James May's Toy Stories

[Darren Jeffries]

UK members will be familiar with James May as one of the presenters of the BBC show Top Gear. His new series of 6 shows has been all about Classic Toys and extreme experiments with them.

 

Of the 6 shows in the first series, he has attempted to build a full size footbridge out of Meccano, a Garden out of Plasticine, a Full size house from Lego, he manufactured a full scale Spitfire Airfix Kit, and successfully recreated the legendary Brooklands race circuit using Scalextric.

 

The Christmas show was the best for me. He wanted to recreate the local branch line from Bideford to Barnstable in Devon. The original line was ripped up in 1982 and only the tracks at the old level crossings still remain. As with the rest of the series, he wanted to use classic toys, and yes, you guessed it, used OO scale Hornby railway track. For the run of 10 miles he brought in the owners of Minature Wunderland to help and tried to run 4 different trains. The Flying Scotsman, the Original Steam loco from the 50's, a Diesel War Engine and the new Bullet Train that will be used for the Ashford-Olympic Village run in 2012.

 

It was extremely interesting, and i did record it on my HTPC. If anyone wants to see it, let me know and i will make the video available. UK members can watch it on BBC iPlayer but non-uk members cant access that service.

[Martijn Meerts]

Wouldn't mind seeing all of those episodes :)

[Darren Jeffries]

Anyone who wants to see this episode or any from the series, please PM me and i'll arrange something for you.

[qwertyaardvark]

Yay internet~

 

I guess for those not in the UK and wanting to watch the train episode, its already on youtube. Its 6 parts, though it seems part 6 was already removed. Fortunately, there's another part 6 of 6 posted by someone else. :) I forsee more takedowns of the videos so if you have a youtube video downloader, i suggest downloading it soon! The first of the series posted here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Deut_3Ihs

 

The next four videos you can find from the same user.

 

The removed part 6 can be found here:

 

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks Darren!

 

Really enjoyable video (and a lot better than watching the crap on TV these days). James May seems to live out some of wacky dreams we all have at some point in our lives. Here in North America we cannot access many of the UK videos directly but need them to be re-posted on YouTube etc; so thanks again!

 

Hope everyone had a great Christmas..

Rick

[to2leo]

Wow a very interesting documentary for the general public to learn more about toy trains.  After watching the whole process, a few things pop up to make me wonder whether the 17km attempt will work...

1) if the train sets were strapped with on-board batteries than relying on powered rails?

2) if using Fleischmann's piccolo road bed tracks or Kato Unitracks will lessen dirt into the engines?

3) if having people to vacuum the tracks right before the train approaches?

4) if using Kato, Tomix, Fleischmann or other more reliable brands?

[Bernard]

Thanks Darren for informing us about this series. I only got to see the ones that were posted but still very interesting and enjoyable.

[IST]

Thanks for the links and the infos. I read some article about this project in different magazines, and wanted to watch this show, but BBC is not available on our cableTV system.

[grumbeast]

That was great,

 

  I confess I agree that selection of a better quality locomotive may have improved thier chances somewhat (and as much as I like steam locomotives, in model form I think the extra motion and friction from the valve gear is bound to give problems).  Now how far do we think an N scale locomotive would run in similair conditions?, with unitrack for example.  I tend to think they have a better power to weight ratio than OO (certainly my series 0 is very light and seems pretty powerful)

 

Graham

[harukablue]

N gauge what about T lol,,,,what would that be 10 miles is 16Km so that would be x450........4500 miles or 7200km isnt that about the length of the Trans siberian?

 

The model that actually ran the longest (7miles) is the model of the new Hitachi Electric units, much improved model on UK models of even ten years ago, so it was a model made in China of a Japanese built train that operates in the UK!!

 

Previous records i think have been round and round endurance of time more than length of track, not too sure who holds that record anyone know?

 

Lew

[railzilla]

Running the Javelin with the motor car at the end of the train would have spared it from most dirt and it could run the full length. Using trains with Dapol/Tomix H0 Cleaning cars before the actual record braking trains and even the steamer would made it. And having wheel cleaning track every km and let the trains rest a few minutes also would have increased reliability. Still a nice attempt given the trains where not made for outdoor running and the track was only temporary.

[Martijn Meerts]

There's lots of reasons why it didn't work out. You don't really know how and what though if you don't know whether or not they were on a certain budget, or what they got from sponsoring etc.

 

Mounting all the track on some wooden boards would've helped a lot already, a lot more stability and less issues with the rain. Obviously a better way of handling the power (it didn't help that half the batteries they had got stolen of course ;)), and the trains would've needed a few adjustments.

 

But, I guess part of the challenge was using unmodified and readily available items.

 

 

I managed to get the entire series, watched the trains and the scalextric.. That one was actually really nice =)

[CaptOblivious]

Wow. That was really amazing. Part 4 especially had me grinning :D

[Welshbloke]

Model Rail magazine sent a few people to help with the record attempt. Their conclusion was that the idea was sound, and that they'd like to try again but with better security and timing. If work started at dawn on the longest day of the year then the trains would stand a good chance of completing the run in daylight.