dougattrenholmebar

Here's a re-work of a favourite video of mine, produced a while ago, with the snow effect added.

This week didn't turn out as I planned. I was expecting a new camera to arrive and it didn't. I was to spend the time getting to know it and to see how it was to edit the new footage. The new lockdown has kicked in, and the weather has turned very wintry and with temperatures down to minus eight, its not very warm in the Train Shed. This is the third video I have produced this week which reflects the weather outside. All three have used previously issued footage and shows how using special effects can substantially change the look of what is, the same model. The process has two elements, the snow on the ground and the falling snow. The snow on the ground is relatively straight forward to achieve but the falling snow is a bit more tricky. In the first two videos I opted for the very little wind option and it works really well, I had the chance of watching it first hand out of the window on the first day of snowfall. Snow rarely falls straight down its affected by wind, air currents and heat from machines, houses, industry etc. so in this video the snow has a more natural fall pattern and I hope this is noticeable. For those of you wanting a video on how to do this, forget it, the amount of computer power you need to do this is huge, making videos isn't an option.

Adding the snow special efffects to another of the earlier videos, echoing the weather conditions here today.

Just a repeat of a recent popular video with the special effects of snow added to the scene. First attempt, don't be too harsh with the critisim.

Travelling on board one of the Diesel Multiple Units from the Upper North Station to the Main station. Three cameras on board, one in the cab, and two in the following passenger coach, looking out of each side. Merry Christmas and a Happy, Prosperous and Safe New Year to all my subscribers, friends and supporters of this channel. Thanks to Ian Andrews (Side windows) and Stephen Lynn (Cab View) for allowing me to use their images.

Sitting on a wall at the end of the parcels platform on Main Station at Trenholme Junction this week and watching the comings and goings from the south end of the station. A bright winters day with a brisk breeze ushering the clouds by.

In this weeks video we are following a Class 16 locomotive which is on Station Pilot duty at the Main Station on Trenholme Junction. We open with a Class 25 passing through the junction on the goods line with a short train of boilers. The Class 16 arrives and removes four coaches from the north carriage sidings and places them in the north bay platform in the station. A Collet 0-6-2 steamer appears with a short mixed goods and runs through the parcels station road and off through the tunnel. The class 16 then removes a parcels van from the centre road and attaches it to the coaches, then leaves. Finally, another Class 25 arrives and takes the train off to the southern end of Trenholme Junction.

Watching trains pass by on the upper level of Trenholme Junction this week. It is a windy cloudy day. We have two vantage points. At the first we are looking from the footbridge on the Main Station looking on the approach to the Upper North Station. The second is standing on the fence at the Upper North Station. An empty tanker train first passes, followed by a Peak on a through passenger working, then a slow mixed goods and a parcels service. A DMU service leaves from the branch platform.

If you have been watching the videos from the last two weeks, I have been producing rides in a passenger coach on Trenholme Junction. The first was around the upper level with grey skies as a background. The second was an experiment froma moving car and was just that, an unrefined effort to test reaction. This one, the final effort, uses techniques which synchronise the foreground and background speeds for the sky and none of the low level trees and hedges. This video covers both levels of Trenholme Junction at a scale speed around 50 mph. Vast amounts of work for this type of production, won't be doing another in a hurry.

One of the comments from last weeks video was the lack of sky and clouds. There was a sky, it was a grey day sky, and, it was moving. The perception that it was a still was probably because the clouds were moving in the same direction as the train. I've tried several times to solve a moving train and sky without sucess, my latest conclusion was that it could only be possible with a 360 degree camera. Lots of cash for something I'd use very little. After wasting most of the week getting more and more complicated ideas, I had a eureka moment and bought a window sucker mount (£8) for my camera, stuck it to the car window and drove along the main road when I went shopping. The video is the same journey we took last week, but the car journey video is now the background and shows not only the sky but all the hills, trees and hedges as well. I also noticed an unexpected bonus of this technique. The road on which I shot the background video is straight and when married with the model video, which has two 180 degrees bends, its hard to notice where the bends are, effectively straightening it out. The work in progress part is getting the speed between the train and the background synchronised. You can't how hard that is when trying to judge a model and drive a real car at a speed proportional to it. Driving along a 60 mph road at 40 mph also hacks off an unbelievable amount of people. The amount of work to do this type of thing is enormous, so I never got to make the usual new video this week, but I thought this was interesting enough to show anyway.

You are about to take a table in a coach taking you on a journey around Trenholme Junction high level. Tickets are complimentary. For those of you who want to know how its done. There are three layers: 1) The sky is a video I took whilst looking from my home 2) The main video is shot on Trenholme Junction, a model railway, set in the 1960's. 3) The view from the inside of the coach is a photograph taken by James Culver who has given his kind permission for me to use. All three elements are joined together using the brilliant Vegas Post video editing software package.

