dougattrenholmebar

In this weeks film we start off with a Class 24 arriving at the Main Station to pickup a parcels train from platform 5. The first couple of scenes were filmed a little while ago and have been re-edited into this film and the sky effect has been added. The train exits the junction via the long incline. The Warship with its train of empty mineral wagons which has been waiting patiently in the up line goods road leaves via the north junction, followed by a Black 5 with a grain train bound for a distillery somewhere in Scotland.

Trenholme Junction is a model railway purpose built as a film set. The idea is to use mini cameras to film the trains from the same angle a child would see them from. When the set was originally built the quality of the cameras was so poor the detail of the walls of the building couldn't be seen clearly and there didn't seem any point in plastering them. As cameras however, have become so good, the details of the block-work walls have become more prominent and are spoiling the overall effect. In the last few films I have been adding a sky effect to the films in post production to take away and this film has a cloudy effect. My idea of the 'Infinite Layout' (see link in YouTube notes) is also continued in this film where the views of the trains in the Main Station area were filmed some time ago and have been joined to the new filming and the sky effect has been added to both parts.

Building a model railway requires the mastering of many skills, most of which cannot be learned overnight. In the recent past, the planning of the layout, building of the baseboards, track laying, electrical wiring, erecting and placing the buildings and adding the scenery was a minimum requirement. In the modern world you can add a reasonable level of computer related jargon, including a level of understanding sophisticated control systems, and an understanding of electronics as well. Trenholme Junction was built as a film set with the purpose of producing films and therefore this skill set has to be expanded to include script writing, camera and filming skills and post production. Within post production, a high degree of computer literacy, a powerful video editing application and a computer man enough to do the job is also required. In the last few weeks, the films I have produced are taking the presentation of the films to a new place, including real-life backgrounds and the model, merging the two together. As with any new skill, getting it right takes some practice and there are a number of issues that needed a little refinement. In this film, the concentration is getting a clean merge between the real and the model. In the opening two scenes note the handrails on the tank, the telegraph poles and the birds flying across. A small section is also added to the end to further exploit the 'infinite layout' concept.

The first part of this film was made about a year ago and published in 'Main Station 31'. If you watch the original film, the tops of the locomotive and brake van were chopped off in order to avoid having the ceiling lights in the building visible. This re-edited piece has removed this anomaly and the sky has been added. The second part has been filmed this week and joined to the original part to form a continuing story. Doing this for me has two useful objectives, some practice in using full screen production, adding various backgrounds and also demonstrates the application of the 'Infinite Layout' concept. (see link to blog in YouTube notes).

Its the very first one of this thread.

If you look back on these pages you'll find a film or two with bankers.

We open this film with a Super D tackling the long incline between the lower and upper levels at Trenholme Junction. A Class 25 on a parcels train passes through the South East station followed by a Hymek moving some empty passenger stock through after threading its way from the passenger to the goods road. Another western diesel, a Warship on an empty mineral train, grinds to a halt next to the station. Finally, a BR Standard running tender first passes through an another tanker train.

Thanks, have had a look at this, very impressed.

Here is a scene from the Main station 17 film published last year further demonstrating the blending of model and real world images.

They are moving, look at the trees on the left, they are blowing about. Last scene.

This is a short film to demonstrate how dramatically it's possible to change a layout by substituting the backdrop. These are the last scenes from Watching 19 published last week. In this excerpt the hills are the backdrop. Watch the trees in the final scene.

Mike, point taken. This is filmed mostly from the lower level (effectively a valley). The upper level represents the railway at Port Clarence on the Tees and the clouds appearing over the embankment is exactly as this looks. When looking from the upper then this needs to be addressed.

Calvin, 57' * 13'

In last weeks film the main object was to take away the walls from the film and to replace them with an image of the sky. The sky had to be actual footage and therefore plays out in real time. Lots of people seem to like this idea. In the past, I have produced film in 4k and in order to preserve the superb quality this gives I had to cut off the tops of the films. This camera has a wide angle lens, which means it films a lot of ceiling as well as the bit you want to see. Cutting off the ceiling takes away the view of the lights and gives more reality but the walls, whilst tolerable, take it away again. Last weeks film addressed this issue and was I think quite successful. For those of you who follow the blog will know I intend to dismantle Trenholme Junction and move house. A new layout is planned and I was thinking of using the 'shelf' idea (building the layout on many levels around the outside walls of the room). As I want to film the new layout, it has always been a worry that the level above the one I was filming on would be obviously visible and how I would get round this disadvantage of this type of layout. The closeness of the levels would play a key part in the design of the new layout. In this film I have solved this anomaly with software and in this film I have used the full size video and replaced both the walls and the ceiling with sky. Not exactly perfect in some places, but proof of concept achieved.....

