noiseboy72

I am not sure there was 2 layouts on Mars in Ep3. We were on Mars and the Sleepers on planet 16. With a theme of Out of this World / The sky's the limit, it was quite likely that layouts were going to be set on other worlds. I think all 3 layouts were very different in approach and presentation and with a large variety of modelling skills. The Sleeper's innovative use of laser cutting showed how raised track can be made rapidly and accurately and they brought in lots of elements. Team Grantham showed that using foam underlay still gives great looking results and makes for a very neat modelling and we used traditional techniques including ballasted trackwork and that did let us down in terms of the pause (it wasn't a de-railment) during the demonstration. We got a bit of crud in the point and as we had not wired in point polarity switches, there was a lack of continuity on the switched rail. There was plenty of communication between the production company, with sketches, treatments, track plans and lots of phone conversations prior to filming. 2 teams presenting layouts about War of the Worlds is possibly not a bad thing, with the BBC producing a new version later this year and Jeff Wayne's still pedaling his musical interactive London show. Our take was to be a sequel to the original book, with humans invading and colonising Mars using the alien's technology. We steampunked the buildings and stock a little bit and felt the use of period turn of the century stock (With a little improvisation and cheating) added to the feel.

The email from the production company suggested that Ch5 wanted to see if the program did better against Strictly than against Corrie and Eastenders. They further suggested it could move back if unsuccessful, but I think it unlikely for 3 episodes.

Well, we'd be happy to bring rockets and smoke effects to your local show...

Us, order stock for our own layouts?? Never In all seriousness, it wasn't actually a consideration and all the models have stayed with the layout. we tried to pick locos and stock that even if not historically correct, looked right in the landscape. Everything was repainted or weathered, with a copper colour used to represent martian dust. I understand all 3 teams in Heat 5 were reserve or late entries into the competition. We got a little less prep time than teams in other heats, but that didn't seem to slow any of us down. As my daughter Lucy was under 18, we gave the production company quite a lot more work, as she needed a performance licence, chaperone and shorter working hours. It was worth the effort and she enjoyed the experience as much as the rest of us. As my wife was the chaperone, we had a great extra family "holiday"! There was quite a lot of our layout you didn't see. We 3D printed a 009 loco on day 1 and painted and detailed it on day 2. This was filmed, but didn't make it onto the final edit. In fact, there was more than 40 3D printed elements on the layout ranging from astronauts to buildings. We also shunted the passenger train and brought in a breakdown train as well. Don't forget each demo is probably 6-10 minutes and ends up as 2-3 minutes in the show, so some stuff must go. We've put together a website with loads of info - https://www.mgnr.uk/ so please feel free to check this out. Thanks for all the kind comments. We really appreciate it. We knew at the end of day 2 that Team Grantham were likely to win. Their modelling was simply superb, their pre-work faultless and they were all jolly nice chaps to boot! It was great to get the wild card - especially when we found out we had scored more points than some of the other winners. It's nice to know that Steve at least is a fan of our slightly chaotic style of modelling!!

If you enjoyed our layout, please check out our website - www.mgnr.uk We've put plenty of pictures and some behind the scenes gossip on there along with some information on the team members etc. We're open to exhibition invitations and have a couple in the diary already. You can also see the layouts at Rocket Railways in Grantham. This is a new railway shop opening on 26 October with a small exhibition and some of the team will be there, operating the layouts and chatting to visitors.

Oh yes, the team noticed... We're all watching it together as a team - and laughing at ourselves. Really proud of what we created.

Here here! As modellers, we don't take ourselves too seriously, but we wanted our model to be something that a child and parent could aspire to build, was operationally interesting, visually appealing and with functional, relevant animations. Did we succeed? Tonight will tell!!

Do look at Kathy Millatt's photos. They do capture much more of what the layout is about. - https://www.kathymillatt.co.uk/blog/2019/10/05/great-model-railway-challenge-2019-heat-4/

Looking at the layouts in this episode, we really liked the dutch layout. It was proper modelling with a twist! I gather the operation of it was quite slow and this probably went against them, along with their approach to the scratch build challenge. Whose Counting Rivets really did show how technology can enhance a layout, but had great build quality, so were the rightful winners. The Thunderbolts had a creative theme and storyline, but I think were hamstrung by a lack of coherent planning and some dubious track laying. All in all, another enjoyable heat and the right team won

Are you saying that all the track, boards, stock, buildings and scenic items went in the skip with nothing salvaged? I find that hard to accept. I know that the Titfield Thunderbolts did dismantle their layout at the end of the heat, but parts were salvaged by other teams at that point and much of the stock and other items found homes on the team's own layouts. Let's be honest, that's the fate of most layouts sooner or later. Recycling has always been a big thing in the model railway world!