Another summer day in 1963 and Platform Ticket in hand at the south end of Main Station at Trenholme Junction absorbing the coming and goings of a railway on the change over from steam to deisel traction.

A Class 20 hauling a train of vans emerges from the lower level incline and passes on the through road of the Upper East Station at Trenholme Junction. The train then continues past the Upper Marshalling Yard onward and through the Upper North Station and leaves the junction by the North West Tunnel.

Summer days and a platform ticket was entry into another world. Watching the trains come and go. Work has been going on this week with this corner of Trenholme Junction to make the blending of the real world with the model easier to do when filming. Tedious work making hedges from Reindeer Moss but the effort is worth the end result. I've always used this material because it's natural and looks life like even under the scrutiny of a 4k camera.

The Upper North Station is the place for this weeks visit to Trenholme Junction. This junction is by far the most complicated on the entire layout, connecting the upper and lower levels, Upper North Station and the Upper Marshalling Yard together. The weather is a cold, crisp winters day with the breeze gently blowing the clouds across this 1960's scene with a backdrop of the Cleveland Hills in the near distance. Complicated video surgery, man.

Continuing from last weeks diversions through the Main Station due to the derailment on the goods lines at the top end of Trenholme Junction, the cameras for this film are positioned south of the Diesel Shed. These views were intended to be part of last weeks' film, but illness pevented me from completing the job. The filming was completed, not edited, it seems a shame not to show it. The trains are obviously the same as last weeks (with some others). The goods trains weave their way across the junction and back onto the goods lines. The final scenes show the breakdown train leaving followed by a hopper train trapped by the derailment.

Under clearing skies, an earlier derailment of vans is being attended to by the breakdown crane at the north end of the Main Station at Trenholme Junction. Both of the main goods lines, where trains pass by the station are blocked whilst the recovery operations take place. Luckily we have cameras in strategic points on the station and its approaches to watch as some goods trains are re-routed through the normally passenger only platforms.

Its a miserable cloudy day and we are completley dieseled up with the Class 16 on Main Station Pilot duties. The 16 arrives from the South Junction after completing a turn at the Lower Marshalling Yard and pulls a rake of Thompson coaches from the North Carriage Sidings and places them into Platform 2 of the Main Staion. A class 31 departs from Platform 3 with a semi-fast stopping passenger train and heads to the South Junction. Class 24 D5100 arrives at the North Bay Platform with a train of suburban coaches and runs round its train. A dirty Warship couples up to the empty coaches waiting in Platform 1 and leaves. The 16 uncouples from its train and also leaves followed by the Class 24 from the North Bay. Good day train spotting, pass me another sherbert dab!

This week we move to the North Bay at Trenholme Junction where a Class 20 arrives to remove the empty parcels stock from the platform. The 08 is once again on pilot duties and takes the coaches from the centre road and places them into the platform road. A further diesel hauled parcels train leaves platform 2 and a standard class arrives at platform . Another standard class arrives to head up the train of coaches and finally the Black 5 held in the station avoiding loop leaves for destinations unknown. Sunny summer day train spotting.

Following on from last week's film, this week we are following the 08 shunter on pilot duties at the Main Station on Trenholme Junction. The 08 first removes the two Royal Mail coaches from the North Carriage Sidings, across the station south junction and places itself on the relief road, ready to attach them to parcels coaches attached to the class 25 in the South Bay. A Class 47 storms through the station on the main platform road and off into the distance. Meanwhile, the Class 25 runs around its train. Then the 08 runs forward and attaches the Mail coaches to the rear. The Crab then leaves with a semi fast, followed by the 25. Cloud is clearing, the rest of the day could be nice, should be at school really, but the teachers are on strike...

We are back to the Main Station on Trenholme Junction where we take up four vantage points to watch the traffic moving in and out. The first scene is looking from the Inspection platform on the water tower next to the engine shed. The second scene is looking forward across the turntable towards the southern station throat. The next is from the south signal box and finally, looking across to the crossovers to the secondary station access.

In response to the many requests I get for information about the production of the videos made on Trenholme Junction, here is the third of a series of videos explaining the details of how they are achieved. Removal of the background and replacing it using Bezier Masking techniques.

In response to the many requests I get for information about the production of the videos made on Trenholme Junction, here is the first of a series of videos explaining the details of how they are achieved. Removal of the background and replacing it using Chroma Keying techniques.

In response to the many requests I get for information about the production of the videos made on Trenholme Junction, here is the first of a series of videos explaining the details of how they are achieved.

In this weeks film we move our camera position to the north west of the Main Station looking south. Two of the trains are continuing their journeys' from last weeks film, the Standard class with its passenger train and the diesel with the bogie well wagons.