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theonlyadsrulz

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Posts posted by theonlyadsrulz

  1. 7 hours ago, Chatelet said:

    Could you give us some information about these uncouplers? Thank you.

     

    UNCOUPLERS.JPG.9086ddf999150b3acb4bae1affb3b319.JPG

    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! 

    • Like 2
    • Craftsmanship/clever 1
  2. 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! 20190114_120515.jpg.df0b36a7542e965fb244d20be6abcc90.jpg

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    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.img_20190409_210018.jpg.e27f25aff4a8bc8a32da2f6d83d209ed.jpgimg_20190410_172126.jpg.03b8e3f261430e5dbdb582fc413da4d2.jpg

     

    The low relief building is one of the Bachmann Scenecraft range.

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    The figures and parcels were from Model Scene, and the milk churns are Hornby Skaledale. Fencing was from the Wills or Ratio.img_20190617_192212.jpg.4fb5a127bc20ec1e98ad268a0dc92627.jpgimg_20190617_192223.jpg.21b96f42751ead1d108513331a6ccf1a.jpg

     

    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! img_20190410_213235.jpg.78a8a73ce185a40bac089f2a12448fe6.jpgimg_20190410_213258.jpg.65311374f78fa17064da83ea293b61b6.jpg

     

    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! 

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    • Like 13
    • Craftsmanship/clever 1
  3. 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! 

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    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. 

    20190114_094109.jpg.15556f02cc306de5015469b23e8d3b17.jpg

    • Like 6
  4. 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! 

    • Like 4
  5. I got the impression that none of the teams had got any trains running by the end of the first day? 

     

    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! 

    • Like 1
  6. 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! 

     

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    • Like 16
  7. BTW has anyone noticed that the track plans of the layouts shown at the beginning of each episode are all wrong? It's always the same layout that is displayed with the little crosses flashing randomly over it, regardless of which team's plans are being explained. There is always a wind turbine towards the bottom left. The track plans at the end, just before the demonstrations, seem to be correct. It's been bugging me since I first noticed it, and the same problem seems to crop up with every episode. I can't imagine why the production team would do that if it was not accidental, nor why it should keep repeating if it was? Apologies if this has already been spotted and commented on elsewhere ad nausiam - if so I missed that.

     

    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 

    • Like 1
  8. 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! 

     

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    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. 

    • Like 11
  9. After watching the third episode I'm losing patience with it.

     

    I thought the Blackadder layout in the second episode was good because it used the TV series as an excuse to portray something halfway representative of the real WW1 railways. But the third episode was just dire. It's not that I mind gimmicky layouts but the only team that attempted something that looked like a model of an actual railway got criticised for lacking imagination. The great majority of model railways are attempts to portray an actual railway, real or imagined, with some degree of authenticity but this series shows none of that.   

     

    The problem is the idiotic themes and it would have been so easy to come up with themes that allow for either a realist or an imaginative interpretation. 

     

    Here's my thematic suggestions

     

    City

    Industry

    Food

    Holidays

    Frontier 

    Past, Present, and Future

    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... 

    • Like 2
  10. We were given the TV programme theme, we came up with two ideas amongst us and proposed them to the team, the team voted, we worked up a detailed proposal (quite a lot of work especially for the instigator) on the agreed programme, and then KBG said we could not do it because no one will remember the programme. They were OK with our second choice of Eastenders based which was more current which we went with but we had lost a lot of time working up and researching the initial idea and unfortunately the stress took one of our team as a casulty.

     

    We did protest a lot so I think that later teams might have had an easier time of getting their proposals accepted. In the beginning there was a big lack of appreciation of how much work goes in to the research and planning just to get a workable idea. KBG learned a lot from this and did take a lot on board from the competing teams which irritatingly resulted in the rulebook being reissued on an almost daily basis.

     

    I have started a layout thread with some pictures showing some of the detail that was not shown on the programme:-

     

    http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/138423-walford-towers/?p=3332156

    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! 

  11.  

    You may be right. However, the copy of the rules linked to a few pages back does include "NOTE – teams can operate

    points (manually or remotely) as they see fit. Extra credit will be awarded for remotely operated points."

     

    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! 

  12. Excellent video, really added to the program, and good to see more of the layout operating.   Was the church with the unusual spire scratch built? Seen one like that in Holland, so presumably a type (with the sphere on the spire) that was found in Flanders as well.

    The animated features were good, particularly the rail gun.

    All very encouraging, great stuff!

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

  13. Hi Adam,

    What is the budget that you have received?

    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! 

     

     

    Here is 'The Animator' :-

     

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    The Queen Vic was still under construction here so I have not added the 'Water Tank' where the figure is dropped in. The flap on the servo sits under the water tank, and when the servo is activated the figure yells 'Weeeeeee' and goes down the slide before coming out the front door. I am sure it will be a real ride when they build the Eastenders theme park.

    All is revealed! Quite simple really, I had visions of some extravagant throwing system! 

    • Like 1
  14. Adam

     

    It wasn't simply that it ran well, it had points and several locos able to operate at the same time, and a narrow gauge and... and ...Did the others have more than a circle or two of track? Maybe I didn't pay enough attention?

     

    OK so you didn't have a dinosaur, Fortunately, there were enough samplers for next week to let us know the dinos are back.

    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! 

    • Like 1
  15.  

     

     

    Why? You produced an operating, interesting model railway. The others appeared to be, dare I say it, train sets - tail chasers. Yes they had a lot of modelling but the trains were too secondary on the other two layouts. You combined the essence of model railways with the theme that you were asked to present, and did it well.

     

    Paul

     

    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  

    • Like 4
  16. Again, I think the best team won, though I did notice some Portillo-style editing when the black ROD 2-8-0 kept turning into a brown 43XX mogul and back again!

     

     

    Would have been fun to see someone doing a model of the Fawley Hill Railway with GMRC as the TV theme.... :-)

    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 

    • Like 7
  17. The last few days have been spent adding more magnetic strip to the back of the row of terraced houses, in preference to having them fold over at the gutter line in order to close the lid. I didn't have any more surplus magnetic strip so I had to buy some (shame!), but this magnetic photo paper is two A4 sheets for £1 at our local poundshop. I've also been making the yard wall and scribing a few thousand cobbles into foam pizza base. Just need to make sure I don't make a mess of the painting now. Also, I've added a number plate to the bridge, but I think I've put it on upside down!!

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

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