Viewing journal 10th Jan 2011

This week, I watched James May's Toy Stories (BBC2). In this series, May looks back at some of the toys from his youth and attempts to bring them back in to the public consciousness. In this episode, he attempts to break the record for the longest model railway by running a track from Barnstable to Biddeford. When creating this programme, the researchers would have had to first find a route with some cultural significance. In this case, the route follows a disused railway track closed by Dr. Beeching as part of the "Beeching Axe" which closed many of Britain's railways around the same time as the decline in model railways. The other main concern of the researchers would be the pure logistics of creating the programme. This would mainly involve contacting fixers in the local area as well as organising the permissions for building the track in public places and getting members of the public to get involved in building the track. At the end of the programme, the train does not actually break the record and the researchers would have had to work with James May to craft a satisfying conclusion based on this failure.