noiseboy72

Ok, bonus point time. Can anybody identify the loco pulling our circus train and what we did to alter its appearance?

We was robbed! No, in all honesty, the other layouts were fantastic and we wish the teams all the best. A couple of points of order... There were 2 other scratch builds that Chris built that were not in the show. We made a sound man with long boom mic and a war memorial for the town square. In hindsight, we should have binned the chimney, but it made for some colour on TV. The pause with the car on the track was much less than shown - we had to re-shoot it from another angle and add in the pause. To all the team's credit, all the animations worked really well. What held us up on Day 2 was using a Dremel cutting the slot for the guide wire for the bus. Everytime we started, we got told to be quiet due to other filming. I then lost the wide roll of tape we had - never did find it, so had to use multiple pieces of the thinner tape. This was not visible once we had painted it and weathered it in, but we knew it would get picked up. Our layout was simpler than the other 2 in terms of track plan, but we also modified 11 items of rolling stock, built 12 Metcalfe kits, 3 plastic kits and very successfully installed a river, 4 bridges and the car launch mechanism. We really enjoyed making the show - even with the early start on the last day due to a wedding at Fawley that would have added a lot of noise to the filming. It was very sad to have to pack the layouts into the van and depart, but both are now set up again - as close to how we built them as possible and are running regularly at Rocket Railways in Grantham. There's an open day on 26 October - next Saturday to which we would invite anyone who would like to see the layouts in the flesh and browse through the extensive range of 2nd hand stock that Rocket sell. More details here: https://www.rocketrailways.co.uk/ We've updated our website with shots from the semi-final - https://www.mgnr.uk/ Looking forward to the final

Almost every non-prototypical layout is fantasy, it just depends on your interpretation of the term. If you build a "what if" GWR terminus in a mythical town, that's fantasy. Just because you have used stock from a particular period or made it look very realistic doesn't get away from the fact that you cannot find the location - or remnants of in real life. Our heat layout was a "what if" branchline terminus, it's just on another planet and instead of the more common dairy or goods yard, we added in some rockets and used red and yellow scatter rather than static grass and hedgerows. Personally I love the Emmet inspired fantasy stock that's being created at the moment. I am seriously thinking about building a small layout just to run a few bits, as it looks fantastic and would be a real talking point. Our semi-final layout is based on a real place, but for the limitations placed on us by the rules, is not prototypical. Fantasy? Please make up your own minds when you see it

And the simple fact is that it's encouraging more people to become involved and interested in model railways. Exhibitions where former GMRC layouts are shown are almost universally reporting an increase in visitors - and alongside these layouts, they get to see "real" model railways and will start to understand the hobby a little more. We've loaned our layouts to a local model shop and he's rented extra space to display them - and is looking to establish a model railway club to encourage more people into the hobby. This can only be viewed as positive outcome from the program and speaking for myself, if my participation encourages 10 people to get into the hobby, I'll consider it a success!

I think you may be happier with the layouts in Semi-final 2. There might be the odd dinosaur, armoured train and broomstick, but all three layouts are most definitely railway based!

We bandaged you up with paper towels and electrical tape as I remember. The show must go on!!

Lol yeah, I grabbed the shot while the layout was in the back of a van! The bridge is flat!

I agree with you here. We wanted to do a wartime scene - the Blockbuster bomb, with things exploding - maybe a large factory, with the trains running around it and being involved in the cleanup. As with yourselves, we were clearly told that it was "Feature Films only" and as so many teams had had to submit their ideas for that semi, a lot of the ones we would have liked to have done had already gone. We were quite pleased with how our Bond inspired layout worked out however. A little taster has featured on the credits (Similar photo below) but you will have to wait until Saturday to see how we did though!

I agree that scoring during the build is extremely hard, as different layouts mature at different rates. our (Team Muddle and Go Nowhere) method is to build the buildings etc. off the layout with 3 or more team members, leaving 2 on day 1 and 1 on day 2 to work on the basics of the layouts - trackwork and electrics. The scenics then all come together in a very intense period, so it all looks and feels very last minute. I did enjoy the fantasy layouts and I think that you will see more "traditional" layouts in the next semi. I'm still glad we went through as Wildcard, as I'm not sure we would have been able to compete against any of the other entries!

Or maybe 6.25... But who can tell??

Well done teams, 3 really good and very different layouts. Far more ambitious than ours and all really well executed. Maybe not layouts for the purists, but were they ever going to be with that theme?

