Featured in the very first episode of Channel 5's "Great Model Railway Challenge", the producers led with possibly the most controversial entry to hook the viewers.
The GMRC - the team and how we arrived at Ealing Road
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Like many railway modellers, I got to hear about the GMRC through my Club, the Princess Risborough and District MRC, and like the majority of the membership, I was a bit sceptical about the whole idea. I was intrigued but concerned it was not a serious attempt to promote my hobby and potentially the worst sort of TV. A little while later, I received an email from a former tutor at Missenden Modellers who asked if I knew about the “great model railway bake-off” as he put it, and then suggested that I would be a good team captain for a number of reasons. He then told me where the filming would take place and a host of other small details that were not yet public information. As a result, I did a bit of research and was coming to the view that perhaps this might be fun and a chance to demonstrate some of the many interesting tools and techniques I had learnt at Missenden.
I should explain that the Missenden Modellers are a group of railway modellers that arrange 3 events a year at Missenden Abbey in Hertfordshire. There are two weekends and a summer event and the idea is that you can attend a course in a whole host of railway modelling related course to either learn or improve a skillset. I actually discovered them 5 years ago when I took up the hobby and it's through attended these courses, I have become the modeller I am today that and a lot of practice.
Imagine my surprise when out of the blue I get an email from the production company asking me to form a team! It seemed the ex-tutor had also cc’d the Knickerbocker television company his email to me suggesting I take part. I guess the rest is history sort of as Chris Langdon the course Director of Missenden Modelers had been to seen Knickerbocker and was convinced this was a brilliant opportunity to promote our hobby so he then helped to get a team together with me as the captain.
Initially, we were a disparate bunch, some of us knew one or two others and I knew three of the others and that was it. We are now all firm friends and I was blessed to have found myself with a team of really talented modellers with a mix of skills and specialities.
So, I had a team, now what did we do and how did we plan it all? The guidelines, rules and briefing documentation arrive and we have to work to a theme. The Movies oh and can they have animation, height, light, sound and as many trains moving as possible. OH and it would be great if you had something like an exploding volcano for example!
Thinking caps on chaps. We were rather expecting something more conventional, like “country branch line”. We spent a few days mulling possibilities, such as ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ (great idea exploding bridge, but can we model palm trees, do we have any stable rolling stock? Perhaps not then?) ‘Back to the Future’, ‘Brief Encounter’, ‘The Railway Children’, ‘Dr Zhivago’ and even ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’. All of these, we felt, were one-trick-wonders that would have to be based around a single scene or moment. However, from idea of ‘The Lady Killers,’ I then found a list of the all-time top 100 British movies, among which were a host of Ealing Studio films . We all agreed to use a medley of several rather than just one. Ealing Road then sort of designed itself as ‘Wiskey Galore’ and ‘The Maggie’ need a dock, The Lady Killers need the Copenhagen fields cutting and Passport to Pimlico’ needs bombed out buildings in London. So London Docks, terraced houses, a and a hill with a viaduct running around everything. Perfect as we had the trains and rolling stock, vehicles, etc, that we would need. We produced a trackplan, a detailed synopsis of the layout and themes along with sketches of our proposal. The producer fell in love with the idea of flying pigs. As one of the animations linked to ‘Passport to Pimlico’ plan agreed, now all we had to do was build it .
How we did It
At the outset, the plan was terribly ambitious and the team kept coming up with ideas, we did simplify the track plan to the bare bones, so as to make it operationally simple and to push the backscene as far back as possible. There had long discussions with Knickerbocker about the rules and in particular the six pre-build items and what was allowed before the filming. It's clear now that there was a major disconnect between what we had been given to understand by Knickerbocker and what the judges expected. We never saw any of the lengthy documentation we are asked to provide and therefore came to view about what we had done was excessive, which was at odds with what we had thought to be permissible. In other words, due to a mutual misunderstanding between us and the production company, we were sunk before we started really.
We planned all of the build-in detail, each team member was given an area of responsibility and thought through each stage of the build. Various team members took on some aspects. Andrew Hicks (a natural artist and computer wizard) did the backscene and the docks, John the station and overall foreground, Rob the electronics Kiwi Thompson weathering of everything Simon terraced house first 3 rows and myself track , electrics and last row of terraces.
