theonlyadsrulz

They're just small sections of clear acetate, I think about 1cm wide, can't remember how long I made them, cut from a sheet of clear acetate that can be purchased from most stationary shops, and attached using track pins. Took a fair amount of experimentation to get the height right in order to make sure they uncouple things. They are by no means perfect, and still require a bit of shuffling sometimes to get things to uncouple depending on the wagon, though it one wagon in particular currently seems rather happy to uncouple even when you don't want it to! A relatively simple solution to your standard Peco uncoupling ramp, and potentially not quite so garish!

Of course it is a simple track plan, using all Peco set track, with three sidings that can fit 3-2-2 wagons in each respectively. There are no point motors or manual rodding, it's just simple hand operation! Ballasting was with a fine buff ballast from Woodland Scenics, using one of the Ballast Magic products. The concrete area was done using the Concrete textured paint from Green Scene. The goods platform was an appropriately sized piece of polystyrene with a brick paper round the sides, painted with the concrete paint, and Metcalfe edging stones along the edges. The little hills at the right side of the layout are also polystyrene shaped appropriately. The grass is the Woodland Scenics Coarse Turf, with the trees also coming from Woodland Scenics. The low relief building is one of the Bachmann Scenecraft range. The figures and parcels were from Model Scene, and the milk churns are Hornby Skaledale. Fencing was from the Wills or Ratio. The uncoupling ramps are pieces of acetate cut to the right size, and attached with track pins, which took a lot of experimenting to get the right height and length for uncoupling! And that's pretty much it! The only other addition is an extra square baseboard from Scale Model Scenery to add a small amount of extra length to the headshunt, but even with this it's only long enough to hold a loco and two wagons, which gives you your limitation for shunting. Any questions then please do ask!

Hello all! As there was interest over on Callum's Winters End thread about my two layouts at the Wincanton show, I thought it was about time I actually made threads for them! So here's a thread for my wrapping paper box layout 'Wrapford Sidings'. Fun fact, it didn't have a name until I had to think of one for the show! So it started off life as one of the excellent Scale Model Scenery laser cut baseboards. At the time their Wrapping Paper Box board wasn't available, so this meant the standard Small Modular Baseboard needed to be cut down to ensure it fitted inside the box. If my memory serves, about 8cm had to be taken out of the length, and 1cm taken out of the height. Some tactical cutting later, and the assembled board now fitted inside the box! A brown undercoat was then applied to the board ready for track laying and scenery to be added! The backscene was painted blue separately and attached later.

I'll sort out starting a couple of threads for my two layouts! Just got to find any photos I've taken now!

It was certainly great to see a big number of families at Warley on Saturday. Having not been to the exhibition before, I can't say whether it's more than usual or not. Had a few interactions with viewers of all ages who enjoyed the show. In particular myself and Captain Callum of RVD spoke to the parents of one little boy who became very shy and directed his attention to Aberdeen's winning layout when he realised who we were. We were his favourite team apparently! I also spoke to another mother and her son when he spotted one of our team members taking a photo and I overheard him get very excited so decided to introduce myself. Also great to chat once again with fellow finalists from Basingstoke, Aberdeen, and Fawley, as well as members from fellow heat two competitors Team Sci-fi, and not to mention those from other teams we didn't get to meet at all, including The Shunter Guys, Tonbridge, and Laurie from Team Steampunk! Chats with judges Steve and Kathy, and production team Pat, Bryher, and Daniella were also very welcome! An excellent day was had, it took us two hours into the exhibition before we got past the Peco/Hornby/Bachmann stands we were so busy chatting!

As Callum has said, we had trains running very early on, contrary to what they say on the programme, no doubt to add a little more drama! Saying that I'm not sure whether we actually told the crew that we had tested our track. Pretty much the moment we finished laying it, we tested it! Getting the star line down and tested was our first priority, as we couldn't get the whole upper section of our layout down otherwise!

Someone was asking who came second, it was in fact us, The Railway Video Division! Kathy does mention us giving Aberdeen "a run for their money" in her sum up at the end. We were told after the result was announced that we had come second, which was a little disappointing at the time, but we were certainly extremely proud to make it to the final, let alone come second! A couple more photos in addition to Callum's above, include our wagon which was ably produced by our other Callum! The wagon shows four "trainspotters" each representing the four in our team who have YouTube channels, and our logos feature on the sides of the wagon next to whose channel it belongs to. It also features a real working micro camera, which might be being used for nefarious means...could they be spying? It is the Cold War after all! It was also a very proud moment getting the hump yard to work properly! We fettled with the height, distance, and uncoupler for what seemed like hours to get it working just right!

