Congratulations to your parents on their 50th. My 50th too this year but sadly celebrated on my own as a widower. Still my marriage to model railways celebrates 66 years...I was a late starter at 6 years old!! Thank you for some of the best videos on RU-vid in 2023, and I am so looking forward to the adventure continuing in 2024. To you Michael, your family and all folk connected with Chandwell, I wish you a superb 2024. Cheers, Bob
Thank you for an amazing 2023. Wishing you and your family a happy new year and looking forward in anticipation of another year of superb modelling inspiration.
Great review of 2023. Always impressed by your achievements. Thanks again for for sharing your progress. Let’s hope that 2024 is good for all of us. Roy.
I’ve been into model railways for well over 30 years and have my own list of iconic layouts, N and OO gauge. Without doubt you deserve to be on that list and not only are you a very talented person but you are also very humble and humorous. Happy new year to you all. 🎉
Hello Michael, you’ve pulled it out of the bag again - I thought we’d seen our last instalment of Chandwell for 2023 but you’ve given us another pure gem! Such a heartwarming video and congratulations to Mr and Mrs Scott and the big anniversary - thanks for sharing this with the Chandwell fans - top stuff 👍🏼 I agree, the characters are great, Johnny O’Shae is the sort of character that conjures up a proper late eighties/early nineties image - Saint & Greavsie, old corner pubs, Eric Bristow…..this sort of character (to me) brings the atmosphere flooding in. I can see Ben being quite a full-on character as well 😝 At least eighteen months more work…..I hope it doesn’t fly by too quickly! I must admit Chadwell does seem to be THE definitive scratchbuilding resource, and there’s so much to help people of all skillsets. Thanks so much for hosting all this Michael (or should I say Bob!) a real feat. Happy New Year and all the best, Alex
Michael. Many thanks for all your wonderful, entertaining and inspirational videos. I am looking forward to many more. May I wish you and your family a very Happy and healthy 2024. Pete.
Oh, the townscape's fair tonight along the Chander; From the Maret there comes the sound of shopping day, In Goat Beck the trolleys are all gleaming, To keep the posh buggers from Leeds far away.
❤ Your content brings me happiness and inspiration for my unique US based Kansas railroad project. Have a great 2024🎉. I’m looking forward to your progress!
You have been a great inspiration to me and I have learnt so much from your careful and thorough explanations. Without any doubt, you have provided by far the best set of tutorials I have come across. The willingness to go the extra mile, both in the teaching and in the layout, has been a real enjoyment. Congratulations for all you and your family has achieved in 2023. I look forward to your exploits of 2024…
Congratulations to your parents wedding anniversary and wishing your good self and family a very happy new year. Looking forward to more of your fine work in 2024 . 😊
Great video as always. As well as the modelling I love how Chandwell grows in character as the landscape develops and am pleased to hear that it will keep me entertained for some time yet.
Congratulations to your parents and many thanks to you for enjoyable viewing as Chandwell develops. Happy safe festive greetings to you and your family. Looking forward to continuing learning about Chanwell's civic development in the coming years. Arthur
I hope you realise your inherent skill and artistic ability. We are not all blessed with the ability to create such intricate and beautiful drawings and models! Fabulous work.
Hmmm, as Chandwell moves into the future, I wonder if there will be a renaissance through urban renewal of the existing layout? That may be in the future because I think there is still more room for 1993-era urban decay. Chandwell is a magnificent realization of a model train layout, taking the magnificent old structures of the North and juxtaposing them with the reality of decline in the late 20th Century. Thanks so much for all your presentations, Michael! You obviously enjoy your endless project and are rightfully pround to share your progress, and I am very grateful to get to see the work in progress, and for you to share your techniques through the magic of the Internet!
Great advances over the year. I do like those artworks, a very Victorian engineer's look about them. Thanks for providing so much inspiration. Looking forward to your next year's videos!
Hi Michael - great review of the past year and the progress on the layout build. Still the best advert for what is possible in N gauge and the size of the channel is so richly deserved. All the best for 2024. Cheers Euan
Happy anniversary to your mum and dad, I hope you and your family had a nice Christmas 🎄🎅 All the best and a prosperous new year when it comes Michael 👍
Thank you for an excellent series of videos this year. I’ve enjoyed every single one, and the progress on the layout has been tremendous. I’m looking forward to what 2024 will bring. Happy New Year to you and your family, and congratulations to your parents on their anniversary.
Still my favorite RU-vid channel. The aesthetic of the growing town is brilliant. It's been fun watching it grow building by building except for Fluids. Haha. I've also very much appreciated you showing your failures and then solutions. Constant experimentation leads to unexpected challenges. But no experimentation leads to boring stagnation and burnout. It sure has been fun being on this journey, looking forward to 2024's builds. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
And a very Happy New Year to you too, Michael. I discovered Chandwell about a year ago when I was trying to figure out how to make hip roofs for an HO scale building and found the simple answer on great your channel. I am looking forward to following along in 2024! Keep up the great work; you are a great inspiration to all of us.
