allowed to add to or amend the track layout if you wanted to. As has already been highlighted, the idea is that all three of your layouts had to be capable of being joined together in the event of you getting to the final so this middle layout thus had a lead in from the left and a lead out on the right. You had to have prepared and submitted a design for what you were going to attempt, despite naturally focussing on your heat layouts, which was something of a challenge in itself. NO pre-building was allowed but the pre-ordering of the equipment from the series sponsors was essentially the same. The scratchbuilt challenge was still in there - and your design had to incorporate a loading and unloading feature. Not that I'm looking for sympathy at all (I'll only find that in a dictionary), but as the winners of Heat 5 we had the short straw as the filming schedule was such that the shoot for Semi-Final was DIRECTLY the day after the last day of Heat 5 (this appeared to be a consequence of the format change as this would originally have been the second of two quarter finals filmed back-to-back). So we simply stayed overnight in one of Reading's Purple Palaces (all provided for by KBG) and were back at Fawley Hill the very next day, our pre-ordered stuff waiting for us. There was no time to celebrate our Heat 5 win; instead - and as Andrew had dryly predicted (in the event of us winning Heat 5) - it was indeed the 'mother of all pub discussions' over a late night pizza and a pint (or two). I hadn't fully appreciated how much of the design was still in my head! Great banter with the crew and the other two teams on site. I hope you enjoy what happened next ...

Absolutely, Matt. This was undoubtedly the most time-consuming task. You THINK you know the manufacturer's catalogues and - of course - stock is a relatively easy pick. But consider: track, electrics, buildings, scenic materials, road vehicles, figures, glue ... They all have to be ordered. I spent literally hours on the internet, punching in product code after product code to bring up an image so I could be sure of what we were ordering. The other team members can help, but someone has to fill in the order forms, check you haven't gone over the limit and - if you have - sort out who doesn't get what. Have you ever tried going through the Faller buildings range?!?!?! (happily available to us via the Gaugemaster sponsorship). And yes - being in Heat 5 (the last heat), we all had to order our stuff for Semi-Final 1 as well. They were all delivered to Fawley Hill and the KBG team insisted that we checked through them all to ensure the orders were correct ... all whilst we were trying to build our Heat 5 layouts with of course no idea of whether we would actually be progressing through to the next round or not! Feel quite sorry for Railway Sleepers the way it turned out - seeing all that stuff then having to go home empty handed. Of course, none of this is ever shown on the tele!

You know it makes sense! Thanks to you and others for congrats so far. More detailed information on our involvement is in the GMRC section of this forum: https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/forum/347-great-model-railway-challenge-2019-channel-5-series-2/ I don't mind commenting about our involvement on this thread but I am conscious that there are some non-believers out there who are hoping that this thread stays in the realm of all things 1930s LNER. We should have some real Grantham news shortly in any case as it is now less than 4 weeks to go until our next public appearance, at the Spalding Show, 2nd/3rd November. Some of us will be wearing our 'Team Grantham' T-shirts with pride, notwithstanding...

As Andy (York) alluded to earlier, the new issue of BRM (Nov 19) carries an interview with Team Grantham about our involvement in this year's competition (it states that Heat 5 is due to air this Friday but of course subsequent events have proved that to be incorrect). My sub. copy has just landed on the doormat so I can see how it turned out. It contains the trackplan which I sent to Howard and co, so I won't post that here. However, the image below hasn't been used so thought that might be of interest. We didn't strictly speaking had to produce such a drawing but, given some of the complex aspects of the design, it was actually quite useful to the team to help visualise things. You were encouraged as a team to send in as much detail as you could about your plan so that the production team could review and give you the green light (or otherwise). Also, attached below is the overall design description and my subsequent project plan, showing how we might break down and share out the build amongst us. The latter document makes for sobering reading now the programme has aired as it makes me realise how far behind we were at times and how much had to be ditched in order to get the thing finished! Don't tell Steve or Kathy.... (they knew!) Again, this post partly in case others are interested in getting involved in future series as an idea of how much is involved and what a personal commitment it all is. Team Grantham - Heat 5 layout design description.docx Heat 5 project plan.xlsx

My sub. copy just arrived; nice to see something of our GMRC adventure in print. Thanks to Howard / Debbie for nice job they've made of that. Hope the message about the late change of date got out in time - if you haven't already been there, there is a thread about the episode 5 / Heat 5 that we were in and which aired on Friday night in the GMRC section of the forum. Looks a good issue (despite our three pages) with plenty of good layout articles to get stuck in to.

Yes, there was 'no under 18s' rule for the demonstrations, which I thought was a bit disappointing. I assumed this was because of the presenter's risqué double-entendre material... And then three little lads turned up who were transfixed by our rocket launch (they were standing right next to me as I was doing by narration and that was genuinely the look on their faces). 'Great!', I thought, as this is exactly the age group that we're trying to inspire. One of the little lads came up to me afterwards and told me how much he'd enjoyed the rocket launch - turned out that he was the son of one of the KBG sound technicians so, presumably, that's 'allowed'?

