The sun returns to the Czech Republic

From Burgundy, the Longer Tomy Thomas Trains moved to the Czech Republic, where, a year on, a more seasonal sun had returned. We could finally go back to the layouts from the previous summer, and come up with refined versions. Each layout is made up of 9 independent loops.

 

Nice memories from that summer: the layout-making and filming was only interrupted by watching the Cycling Tour of Spain on the television, in other words the perfect holiday.

Volume 5 concentrated on the narrow gauge trains, although as was later pointed out to me by one of the viewers, Victor is also narrow gauge and could have been put in place of Mavis. Volume 4, below, though will serve as a tribute to Murdoch: both on Volume 2 and especially here he is seen performing superbly, demonstrating great pulling power. This would be his swansong, for he suffered severe damage from a leaking battery shortly afterwards. Whether he is eventual repaired or replaced, I fear he may never be as good.

2011: 4 uploads from Burgundy

And so, more by accident than by design, the next uploads would be Volumes 2 & 3 of the Longer Trains series, a year on from Volume 1, but still in Burgundy. Both would use the same layout, made of 4 independent loops, and without any incline, because I had serious doubts about the ability of some of the trains to pull more than 2 or 3 trucks up any sort of incline. Each loop was big enough to accommodate 2 trains though.

Here is Volume 3, which opens with a 2'50 continuous sequence:

I also uploaded 2 shorter clips, each featuring only one train: one was with Neville, pulling 7 tankers, and the other one with the Furano Express. At the time I hadn't been able to find any youtube clips featuring that particular train, although I have seen it cropping up since, usually as one of several trains in a clip.

The Furano Express in Burgundy:

I made the prediction that there would be no more Longer Trains instalments from Burgundy, and so far it has been borne out...

2010: No more uploads.

Later that summer, we travelled to the Czech Republic. We came up with another couple of layouts, but an unusually dark late summer meant that the filming was of such a poor quality that I decided against using it. I have however included a short snippet here:

Of course this would develop the following year into the Volumes 4 and 5 of the Longer Trains Series. Besides, there was also another layout, which we have yet to come back to.

We still hope to redo this, but in the meantime there would be no more upload until the next summer...

2010: 2 more uploads.

2010: 2 more uploads.

The next two uploads, in the Summer of 2010, would come from Burgundy. I had seen layouts on youtube based on a continuous loop going 4 times through Knapford, but 4 times in the same direction. We came up with a continuous layout going 4 times through Knapford, but twice in one direction, twice in the other.

The original orange TGV, with the empty Dijon mustard jar in the background, a not so subtle reference to Burgundy.

The bridge across the staircase was a nice original touch...

Liernais, the small village in Central Burgundy where this was filmed, lies less than two miles away from the very first TGV line, between Paris and Lyon, inaugurated in 1981.

 

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Almost as an afterthought, I then filmed another layout on the evening that we were leaving. No still pictures were taken, and I didn't get around to uploading it until October. I had bought quite a bit of extra rolling stock on ebay during the year, as I thought that the 1 or 2 trucks or coaches that came with the trains when bought new were always a bit insufficient. The "Longer trains" series had started, with the intention of eventually featuring every train at least once.

Somewhat unexpectedly, this has become our most popular upload on youtube at time of writing. There is a nice atmospheric quality about it that I still quite like though...

Tomy trains: the first uploads, 2009

2009

It was at that stage that we started to get serious. I had just realised that the light blue Tomy tracks could be had via ebay for a lot cheaper than they could in shops in the UK.  In fact, it was around that time that they were replaced in shops by the light brown Trackmaster tracks, which seemed to offer far less scope for expansion, or of the type of expansion that we were after at any rate.

 

First upload from Svebohov, Czech Republic.

Filmed in August 2009, but only uploaded in March 2010. I had also decided that I would use a carefully chosen soundtrack for each upload, thus entering a minefield of copyright issues...