Chandwell

It has been ages since I posted an update on this thread, so thought I'd pop by and add some photos. The back of Market Street is now finished. I've added a signal box inspired by the one that stood at Guiseley, scratch built from card, sticky labels, and cheesecake packaging, as usual. And I've just completed a scratch-built curved hotel based on the Crescent in Ilkley. Class 150 comes into Platform 4 behind the signal box, viewed over the rooftop of the Earl Chandfield hotel: While the morning InterCity service to Plymouth pulls out of Platform 1, seen from just beside the hotel: The same scene viewed from the roof of the department store on the other side of High Street: Some views of the front and back of the hotel:

It’s time for my annual Top 20 look at my layout. Hope you enjoy.

I have started to build the back of a low-relief commercial street that runs from behind the Royal Scot hotel, down the hill, towards High Street underneath track level near the station throat. This first building was interesting because I decided to use forced perspective to make it look like the street curved behind the hotel. I only had a tiny space of 40mm long to fit in this effect, so the building, its windows, and all the signage is all cut at an unusual shape to follow the vanishing point lines of the perspective. Here's a look from above to show what I mean: I experimented by adding a figure to one of the windows. This is juts a 11.8mm tall photo of a man on a black background, and it looks pretty ghostly: I'm pretty pleased with how it's coming together. Here are some more pictures:

Thank you Ian - this is really helpful. The box is much yellower than I would have imagined it; I'm quite surprised by that. I can't believe that after all the research I did, and when I decided on a "double overhang", that there was such a perfect example so close to me. That Bolton Abbey box is less than 8 miles from my house, and I've actually visited several times. I simply never really paid attention to the box. AND there's a perfect picture of it in my "Otley & Ilkley Joint Railway" book, standing in the vee of tracks at Guiseley. I think that before I make the box, I will take a trip over to Bolton Abbey and take a really good look. They may even let me measure, or take a look inside if I ask! Thank you for the link to your Flickr album - there is a lot of inspiration there. Happy times! Michael.

Hello Ian! Thank you so very much for your fantastic and very helpful couple of messages; especially the pictures. (I am pleased to say I can place many of them!). This is a truly inspiring read and has given me a lot of ideas, and has made me more confident in the direction I am taking my layout. I live near the old Burley Junction, so I walk the dog down the old Burley to Otley line almost daily. I've tried to read as much as I can about the old railways of the West Riding, and it was really special to see your own photos. I think I am settling on modelling the impression that a separate 2-track spur ran off from the station across the back of the layout. I'm going to model it without the bridge in place (maybe it was taken down like the one over Brook Street in Ilkley was) and with a concrete indoor market like Shipley's across the road from it. But I think you're right when you suggest I should model some of the rest of it still in place. You can still see in Ilkley now where the modern buildings and car park have filled the gap that the old viaduct left. In Chandwell maybe they've not pulled it all down yet...? Your example of Adolphus Street is all I need I think to feel more confident that I've not made the station at Chandwell too unrealistic, and there is always a story to be told when we're looking at back story. Thanks again - I really appreciate the effort you went to to help inspire me with Chandwell. Michael.

Hahaha. Thank you! As to your question… watch tomorrow at 5pm and you may get your answer!

And here's a quick BEFORE: And AFTER:

The Royal Scot - Chandwell's low-relief Victorian scratch-built hotel is finally finished. I've been working on this for 138 days, and it's taken me 170 hours of effort, with materials costing £26.30 plus inkjet printer ink. It's turned out much better than I ever thought it would. If you've watched my 16-part YouTube series on making the hotel it will be familiar to you. If not - feel free to ask any questions about the build and I will answer them!

Thank you Jim! I've not posted anything to this thread for a while, but it is really nice to see your comment! I hope Chandwell made your exercise bike a little more enjoyable! :)

That’s one lovely building! Beautiful work. The reason I use the sticky label method is two fold: I actually enjoy it! And most importantly, I can get all 124 windows onto a quarter of a sheet of sticky label and a bit of old birthday cake box, which will cost me a total of just over one and a quarter pence. And everything on Chandwell is done at absolute rock-bottom pricing!

So now that the station is complete, I am turning my attention to a low relief Victorian hotel behind the station. This is based on the really interesting, incredibly rambling, and massive Midland Hotel at the entrance to Bradford Forster Square station. This will be an exercise in interestingly intricate roofs, hexagonal towers, domes, terraces, arches, chimneys, and fancy wrought ironwork (Err... Or not...). This is the cereal packet mock up of the build. It's already taken 32 hours over 25 days to get this far but I am ready to make a start on the building itself tomorrow evening. It has 124 individual window/door openings. I will be using the Sticky Label technique for every window frame. It's going to be a long job, but I can't wait to get started.

Thank you both! Definitely give Inkscape a try, Wayne!

The station is finally finished! It has taken five months but has turned out almost exactly as I had hoped. If we compare this picture to the elevation I drew and showed in my last post, it is almost the same... It is built into a gently-rising slope from the left of the building to the right. It’s a 20mm rise in all. This makes the slope very gentle but to the naked eye it really works well. The camera doesn’t pick it up so much: It is all scratch built from card as usual. Even the tiny, 33mm high war memorial, which was made from 18 individual pieces of cereal packet and paper: I showed the graffiti in an earlier post but it has worked out really well on the back wall. I need to sweep the ballast drifts out of the fire escapes but it is hard to get round the back now that it is glued down! I am pleased with the view down the tracks to WH Smith’s on the concourse. I’m going to spend the next week or so editing the Chandwell YouTube video. I have almost four hours of footage I need to edit down into three 10-minute updates. If you watched my recent “This is Chandwell” episode that was made to look like a tourist information film from 1993 then you will know of the Visit Chandwell Tourist Board. They now occupy one of the rooms in the station, and have a cheesy “Ghost Tours” A-board out the front. In the windows, and on the walls inside are posters advertising Chandwell (“It’s not as grim as you think it is”/“a lovely place to leave”) with actual photographs of the layout as background. You can just about make out a 4mm high photo of The Weir pub on the wall next to the downspout. Next door is Pippa’s Pantry, complete with apostrophe mistakes in her egg’s and chip’s sign out front. I really enjoyed making this building and adding some personality to it. The portico has a glazed roof but I’ve not managed to get a good picture of it yet. I may post more in the coming days.

