Thanks a Million!

When I set out to build this layout over ten years ago, I could never have imagined that so many people would see the results of this endeavour. 

As I have said in previous blog's, it was my intention, originally, to allow people on the internet to log onto the layout and drive the trains live on line. Everything in the build was to lead up to this goal. 

When YouTube came along and the 'live driving' seemed to be less of a good idea (see previous blogs), the filming of the layout seemed to be a good way of letting a lot of people see it rather than a small number driving the trains. The experience of watching the trains as a passenger is not too dissimilar from the driving, the camera positions are the same.

I first put films onto YouTube around four years ago for my own entertainment and I was quite surprised that very quickly others were watching them, even though they were poor in quality and content and, the layout was bereft of virtually all scenery.

At this point, I was still working towards the notion of 'live driving' and I was trying to see the practical implementation of this idea in order to progress to the next stage which would be to write the software to do the work of controlling the trains. The YouTube experiment was to see the quality of the films that could be achieved and then to start the selection process of the cameras. The initial experiments were using covert spy cameras with transmitters which worked surprisingly well, although the quality left a lot to be desired.  

YouTube was still on the rise at this time and there was some good content being generated connected with model railways and the potential of doing something different presented itself when YouTube had the idea of allowing a collection of videos to be grouped into one place and so the YouTube channel was born. At this point I decided, together with other factors (see previous blogs) to opt out of the 'live driving' idea and simply film the layout. This way I could demonstrate what I really set out to do, show the operations of a 1960's railway.

Initially, the films were a little hit and miss in content but the latest are in themed series, are quite often they continued from one another in the numbered sequences, a bit like a soap.
All the film footage is stored in an archive including all the unused scenes, its my intention to re-make some of them using different editing techniques and adding authentic sounds.  

I thought that maybe if I could get a thousand views of the layout, that would be a great thing, but I never dreamed it would pass a million. I've really enjoyed making the films and I would like to extend my thanks to all of you who have encouraged me, made comments and all of you who have simply watched, I have made some really good friends along the way.

Some statistics include a monthly average audience of around 25,000, the most popular places are UK, United States, India and Australia. 
The blog has been read 25,000 times.
The Track Plan has been downloaded 1,150 times. 
Initially, almost 100% of the audience watched the films on a computer, now that's only 50%, 40% are on Tablets and Mobile Phones.
The channel has 280 published films, one film has been watched a third of a million times.
Sundays are the most popular days for watching. 

To view the channel click here