The false perspective and backscene was something I had dabbled in taken Paul Bambrick’s course on the subject, which was a revelation. The team bought into the idea very quickly and we made some rough mock-ups to the heights and spacing to make sure it worked and would all fit. The buildings are nearly all Scalescenes models, which for a small fee you download a set of instructions and a set of printable sheets that are mounted on different thicknesses of card or are a cover layer. It became clear very quickly that the only way to build everything in the time available was to get all the card cut. Simon has access to a laser cutter as do I, so, hey presto, a few files and a mountain of card later, we had all the different sheets and sizes of template’s on which to glue the printed outer layers.
We also laser cut all the viaduct arches, pillars and parapets. The arches being a single sheet of four, which helped when we had to assemble them live. So, we had some chance of completing everything Simon set up a gant chart and oversaw progress. We were told on a number of occasions by Knickerbocker that we were the most organised team in the competition, but then we needed to be given what we had decided to do.
What we set out to achieve was to demonstrate some of the tools and techniques that are available to modellers today, many of which are amazingly cheap. We also want to produce something that was innovative and different, showing the hobby in perhaps a new light, to use methods and materials that anybody could copy. We think we achieved these aims in lots of ways. Most of the electronic tricks we have, the sound modules, the flickering fluorescent lights on the station use some very cheap electronics costing a few pounds, the host of buildings from Scalescenes are after all card, glue and printer ink, admittedly lots of it but individually cheap to make. Lights in the backscene are from LED rolls at £5 so £10 for everything on the houses and on the backscene. We have some barges on our inlet, which we designed ourselves, printed on a 3D printer, and then weathered. Easy to do with a bit of training and 3D printers are getting very cheap these days less than a price of a loco with a sound decoder gets you a decent one.
We have achieved a few things one of which is to create a model landscape with a railway running through it. This, we think, creates something that looks far more convincing than fine details taken in isolation because it is all about the context in which the railway is set. The other interesting thing is that the layout is unique and different, as are others in the GMRC, as its not designed in the usual way of most layouts like a type of layout (Urban station, goods yard etc) and era/location but to a theme and with height/effects et al, which results in the layout being unusual and, in our case, very different.
On the screen, the layout worked well and looked good but given more time we would have had it far more complete, detailed and more polished. In particular, our roads were very basic no pavements or street lights, some of the houses were missing (no time to finish, so ended up missing and as bomb damage, and what is now Miramont Place (Passport to Pimlico set) a ghost of what it was intended to be.
The stand out features
As it was, we never the less managed to achieve a number of standout features which I think are:
· The Backscene
A triumph IMO thanks to Andrew Hicks and Andrew (Kiwi) Thompson, which was made on the first morning of our heat and for many layouts the backscene is an after-thought. With forced perspective, it is an integral part of the design: a 2D picture that morphs seamlessly into a 3D model. It is made using flexible MDF and is 2ft high and 16ft long. The curve is deliberate and very necessary as from the front it makes the viewer have to look at it a certain way, you need to turn your head to see it all. The viewers eyes then focus on the bit you want them to see and then don’t see where the merged joins are or where the perspective is a bit misaligned.
To plan the backscene we pegged a roll of lining paper to this, so as to draw in pencil the lines of perspective, rough outlines of what should be where and what sizes things should be to remain in proportion with the layout. We set the horizon at just over one foot up, based on where the perspective lines of the layout converged. There are three perspective points on the backscene: one in the middle and one to either side. Where the track exits on the left, is made to line up with a viaduct on the backscene to give the impression of the railway continuing towards the City of London. The street lines in the centre part of the backscene continue the same lines of perspective created by the converging chimneys on the layout itself.
Having got a sketched mockup on a sixteen-foot long roll of paper, the next challenge was to fill it. In Google Maps there is a 3D view option for some parts of the country (most major cities and a few bits of countryside around them) that gives pretty much exactly the right view given the height at which the model is intended to be viewed. Screenshots of this can then be clipped in Paint to a letterbox shape and pasted into an Excel spreadsheet where the image can be stretched over several A4 pages to get the right size. These can be printed off, mapped onto the sketched template and ‘feathered’ into each other as a sort of decoupage to create a continuous photorealistic strip. Sometimes the perspective lines aren’t quite at the right angle, or the foreground buildings are at the wrong scale, so you just go back and move the camera a bit in Google maps and try again.