Love to celebrate the new year in the railway pub!! Hope the new builds further up station road don't obscure the view of either the railway itself or the far side of Chandwell, happy modeling in the new year.
A drinking game based on every time Michael says "twenty" could potentially get very messy. Thank you for a great year of inspiration and entertainment.
I am very happy to have stumbled across your videos and have learned a lot about how to use paper in far more ways than I’d ever imagined. I started an N gauge project several months ago on a 3.5 ft x 5.5 ft base. I’m using my home base in the San Francisco East Bay as the landscape (grass hills and live oak trees) and a small town based up my home town of Lafayette California sometime in the late 1940’s. I started with styrene and balsa wood buildings before I found your videos. The latest building, my grandparents pharmacy , is now paper using your techniques, I’ve got another 6 months or so to finish the exiting layout (with maybe some free labor from my grandsons who seem fixated on grass, but I need labor on making live oak trees). Next project, that my wife doesn’t know about yet, is the Central Pacific Railroad Yard in Sacramento, somewhere in the 1930’s when Southern Pacific had it. This is more like Chadwell as its old buildings dating back to the 1880’s with lots of brick and industrial glass. Main shop building is 500 ft long with a 100 ft turntable and 24 slot roundhouse. Going to be big.
The thanks should be to you Michael for all the work and time you have spent on producing your videos on Chandwell. Big congrats to your mum and dad on their 50th anniversary. I am always blown away by the building, finish and delivery on your layout. A massive well done and to wish you and your family a Happy New Year 👍🥂🍾
Hi Michael, great video to end the year with. Looking forward to seeing what's to come. Hopefully we may get the chance to meet up at an exhibition next year. I have tried to employ some of the techniques that you have shown, to a lesser degree on my own layout. Happy New Year All the best for 2024 Allan
Michael Great video, wow what a difference a year makes. The triangle area has added so much to the overall Chandwell Scene, blending in so many different buildings, the simple blue wooden hut & Water Monitoring Building, the remains of a older building, to the grand buildings of High St & Modernist Market Buildings and Plaza. Thanks for taking the viewer on the modelling journey with you. Looking forward to seeing how Station Rd develops during the year. Having seen the back of Brook St Ilkley I can say to my fellow viewers wait till you see it when you get to it and make sense of it, to model it. Also the Industrial Building from Otley you mocked up and its surrounding prototype buildings so many different shapes and sizes as well as textures, will look great in that ramshackle Industrial area by the River Chander. As well as the modern Towerblock, will the be any remains of Chandfield Spur viaduct or even a hint of the long closed Goods Yard ? I’m thinking of the old one between the railway into Interchange & Manchester Rd Bradford. The old Coal Drops in that yard would make a great backscene photo, even if only a glimpse between buildings like you did with the hills and building photos behind the raising High St. All the best in 2024. Thanks again. lan
I'll definitely include some of the old viaduct, I think. Not sure about the old yards. Maybe just the outer wall... So much to think of, so much to do... So much inspiration!
Thank you for sharing your work with us. Happy New Year to you and your family and congratulations to your parents on the 50th Wedding Anniversary (My wife and I will hit the 40th wedding anniversary in just over 3 months time)
Dear Michael, great retrospective on your 2023 accomplishments. Looking forward to the developments at Station Road. Great ideas you got for the empty space behind the Chander viaduct. The furthering of forced perspective and its illusion of depth and absolute favorite and pet peeve on this receiving end. Humbly think the footprint with the two rounded backdrops has already created a lot of potential. Your idea to create the next brutalist example in the form of a 60’s tower block right at the corner of where the two backdrops touch at 90° is indeed that first element of depth perception. Very curious on how you will fill in these spaces. Always am on the standpoint that a ‘shadow box’ effect may be helpful. Especially where there is a need to transition from 3D to the 2D. The simplest way to explain and achieve this feat is to create a hill just beyond the top, with a slight part of the downslope in front of ‘low relief,’ background flats, absolute flats and the possible different layers of backdrop coulisses/decor/(or)’drapes’ before the eventual flat end of the backdrop finishes the scene. Congrats to your mum and dad. Also a prosperous year in the making for you and all of your loved ones. Cheerio
Thank you Vincent, this is really helpful and inspiring. I will look into all of these methods and approaches when the time comes. I was thinking of reading some theatre set dressing books, as this is a common approach used there, I imagine.
Thank you for all the videos. I am hoping this new year I will be able to start using some of your techniques to start making my own buildings for my HO scale layout. Happy anniversary to your parents. Happy New Year to everyone
Michael, you have all the talent of a professional model maker, and in fact an artist. As I've grown as a model railroader over the last 60+ years I have come to appreciate (and, I must admit, envy) artistic talent such as yours when applied to a model railway. Thank you so much for sharing your work while maintaining a charming and genial presence. Happy New Year and Cheers from Wisconsin!
