Is It Real? It LOOKS Real! Surely Not …

Back last century as a kid in the north-west of the UK (a little village called Higher Cloughfold in Lancashire), we had a model railway set. “00” Hornby it was, with a couple of Tri-ang choo-choos there for good measure.

T’was big too, taking up a whole room upstairs, with hills and trees, farms, little villages, a cathedral, roads and my favourite bit, working level crossings.

One engine was the Royal Mail train that auto-tragically grabbed little bags of mail from a pylon as it steamed past. It made real smoke too (from sewing machine oil).

Sadly, when we moved back to Australia, our railway set was a victim. Ever since, I have wanted to build another, but have just never got around to it – and I bet I am not alone.

Yesterday in the Vegas Pro Forum (for the non-aware, Vegas Pro is a high end video editing package), I came across some footage from a bloke, in the UK , Doug Wilson who has video’d a HUGE model railway set in Trenholme Junction in the North East.

Doug used a GoPro Hero 5 to get the footage and then edited it in Vegas Pro.

This is one of his results. It is mesmerising – and breathtaking I think you’ll find!

Doug says all the films are hybrids, using a mixture of previously used scenes, unused scenes from the original filming and new scenes shot recently. Some scenes have been re-edited from their original production version, which was in letterbox format, to full screen.

All the original and new scenes have a real sky video as a background. For more information about the ‘Infinite Layout’ see the links in video notes (on YouTube).

In this film, a Class 20 passes through the Main Station Parcels platform with an empty tanker train, followed by ex GWR tank engine hauling a short mixed goods local train.

To get the clouds, Doug says he shot them separately in two directions and in the final footage, they are composited in via masking, alternating as camera angles change.

Here is another of Doug’s work, and you can also subscribe (as I did) to his YouTube channel and relive that youth!

And dream.