The limitation with Google Maps is that the view is only something fairly current. It will therefore include lots of modern buildings that wouldn’t have been there in the 1950s. The close-packed Victorian slum terraces of London’s East End suffered terribly during the war and not enough survives today for a backscene. Liverpool, however, is better preserved and we found a large area of unbroken terraces in Hartlepool that we felt would substitute for those in London. Into this, we blended churches from the East End of London so the horizon would be a recognisable field of spires and landmarks.
We used a simple and quick version of Paul Bambrick’s techniques by creating a backscene with multiple layers, each spaced forward with a layer of 5mm foam board. To do this one needs a continuous section of backscene with lots of roof lines or hill tops that can be cut as horizons. Two copies were printed that exactly match the underlying backscene, then the top cut off one, following a ridge or hill line and mounted on the base but not yet glued. This was repeated with the second print at a lower height and then a third layer and so on – like a staircase, each layer overlapping the previous – out to about four or five layers deep.
Having lit the houses on the model, we wanted the lights to appear to continue to the horizon so we mounted strips of LED into trapezium-shaped slots cut in the backscene foamboard layers, lined up with terraces with visible windows in front. These were lined with silver foil to spread the light and prevent the paper walls of the backscene glowing. Windows were cut with a fine scalpel to give an irregular spread of tiny points of light, lined up with the perspective angle of the backscene.
· The Dock and Dockside Crane
The dock was one of the six pre-builds with animation as both the derricks on the larger ship SS Cabinet Minister work. This was made by Andrew using a series of very small motors and servos to make the derricks function properly. It was again based on a Scalecenes model but with extensive modification and scratch-building around the original. It’s a great piece of modelling and adds both height and interest to the foreground.
The dockside crane was built from a Dapol kit but modified to make it fully functional. It has three tiny motors with gearboxes inside the cab. Both of these are great examples of taking a kit and then enhancing it into something different or better.
· The False perspective of the entire layout
A function of the curved backboard, the backscene montage and the reducing scale buildings, and then some careful placing of items, (buildings and trees for example) to act as view blockers, all work together to make Ealing Road work and something a bit different. This needed some careful thought, some test pieces, and some trial and error to get right.
Making it what it is today
At the end of the heat at Fawley, we had only an hour to dismantle the layout and pack up so things got pretty ripped apart and wires got cut, etc. The layout, having been assembled very quickly, was never made to be transportable so there was a lot to do to make it into an exhibition layout. The team knew that potentially 'Ealing Road' could be something special but quite how special only became apparent when we put all the parts together onto the boards at Fawley, on camera. It was quite an emotional moment, seeing for the first time our design becoming real and how well it worked. I think we were all taken aback, it was going to be good and beyond our expectations. Therefore, the team unanimously decided to take 'Ealing Road' to a few exhibitions if we were invited.
In order or the layout to be assembled, disassembled and stored properly, we had a lot to do. We had to rebuild the whole of the viaduct circuit as the original was four pieces that had no regard to the baseboard joins and was hastily attached. Much slicing, dicing and remaking was needed to make the viaduct integral with each of the three baseboards. The rows of terraced houses then needed slicing and dicing into manageable chunks to be transportable, they then needed to be rewired ,as did the basic connections between baseboards as originally each baseboard was individually powered
Then, we had to rebuild both scenic ends of the layout, where the hillside on the left had been damaged and the warehouses on the right partly destroyed. We had never really completed the bomb crater area from ‘Passport to Pimlico’ anything near satisfactorily, so this was done along with other buildings that we never had time to do. The ships had to be rewired so that they could be removed individually as the dock was one piece with two ships in it but now the dock is part of the baseboard. Having been dismantled, the masts on the SS Cabinet Minister were replaced with longer ones so it works better than it did. It’s taken a long time to do not helped by some members of the team being abroad for long periods of time at the end of last year.