This is the official reason, from Pat Doyle, the series producer: "Channel 5 are keen to explore which slot works best for us - the theory being that we may do better against Strictly on Saturdays, than we do against Eastenders and Corrie on Fridays. They do experiments like this from time to time. "Show 6 (semi final 1) is currently scheduled to go out on Saturday 12th - but if Saturdays aren’t as successful for us I can see them switching us back to Fridays for the remainder of the run." So there you are. The programme makers themselves (KnickerbockergloryTV) have no control over what Channel 5 decide to do, but it does appear that the channel are otherwise well-disposed toward the programme and I'll be surprised if there isn't a series 3. Apologies for repeat of post above - we were obviously typing at the same time!

My eye was immediately drawn to your layout during last year's final for exactly that reason. But there was very little shown in the programme over how you went about it, it was just 'ping!' and there it was, which was a bit of a shame. It wasn't quite the case that we were inspired by what you did but I did think of your layout as I cut out our girt big 'ole for our riverbed. Thanks for showing this. Am I right in saying that the N gauge Saltash bridge has now been finished off as an exhibit in its own right?

The more you're showing us stuff like this, the more I appreciate your layout. Some of this is top modelling. What a pity the judges, stern Steve especially, didn't pick up on this and give it more credit?

No worries about your comments - Stern Steve alluded to a similar thing. For what it's worth, after 13 years on work, Grantham still needs a general coat of weathering - the buildings, signals, canopies are far too CLEAN compared to contemporary photographs. Clearly not one of our strong points. Re the rocket. NO, certainly no insistence from Pat Doyle or any other person in the production company. But, as explained earlier, we were required to have three animations so the rocket launch was our third. One detail not previously mentioned is that the full title of the challenge for Heat 5 as presented to us was: 'The sky's the limit. The space race. To infinity and beyond'. Hardly surprising therefore that each of us had a rocket / space ship. Part of the inspiration for the rocket on our layout was the thought that the solid rocket motors for the space shuttle were transported to Cape Canaveral by rail. Flying Scotsman in Switzerland? Why not - she's been to most of the rest of the world! Seriously though, the answer for us is simply that model European motive power is bloomin' expensive and would have blown the Gaugemaster budget in one single purchase. Far more useful stuff was available to us from Gaugemaster, mainly the Faller buildings. FS, the three MkIs and the ED were all Railroad items, thus making best use of the Hornby budget.

Exactly the opposite, in fact!! We were actually one of the reserve teams, not having made it to the initial selection of teams for this year's GMRC. The format was originally only going to have 12 teams but then two Quarter Finals, a semi final (where only one team would have been eliminated) and a final with three teams in. But there was then a change of heart, Quarter Final 1 was converted to Heat 5 and Quarter Final 2 into the first of two Semi Finals. This had a slightly unfortunate consequence for us as the winners of Heat 5 as I will relate following next week's show. I'm not sure whether the two other teams in Heat 5 were also on the 'waiting list' or whether they spread the other two teams around in other heats. A couple of other details which may - or may not - be of interest: Clearly the editing takes great licence with the recorded material, as of course they are entitled to do in the name of entertainment. The conversation about the relative size(!) of the rockets actually took place on Day 1; the chat with myself and Andrew was actually filmed during the semi-final! Also, we DID test our track before Day 3 - we're not that stupid. Apart from the right hand board, all track was wired up and thoroughly tested back at team HQ as part of the pre-build phase and, being Code 100 on foam ballast (a Grantham trademark) we were pretty confident it would perform. The testing that was shown on the programme took place towards the end of Day 2 when we did a complete dry run through of our planned demonstration, tweaking things as we went. Andrew taking advantage of the hole in Board 1 to install the wiring during pre-build There has been a lot of talk in these threads about the special effects / gimmicks taking precedence over the railway modelling. To clarify therefore that the rules of the competition stated that you were expected to include at least THREE animations in your layout - otherwise you would lose points. So they had to be there. Our three were: the radio telescope; the funicular railway; the rocket launch. I think in our case therefore that only the rocket launch could be accused of being a 'gimmick', although it was of course the climax of the 'story' rather than a random effect. I've certainly seen exhibition layouts with working funicular / cliff railways so nothing novel or 'strained' about that - but it counted as an animation separate from the main railway. Thanks to Phil Parker in spotting how the funicular vehicle was made. That was largely Tom's work, although Andrew insisted in fitting lights in that as well! The vehicle was all made on site at Fawley Hill; we were uncertain whether that was taking pre-build too far so decided to play it safe. Richie was our only unspoken member in the programme; he was largely our buildings meister as well as the unenviable task of making curved platforms out of the Metcalfe kits - he also made the cloud right at the end, which Stern Steve noted in favourable terms. Tom also did sterling work on figure painting which wasn't really featured - this little close up of the beer garden should give you some idea For what it's worth, our six pre-build items were as follows: The main station building (Richie) The Landwasser viaduct (myself) The radio telescope (Andrew) The funicular incline (myself) The funicular top station / winding house (Andrew) The mountaintop space station (Paul) In case you think that Tom wasn't pulling his weight(!) then he was busy figure painting and stock painting as part of pre-build (both allowed for in the rules), three Railroad Mk1s were repainted into our 'Skytrain' livery (which was the same for the funicular car and the (two!) rockets. Hope that's of interest. Partly composed in case others are pondering taking part in GMRC3. Finally (for now) - I think I did mention it earlier but the layout will be available for exhibitions. Despite the speed build, we were careful to watch baseboard joins so it all comes apart successfully. Although we'll retain the GMRC stock for it, I am on the look out for suitable continental stock so that we have a reasonable variety at a show. I would really like to relay the branchline as HOm (meter gauge) as I think that would be more fitting (the real railway over the Landwasser viaduct is metre gauge afterall!). So if anyone has any Swiss / German / Austrian stock they don't know what to do with...