Thanks, the camera is a GoPro 5 Session, video edited and produced with Vegas16 Pro

If you read the 'Origins' section of the blog attached to this YouTube channel you will see the purpose of this endeavour was to use cameras to drive the trains on the internet. At the time of building, the quality of the cameras was to say at the least, pretty poor. Early tests proved that the walls were blurry in the background and I decided not to plaster them, it didn't seem to be worth the expense. Each time another generation camera's came onto the scene with better and better quality, the folly of not plastering of the walls became more and more of an irritation. Although the walls are painted blue, the mortar lines are visible. I wanted the entire scene to reflect the view I saw as a child and there was definitely no mortar lines in the sky that I remember. The easiest way to overcome this anomaly is to colour the background plain blue, which is not that difficult to do, but I wanted better than that. In this film all the background is film of the sky, moving sky. The difference is worth the extra effort, hence the late issue of this film. Ironic, isn't it, the technology which caused the problem is being used now to solve it.

Brilliant, thanks for your help, I'm most grateful. Kind regards Doug W.

Thanks for the reply, I tried that but it carried the video across as well and I can't find how to delete the video.

Hello, I might be being a bit thick here but I am trying to add a new item and video link to my ongoing topic and when I click in the only box available 'Reply to this topic' it pulls the last couple of replies and the link to the last video into the box and I can't get rid of it. kind regards Doug W.

Thanks Theakerr for your comments. I assume that you have found this jerkiness int this video. I have noticed this phenomena before. Try this: when you are watching the video in YouTube click the settings (a cog wheel symbol on the bottom right) and select 'quality', it is usually set to 'auto', try setting it to 1080p and see if that stops it. Try different settings, the higher up the scale you go the more powerful device you need. This video is high resolution and sometimes the auto selects too high a setting and you get this jerkiness. Let me know how you get on.

After reading the comments from people over the time I've been making these films in 4k, there are some who clearly do not like the wide view which has the black bands at the top and bottom of the screen. Some say the action is too small to watch. There is a balance here to be struck. I personally like the wide screen, you can see lots, but I can see the merits of the 'close to' format as well. This film is an experiment, filmed in 2.7k at 50 frames per second and rendered in 4k in 'close up' to compare the quality. Reactions are welcome. Please tell me which device you're using and what the quality is like.

In the quest for better and better quality, this weeks film has been produced after the latest upgrade to the computer hardware and software. On whatever device you're viewing this from, you should be able to see some improvement in the quality of the detail. In this film we open with a Black 5 passing from north to south through Trenholme Junction followed by a ride in the Guards Van of a short container train hauled by 5601 Class 56xx ex GWR Tank locomotive. After waiting for an arriving Diesel Multiple Unit 5601 then sets off for the reception road at the Lower Marshalling Yard. Once uncoupled from it train, the tank engine then crosses over to Station Pilot's Engine Shed.

Although this is part of the 'Watching Trains' series, this weeks film is entirely focusing in the Lower Marshalling Yard. The 08 shunter has to remove the wagons in front of the vans at the far end of the sidings and then add the van and the brake van to the vans and make ready the train to be picked up by the Standard steam locomotive.

The 'Watching Trains' series of films follow each other in numerical order in soap style so you can watch a continuous series of traffic movements, typical of the scenes which could be witnessed in the early 1960's. Click through to the Channel Page to find the previous ones. In this film we see a class 47 coming to the Marshalling Yard to head the container train. The 08 Yard Shunter then moves a van from the yard throat, clearing the way way for the 47 to leave and head off across the south end of Trenholme Junction. A class 24 rumbles through the station with an empty mineral train and Falcon eases onto the platform to await a clear road. A class 25 brings a local passenger service into the opposite platform and releases Falcon to continue its journey.

Trenholme Junction is a model railway based around the railways in the North East of England in the early part of the 1960's. Lots of traffic visits the junction, some which would probably never come here in real life. The films are a representation of what a busy railway would have looked at the time. In today's film we see the Class 20 and the 08 Shunter working in perfect harmony in the Lower Marshalling Yard. The 20 arrives with three fruit vans and the 08 picks three further vans from the sidings and attaches the lengthened train back onto the 20 which carries on its way.