I’ve made a short video to show you what I think is the easiest way to make a hipped roof. I was always a bit daunted by trying to work out how to get the angles to work but it turns out you don’t need to worry about angles at all. You don’t need maths. Or a pair of compasses. Just a ruler will do. Hope you find it useful! https://youtu.be/Nr1BSagrwbI

I’ve been having some fun making the back wall of my station building. Adjoining the siding, this whole wall will probably never be seen except at a very acute angle in some camera shots taken from the platform ends. So I’ve gone a bit mad with the graffiti (all named after people who will “get it” when they see it) and I’ve added a couple of red brick 1970s fire escapes where they just broke through the lovely Victorian stonework. It won’t ever be seen but it was a fun couple of hours making this.

This is what I am thinking for the ground outside the station. This is the side of the station, not the front, and is parallel to the tracks. Here is a mock-up of the building, which I am starting to make today. If you see any issues with the design above for the ground, then please shout up as I would like to correct it before I start building! And just as a reminder, the ground will rise from baseboard level on the left, to slightly higher than platform level on the right:

watch out for Pippa’s Pantry moving into the next building just next door to the Visit Chandwell Tourist Board’s new office. Dripping with grease and with steamed up windows it will serve the perfect mug of Builder’s Yorkshire tea.

Now that the sky is in place, I have finished the front station building and glued it into place: # It is a low-relief building being about 2cm deep. I've tried to give the impression of a wide set of stairs ascending to street level at the front of the station - the ground will rise from the front of the layout to the back, off-scene, to allow me to model a road over-bridge across the to back tracks. I will model these to look like the through route has been lifted. (Just noticed a bit of light bleed under the front wall there - one to add to the to-do list.) The station itself is modelled on Chester, with its arched windows and graceful doorways. I made the windows using the "sticky label technique" whereby you stick labels onto acetate from old food packaging and then cut out the "holes" for the glass. The photo above shows the steps that lead to nowhere, and the toilets. This view will never be possible with the canopy in place. The canopy is removable and simply butts up to the wires hanging out of the holes. These push against some copper tape which causes the canopy to light up: I am moving onto the rest of the building next, which includes building the clock tower. I am looking forward to making that.

Thanks Mike - you beat me to it and probably did a better job too! I do the same but use Path > Difference as I find it slightly easier to understand what’s going on if I accidentally try it with too many overlapping parts. Stuart - really pleased you’re getting there!

The Visit Chandwell Tourist Board has a new slogan for 1994. “Chandwell. A lovely pace to leave”. I did! And if you watch my next video, you may even see it! Should be on YouTube in the next few days. Thank you. I love the units. The railway is in my garage which is also the office where I work all day so I needed it to be tidy and attractive in its own right. We also needed extra kitchen storage space so we had a joiner build the cabinets from basic MDF. I chose a dark colour (“Mid Azure Green” ) to set the whole thing off and I think it worked. Took me the evenings and weekends of about four weeks to paint it all but it’s turned out well.

Exactly that. Yes. Will get something together for you in next few days, work permitting.

Hi Stuart. Well done for getting that far. I’ll take some screenshots and give you a step-by-step. You can only cut holes from shapes so you need to cut the holes from the basic shape, move it on top of the bricks and then clip the bricks to the shape. You can’t remove holes from the bricks themselves. If that makes no sense, I’ll do you a tutorial tomorrow.

I’ve finally started looking at the backscene. I walked to the top of Ilkley Moor, 300 metres above my house over a 3.5 mile walk and just used my phone to take a few panoramas of the sky. I printed these onto A4 sticky labels (finally found a cheap brand that takes the printer ink really well). These were stuck to 0.5mm card and then this was stuck directly to the wall. The end result is great. You can see the joins when you look closely. But these are easy to edit away if you want to cheat.

I think your problem is likely the lintel and sills as they are part of your window. You can apply a bitmap (the bricks) to a shape via clipping like I show in the videos. However, they will only clip to a basic single shape. Try it with a basic rectangle. Draw a rectangle and make sure it is on top of the bricks. Select the rectangle. Shift-click the bricks to select them too, right click and do the clip like on the video. That should work. So you then need to make a simple shape with holes for the windows. Just white rectangles on top of your wall will work of course, but to make basic holes you need to cut the holes in the basic rectangle shape. You can cut one basic shape from another by using Path > Difference. Draw a rectangle and fill it in, say, red. Draw another rectangle on top and fill it in blue. This is your window. Select both rectangles and do path > Difference. You should be left with a red rectangle with a hole in it. Put this rectangle on top of your bricks. Select them both then clip. You will now have a brick wall with a hole in it. Draw your lintel and sill on top. Inkscape is basically a free version of Illustrator so I’d be surprised if you can’t do this in Illustrator. If you already know that software then it may be best to stick to that. I’ve just done a quick search and yea you can do this in Illustrator. Here’s how: https://design.tutsplus.com/articles/quick-tip-how-to-crop-raster-image-in-adobe-illustrator--vector-4989 Hope this helps. If not I’ll do you a video.

Hi Stuart, It's hard for me to tell which part you're trying to add the texture to. Is it the black rectangle? I.e you want the bricks to fill the rectangle, but miss out the holes for the windows?