With regard to your comment about dismantling the layout after the heat, many of the layouts have survived from both series intact or rebuilt into new layouts of a similar theme, but a more transportable shape and size. Our heat layout is now in the care of a local model shop, will be exhibited a few times and may well become the first layout for a new model railway club. I doubt any layout ended up entirely in the skip!!

Well spotted. If you remember last year all the layouts in the final had to link together? This year if you made it to the final, your 3 layouts had to link together. You therefore had to build an exit at a mandated point on the right of your board on the heat layout.

A shameless plug for our layout, courtesy of Peco and Hornby!

Pat Doyle the producer emailed us to tell us about the schedule change. Channel 5 wanted to see if the show will do better against strictly than it's been doing against the soaps. It's getting about a million views, so not too bad. They obviously needed the big guns from heat 5 to mount a challenge in the Saturday spot however! I think the comment referenced by RT was from the Railway Sleepers... We're looking forward to seeing how we (Team Muddle and Go Nowhere) are portrayed. The layout has already had its own trailer and features in the opening credits, so we know how it looks on TV, so we're waiting on the editing now!!

I like the rippled effect, how did you create that?

I think to get more teenagers involved, you'd need to change the filming schedule... Not sure how the 8.00am call time would go down... On a serious note, how do you think a kid's special would go down? Our team members have enough kids to all but put a team together, but I would be interested to know if people think it would make good TV. We did suggest it to the producers and they liked the idea - maybe as a Christmas special, but there's nothing more discussed than that at the moment.

Yes, we're waiting to see how we are portrayed as well. We were short of 2 team members on day 1 due to GCSES and prior commitments and I know this disadvantaged us to a certain extent. Funnily enough in the build up we weren't really thinking beyond the heat and were in it for the experience, but I must say that once we started building, the competitive nature's came out and we got our game faces on!!

Kathy wanted all the joints wired?? Ain't nobody got time for that!! We built our layout so that we could exhibit after the show and we've only fitted power drops around the board joins and points. We used Cat5 cable and connectors to reduce wiring, so on the day it was just a case of plugging everything in. Each cable provided either 1 point motor and 2 power drops or 2 point motors and 1 power drop. We labelled it all up under the layout and colour coded the cabling. It all worked faultlessly on the day and having brought it back home, we've done just one repair to an inter board link. There was more wiring added for special effects, but more of that in a couple of weeks...

Although it's not mandated in the rules, most teams seem to end up with oval running lines. I guess the shape of the board kind of dictates this, but certainly in our heat, 2 teams avoided it. Personally, I think allowing the teams to arrange the baseboards however they choose would give a wider variety of layouts. This could be accommodated within the filming quite easily and get viewers thinking about U and L shaped layouts around the outside of a room.

I think one thing the program highlighted was that the whole team needs to work together and at speed. With all due respect to the Cambrian Coasters, it appeared on TV that some of their team were not really prepared to embrace the speed modelling approach needed to compete effectively. One or two beautifu but smalll models won't really win the competition and losing the capacity within the team will hurt the overall build.

Always worth checking out Kathy's photos, as she gets the bits of detail the TV program doesn't get time to show. - https://www.kathymillatt.co.uk/blog/2019/09/27/great-model-railway-challenge-2019-heat-3/#jp-carousel-16387

Well done all teams, 3 great layouts. I thought Kathy was very harsh on the trees, we all thought they were great!

Really looking forward to this one!!

A funny story from when Suki and Shannon came to see us. We were filming in our summer house that doubles as my railway room / workshop / man cave. It was a hot day and Suki wanted the door closed to control the natural light. Shannon was operating the camera and Suki sat next to her. About 10 minutes in, Shannon suddenly said "Can we stop for a minute, I feeling a bit fai..... At that point she keeled over, collapsing and pushing the camera into Suki before falling into my arms! I guided her onto the floor and got her lying in the Recovery Position while Suki screamed, ran out of the room and around in circles in the garden! Shannon came around and after a sit down and some water was OK. Apparently the whole thing was caught on the camera and subsequently hidden from the editors in case it made the final cut!! This was mainly due to Suki's screaming than Shannon collapsing I gather...