Last night on BBC,James May from Top Gear had a show on in a new series he started,"James May's Toy Stories"..He's doing some really out there stuff,last night,he restored train service between two towns in England,11 miles apart..In OO scale!! He got together hundreds of people,cases of track,and built a model railroad linking the two towns.He then sent three trains off on the epic journey.Sadly,every single one wore out before it got there,only one made it seven miles..The fact that none made it kinda surprised me..The show after that,I haven't seen it yet,but he's trying to make scale 1:1 model kits of a Spitfire..
Fear not, Sir! James didn't give up - he went back a year later and tried again; only this time it was a race against the Germans :tb-biggrin: Yep, the guys from Minatur Wunderland raced from one end, James and his British team from the other; Steam, Diesel/Modern and the third was 'Alternate Fuel' - powering the train by other means than electricity. I won't tell you the result. But stick with the Program, the 1:1 Airfix kit of the Spitfire is great, then there's the 1:1 house built from Lego; the Mecchano bridge in Liverpool harbour, the Pasticine garden at the Chelsea Flower Show and recreating the old Brooklyns Race Track in Scaletrex (Slot Car Racing) - THAT one has to be seen to be believed.
I saw the Lego house show about a year ago on BBC America. I don't think the show is on here in the States anymore, sadly.
Are you referring to the show where he made a "full scale" model of a Spitfire? That was interesting.
I forgot to mention in my earlier post: After it 's total breakdown at the first corner in the first attempt, James restored his beloved '"Flying Scotsman" with chuffing sound' to full working order and it ran the British Steam leg of the race. This time The Scotman did complete the journey - but did it win its leg? The first attempt in 2010 was hampered by thieving little <censored> stealing the batteries along the route the night before. IIRC for the second attempt, the power was mobile as well, being only 1 or 2 power districts ahead of the trains.
Can't wait to see the Brooklands Track show!! I helped a friend recreat Watkins Glen years ago at Auto World for a World Record HO slotcar 24 hour run.I was kinda surprised the trains conked out so soon.Is seven miles really THAT far for an HO train to survive? I got the impression they were totally worn out by then..
Go to Youtube and input James May's Toy Stories. Be prepared for over 40 minutes of video broken down in 10 minute segments.
They laid the track right on the asphalt trail. The trains had gunk and stuff in them. In OO, seven real miles is 532 scale miles. On Youtube, the train segment is episode 6.
So were Hornby, given that they let James loose with their Protoype of the Javelin HST, which hadn't gone into production at that time. James couldn't live with the failure of this task, or of his beloved '"Flying Sctosman" with chuffing sound', which why he revisited it a year later. Brooklands was a challenge, seeing as part of the track was redeveloped and there's now a housing estate and an industrial estate on it.
