Author

Tom Cunnington

Date

13th September 2015

Reading Time

< 1 minute

Several times a year, we get asked to provide a model railway for some sort of filming – TV news, feature or advert. We oblige whenever we can, assuming we can adapt one of our layouts to suit the brief (or the brief can be adapted to suit our layouts!).

 

We were asked to provide a layout for a film for the charity “Action Against Cancer”,

reflecting what they do, to help them with fundraising. The original brief was probably too difficult to achieve without some CGI, but the revised brief and sufficient lead time enabled us to adapt our new ‘hands on’ layout U2Can for the purpose.

 

We expanded the scenic section at the front, featuring a town station in a cutting, out to include an open country station, village and coal mine. Colour light signals, which mattered for the story line, were also installed. The facility fee covered the costs of the scenic development.

 

The layout worked well during the filming in early September, although under the heat of the lights the HST started to squeak, but fortunately it was not a sound recording and the train just kept going.

 

The actor was a 7 year old boy, and when the shooting stopped for the crew to review their shots he did what any small boy would do – he played with the layout!

 

The film is being edited, and we’ll post a link when it is released.

 

David Aplin, U2Can layout leader.

 

If you would like to use one of our layouts for filming, please contact us through the form on the website.