Fun fact, and not giving anything significant away, but that's actually our (Railway Video Division) final layout! We certainly noticed it very early on but I've refrained from mentioning it until someone else did! It might have been used as we had a lot of random stuff placed on our layout early on in filming the final and a bit of basic track. I guess it has a feel of it being a layout that's just been started and is a bit bare? Looking forward to seeing how they manage to cram all five layouts into the runtime! And I'm also looking forward to a certain moment hopefully being shown, which was teased in the preview at the end of Heat 5. Adam - Team RVD

Quick couple of points in response to things. In terms of there supposedly being a mish-mash of stock on layouts, we were encouraged to bring our own stock to use on the layouts, and thus these weren't included in our budgets or pre-build items. 'Go Forth' certainly featured authentic stock, with three locos (the O4, J15, and Q6) all put into ROD livery. Add to this the Bachmann Ambulance Train with Khaki City Class, WD Grey C Class, as well as the 009 Baldwin and stock, I think we had a very authentic looking layout in terms of stock! As for the final, all five heat winners are required to build a new layout, so there will still be emphasis on the builds! Going into it, we had also assumed that the final would potentially be improving upon your heat layout, but we of course later found out this wasn't the case! I was with Captain Callum yesterday exhibiting Amiens 1918 at Taunton Rail Ex, and there was lots of chat about the show! Most who we spoke to had enjoyed the show, but there were one or two who I had polite disagreements with about it! Callum said that the day before, he and other Callum had a photo with a young fan of the show! Safe to say that the programme seems to be doing its job.

When you consider the theme of the episode - Globetrotting - modelling a south coast, seaside station in the UK isn't overly imaginative. With all due respect to the Tonbridge team, they produced an excellent layout with great features, but all I could see that related to the theme (and correct me if I'm wrong) were the flags on the beach huts and a Customs hut. If there was more, I didn't spot it on a first viewing. Once again we have to remember that the shows primary audience isn't the serious modeller, it's the general public who we want to gain an interest in the hobby. The gimmicky themes will be what gets them interested, and hopefully will encourage them to look further into the hobby, whether that's looking at YouTube, magazines, or going to exhibitions, which are all great opportunities to see some top class modelling. I believe the judges got it right, and the Basingstoke Bodgers layout interpreted the theme in a fun and interesting way, I particularly liked their use of N Gauge. Team Steampunk certainly produced something very outside the box in terms of the theme, and had they been deemed the winners would've been worthy, but dare I say controversial? ones. As for the themes you have suggested, not to give anything away, but one of those may seem very familiar in a few weeks time...

Would be interesting to know what your first choice was, we briefly considered Midsomer Murders as an option! Doctor Who was also one we thought about but Team Sci-fi had already picked it. That said, Blackadder was our first choice anyway!

On that point (pun intended) we did have point motors on 'Go Forth', but just the Peco surface mounted ones, which seemed to work fine, though one in particular was quite temperamental. From what I recall, the judges never even mentioned or asked about them! My memory isn't great though, so who knows!

I think I smiled twice during the whole episode, once at the beginning and once at the end!

The church is the Noch St Nicholas Church kit, built by Callum (not Captain Callum!) as one of our pre-built items.

Budget for each team came to a total of about £2700 split between the manufacturers - Peco £900, Hornby £500, Bachmann £500, Gaugemaster £450, Deluxe Materials £200. Metcalfe were added a little later, and I don't remember their exact budget, was either £200 or £250 I believe. This plus the extra £100 each team was allowed to spend on other items, I don't recall whether this was bumped up a second time, I do remember it was originally just £50! All is revealed! Quite simple really, I had visions of some extravagant throwing system!

True yes we did have the most advanced track plan, though Team Sci-fi did have a couple of sidings on their layout too, even if a train did go running into it when it wasn't meant to! I'm sure if we had our time again, we could've incorporated some dino fossils on the layout somewhere!

As I said, it was a close thing, but even we have to admit ours was still a bit rough around the edges (as the judges pointed out!) a little more so than TLNs. Yes all of our trains ran perfectly, we got lucky as it was VERY warm inside there, and TLNs track suffered unfortunately. And I have to say, I still don't know how they got that little man to fly out of the Queen Vic! Adam - RVD

The issue there with that was that when we were filming all the close ups of the train, all the ROD liveried locos were DCC with realistic acceleration/deceleration, the City Class (from the Bachmann Ambulance set) was just DC. The camera wagon that they had wouldn't fit though our tunnel mouths into the fiddle yard, so we needed to be able to stop quickly before the wagon hit the tunnel! Pleased to see people have enjoyed what we created though. On the day itself we knew it was close between us and Walford, if theirs hadn't had the problems, they would've won for sure! Looking forward to seeing the final now! Adam - RVD

Where did you get the foam pizza base from? Was it simply just from a pizza or did you get it from elsewhere?