Crikey - she doesn't hang around, does she? https://www.kathymillatt.co.uk/blog/2019/10/05/great-model-railway-challenge-2019-heat-5/

Oh, alright then - here it is in situ As was apparent, this was one of our six pre-build items. You can spend as long as you want on a pre-build in the time before the filming dates but it has to be part of the ordered items / budget. In fact, as Andrew described, the structure was built out of scrap N gauge rail (ie zero cost). He did buy the reflector especially - apparently it is a true parabolic shape so would truly reflect the rays to the receiver. It runs on a circle of track which was a yard of Code 75 which I had to hand. It is powered by a spare 4-wheeled tram bogie which is hidden under the box (Andrew's speciality is tramway modelling - he is the builder of Whitburn Corporation Tramways, which has been on the exhibition circuit for 25 years or more). He took great delight in making the other three bogies with wheels orientated radially. The motor for tilting the reflector is a recycled motor from a kit built loco. So scratchbuilding in its most delightful sense. But for goodness sake don't go on about it too much - I'll never hear the last of it from him...

Phew! Glad that's over ... thanks for comments so far. Well done to M&GN and Railway Sleepers as between us we seemed to conjure up the highest-scoring heat. We were subsequently told that we had scored the highest of all the heat layouts and that we scored a perfect 10 for functionality. However, didn't know about the other 10 for build quality; made up about that so take a bow Paul, Tom and Richie who worked their magic on the blank scenic canvas. Andrew's wizardry soldering pieces of N gauge rail has already been (deservedly) well highlighted. I have a comprehensive sequence of pictures of the build from the bare boards first arriving to taking part at Fawley Hill. Happy to post some of these but I'll be holding a few back for the BRM guys as there's talk of a further article after the one in the issue about to come out. I've also taken some pictures of the layout with continental stock on, as a conversation with 'Stern Steve' led to a slant on the layout for Continental Modeller, no less!

Buckle up - here we go!

Well said that man! EXACTLY the ethos behind Team Grantham's involvement in this year's competition. Judge for yourself tonight how well we did in that context...

In which case, you must have missed the final scores chart, which was only on screen for a few brief seconds (as it has been for all episodes): Heat 4 Provisional Final WCR 8 0 6 14 8 0 6 8 22 3 MIllers 7 0 7 14 7 0 7 7 21 Titfield 7 2 4 13 8 2 4 5 19 As you can probably tell, I've been keeping a close watch as I was genuinely interested in how the scoring was worked. You can see that there was one adjustment from provisional to final and in other episodes some of the scores have been adjusted more than this.

Aw c'mon - you can at least watch just ONE more (then you'll have seen all the teams). I'd love to say that Heat 5 is a good one ... but I'm in it, so I can't say that!

Yes, was a pleasure to host Howard Smith & Debbie Wood to team HQ and was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon, reliving our GMRC Heat 5 experience. Looking forward to my sub. copy hitting the mat. Will be able to comment a lot more and post an odd photo or two this time tomorrow.

Yes, I was quite taken by the Dutch flood layout in the end as well, some good modelling aside from the spectacular effect. If only he'd thought of using the vanes of the shuttlecock to make a sails of a windmill...

RT now on the stands reads as follows: Unusually in such genial competition (moved unceremoniously from its usual home on Friday), there's tension between team members in the final heat. "We're falling behind time!" says a worried captain. "It will be ready when it's ready", says a modeller, with barely concealed annoyance. But even little spats like this do little to ruffle the cheery calm as Team Grantham, the Railway Sleepers and Muddle and Go Nowhere build layouts on the theme of "The Sky's the Limit". There are too many weak and smutty puns from the presenters, but forget them and take delight in a model parabolic telescope. [Alison Graham] Team Grantham? That would be us then! I might at one stage have said something about falling behind? If I did, then it will have added to the drama the production team so craved. Alison Graham certainly likes the programme and has unfailingly given it a plug each week. Good for her! Win or lose, we were proud of the layout we built (which is destined for an exhibition future). Can't wait to see how it comes across on the programme.