The need to have an entry and exit point, for it to use predominantly setrack (at the board builder's request) and to have 2 continuous circuits was quite limiting in terms of design. We had more complaints about the quality of the track laying, as one circuit de-railed anything that went around until we re-leveled the boards and tweaked all the joints and our board was also wired incorrectly and we had to reverse a feed to get it running without shorts. We've just re-built both layouts in their new home - Rocket Railways in Grantham. Cosmetically they need a bit of TLC where we split them, but both are running. We're open to exhibition offers, so feel free to check out the website for more details.

I think getting the wild card spot - and thus filming 5 days later was the best outcome we could have hoped for from Heat 5. Had we gone through instead of Team Grantham, we literally had a few basic plans and a carrier bag of bits - plus the pre order. We'd planned a Banksy-esque Dismalland theme park with various derelict rides and attractions, including an edible gingerbread house, an animated beanstalk and a slightly twisted "Babes in the Wood" scene using the Prieser Nude Bathers set and some strategically placed trees.... The railway would have been the park transport, with a Wild West train on one track and a scrap train recovering materials on the other. We had also planned to load a full size wagon onto a narrow gauge carrier Leek and Manifold style, but as I'd forgotten to bring the parts for that with me, there would have been a fair amount of improvisation on that element. Really looking forward to seeing the layouts, as it's a great fantasy theme.

We did consider a skit on the Blockbusters TV show, but were told quite firmly it was feature films only!!

Just a thought, do you think we could update the titles of the threads to include the transmission date and time as these seem to change for each episode now. At least we might all have a fighting chance of watching them that way

Well, in our modern gender fluid society, I am sure he can identify as female for 3 days!!

Put him on the team next time! That forces them to do the paperwork and it's harder say no.

How close to us??? Only joking, the clatter of Tomy will be hugely relaxing to listen to for 2 days

Thanks Laurie, I'm glad you enjoyed our modelling We tried not to go too Steampunk, but we wanted the vibrant Victorian colours and for the rockets to look a little like the HG Wells / Jules Verne illustrations, so the Steampunk look was inevitable. Check out our website and on this page: https://www.mgnr.uk/creating-the-layouts you will see some of Chris's initial sketches. These really steered what the layout would look like and were so useful in building the various elements and tieing everything into a common theme.

I think others have said that Heat 5 had some of the strongest teams. I'm not entirely how it worked out like that, as we - Team Muddle and Go Nowhere are just an extended bunch of friends with various railway interests and only a few of us really model in 00 to any extent. We didn't really expect to be competitive against the more organised teams, but knew we could present an attractive fantasy layout that hopefully would work well on TV. It's interesting the impact the 2 points from the scratch build challenge has on the scores. I do think it's a valid round, but the items need to be less silly. Tanning lotion and a paper thong?? No one would admit to choosing the items - Kathy and Steve in particular were keen to distance themselves from the selection process. Maybe next time the teams get told what to build - but supply their own bits? That might make a fun twist and would certainly see lots of digging around in the scrap box looking for bits!

And that was what happened to us. We scored more points than the winners of Heats 1 & 4, but the wild card rule let us through, so I think it was a fair result all around. Some themes - and Sc-Fi is one, are easier to interpret than others and this probably leads to higher marks. It wouldn't be fair to totalise all scores unless we all created layouts to the same theme. As a team we were totally happy with the scoring system. You will have to see if it was as kind to us in the Semi-finals as it was in the heats...

Just to add to @LNER4479's comments, Heat 5 competitors had to submit the same level of detail for both semis - and the final as well! Once the initial submission had been approved, there was an order form for each and every supplier. This for me was the toughest part of the whole experience. You'd think that having the keys to the toyshop would be easy, but trust me, it isn't. You need to work out what locos, stock and scenics you would like, then check if it's on the current stock availability list, find out it's not, change your plans and try again! It truly is quite stressful doing it once, but 4 times was beyond a joke. In the end we made our 2 semi-final layouts quite similar in their basic design, so it was possible to reduce the differences in stock and scenics and make the process somewhat quicker. Once it all arrived - boxes of it, it needed checking and sorting and distributing so that pre-build could be started. ...and that was before we'd even arrived at Fawley...

Yes, I hope if it gets another season they make it possible for kids to come along. They presented no problems at all during filming - in fact they were better behaved than the team members, who kept wandering off for a sit down between takes and had to be rounded up on a regular basis!

Great, that's the way it should be! One of our team members can also supply a huge Tomy Trains layout if you have space. The kids are encouraged to play with the cheap stuff running around the outside while the expensive and rarer stuff runs around the middle. It's noisy and chaotic, so don't put it next to any "proper" exhibitors...

As our daughter was part of the team and required a chaperone, they were licenced for our heat and subsequent appearances to have children present. There was a toilet set aside for them to use and higher levels of supervision. It took some negotiation though!!