Now the layout is much more robust, much more polished than it was originally, and far more detailed but in essence, is what we did on the day.
Looking forward
We were very fortunate that Hemel Hempstead MRS had some spare space and very kindly offered to host the layout while we worked on it to prepare it for exhibitions. Our plan is to display the layout at exhibitions over the next year and, at some point probably in early in 2020, it will be publicly auctioned for charity, in aid of the National Autistic Society. Railway modelling, as a hobby, is well known for providing a welcoming environment towards people who are ‘on the spectrum’, perhaps accounting for its geeky reputation. We see that as something positive and would like to give something back.
Conclusion
I and other members of the team have been asked if we would do it again and how do we feel about losing? Well, firstly, taking part was never about winning, it was all about promoting the hobby and having some fun and to a lesser extent seeing how good a layout you could build in a very short amount of time. It’s clear that, as this was an entirely new concept for a TV programme, the rules and how the competition would work would not be clear to anyone really. The production company knew nothing about railway modelling, of course, so no surprise that the rules kept changing and evolving as time went by. The whole issue we had with the six prebuild items is due to a mutual misunderstanding and, of course, the judge’s decision was final. The rows of terraces were supposed to be two single blocks but we never had time to consolidate them and, in retrospect, they would probably have been too big and too heavy to be manageable. Due credit to the winning team of our heat 'Strangers on a Train', who turned up with three totally bare and empty baseboards and produced an interesting working layout in the three days. The right team won.
Would I/we do it again? If was asked this shortly afterwards, my answer would have been no chance but now it’s different, as yes I would BUT not as captain. It was an experience but as captain, a lot falls on your shoulders and it took up nearly all my time for long periods. I would take part again as a member of a team quite happily as it's great fun to do. Would others in the group do it again, yes they would but not all as it's quite a commitment and takes a lot of time.
Postscript
Oxford Model Railway Club has now purchased the layout, which will be exhibited and used as an educational example in model railway classes for the club's Junior Section.
Money raised by the layout will be donated to The National Autistic Society charity, on the basis that the hobby of model railways provides a welcome home to so many people ‘on the spectrum’, encouraging diversity and acceptance.
Barry Cossins, Team Captain of Missenden Modellers from The Great Model Railway Challenge said, "We are delighted to announce that Ealing Road has been sold and found a new good home in Oxford & District Model Railway Club in which it will continue to be exhibited going forward. The team has agreed to donate all the proceeds of the sale to charity in the form of the National Autistic Society.”
John Simms, Chairman of Oxford & District Model Railway Club said, “We're delighted to have been able to offer a home to 'Ealing Road', given its innovative modelling techniques, undoubted popularity at exhibitions, including 'best in show' at the OxRail 2019 event. Its first outing will be at OxRail 2020, our virtual exhibition which we are hosting online on Saturday, October 24 at OxRail2020.com.”
Barry Cossins added, “Ealing Road has been a huge part of the lives of the Missenden Modellers over the last three years. We all thought it was enormous fun participating in The Great Model Railway Challenge, both building the layout for the show and then rebuilding the layout afterwards, so we could bring it to the exhibition circuit last year. It was immensely satisfying for us to see so many people enjoying and appreciating our layout. We had so many nice comments from all sorts of people of all ages and which made us all feel our hard work had been worthwhile. We always said we would exhibit it for a year but in the end, hoped to do our last show in April this year for the Hemel Hempstead Model Railway Society. This had to be cancelled along with all the other shows this year.
The cast, their roles and credits
Andrew Hicks
Artist, computer wizard and brilliant detailed modeller ( Dock, Dockside Crane and Backscene )
John Couchman
Great modeller of detail ( Station with glass roof , scratch built bridge, telephone box with real glass etc)
Rob Thomas
Electronic Wizard (Light effects, sound effects, station announcer, train shuttle)
Andrew (Kiwi) Thompson
Weathering superhero ( All the muck dirt as appropriate on everything by careful application of powder, pigments and paint)
Simon Roberts
Quartermaster accountant and housebuilder (Holder of the world speed record for most Scalescenes houses built in the shortest time)
Barry Cossins
Team Captain (Managing to keep the rest of the team on track and complete Ealing Road on time)
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