Your Inkscape "artwork" pieces remind me of my days as a young draftsman. I had to hand draw those plans and elevations for community outreach programs for government projects that were in the planning stages. Maybe you could print a few out and frame them or perhaps create a small art book of your layout.
I'll definitely get one framed. I can't imagine hand-drawing these. They take so long to adjust in the computer, I can't imagine having to get those lines all done properly by hand.
The tower is amazing. It reminds me of my youth and the Portsmouth Tricorn shopping centre (now long gone), another concrete brutalist structure that dominated it's surroundings. We always felt it was a shame that no film company used it when making a dystopian future cyber-punk style movie! I wanted to really thank you for your videos this year. It's been a hard one for my family and I and weekly visits to Chandwell via your videos have really given me something to take my mind off of it all and to marvel at your creativity and plan my own future layout when things are better.
It has a similar feel to all those kinds of places. I think we can all relate to them. Thank you for your kind words and I am touched that I could bring a little relief to dark times. All the best for the new year!
Congratulations to your parents for their 50th Michael. Well done on such a productive year. I'm certainly looking forward to seeing the completion of Station Rd, but now you have described the corner going to take 18mths to 2 years.. I'm really looking forward to seeing more plans on that.. Happy New Years to you and your family. Craig
Amazing work as always, its been an amazing year and you've done an amazing job all round :) Happy new year to you and your family and I look forward to your videos in 2024.
Happy new year! Thank you. So this is more a channel about buildings than moving trains... But I try to have movement at least three times a year... Go back and watch the last video... there were LOADS of train movements in that one!
@@Chandwell As far as I know Michael, you need to have a movement more often than three times a year. Some folks manage twice a day. Especially them posh buggers from Leeds who eat Muesli, Yoghurt and plenty of vegetables. Try this and report back. Failing that, there's always Fybogel. No need to thank me Michael. Just trying to help. 🙏
Happy New year to you Michael - and your mam & dad. Looking forward to next years builds. Think I'll treat my self to a binge watch of your earlier videos 🙂. Best wishes, George.
What an awesome inspiring 2023 from you. Looking forward to your 2024 and seeing where you will insprire me to go with my Yorkshire Moors layout. Such a shame that Adrian does not have a YT channel and yes, you really must show more of his layout and builds they look stunning. Have a great New Year and see you next year.
Happy new year Michael, video great as always, recently got back in model railways this year and upon moving into my first house I quickly took ownership of the loft over my other half to turn into my own space😅 your videos have been such an inspiration, buildings incredible and I can’t wait to start trying out some of your techniques in the new year when I begin the layout to hope to achieve at least half as good results, keep up the great work!!
I was so sorry to hear about your "complicated rear". On a positive note, cosmetic surgery has come on by leaps and bounds over the years so, hopefully, we'll hear about your perfect rear by the end of the year .... (And it's very difficult to alliterate on the sound 'ear'!).
Well done Michael, I've been following you since long before you had the station built - so it's great to see how far things have come! I'll be joining you in N scale soon enough, I'll still have some OO gauge, but the lure of proper length trains is just too powerful to avoid 😂 Take care!
A few people have suggested similar James. It's on my radar. Trying to get the station printed and framed to go behind me in my "pieces to camera" and then we will see. Do you genuinely think that they would sell?
@@Chandwell I imagine they would, but I suppose it's maybe a limited audience. I think something like Etsy for limited items for your fans, although you would have to weigh up the costs Vs potential sales. I do think your framed artwork looks very classy though, it's kind of the stuff you often see in pubs etc.
What software did you use to scale the effects on your layout. The tower is just an example of how architects don’t consider anything that they want. So it is appropriate that you installed the tower. Chandwell is awesome. And show you have talents well beyond description.
Why don't you frame up and sell your artwork, Michael, or at least do some limited edition unframed prints, as another source of revenue for the channel. All the best George
Thanks for a year of entertaining and instructive videos. But what do declining towns do, to slow down their decline? They look for (or make up) new attractions or claims to fame. Maryborough in Queensland, Australia, claims Pamela Travers and Mary Poppins, even though Travers left the town as a baby. So what famous/infamous people can Chandwell claim? Or invent? No offence to Ben or Rev, but perhaps Uhtred of Chandwell would be an option. Is there space for such an attraction?
You style of architecture while not uncommon here in the US, has mostly been demolish. We do have a wide variety of varying and unique styles reflecting on the various nations that impacted that region. For the most part the of arching style of architecture is monolithic mostly modern.
Too bad you lack the room to convert the layout to allow continous running. Just for showing off to visitors or your own enjoyment when scratchbuilding etructures.
I can't thank you enough for what you do. I'm always impressed with your skills and modesty about your achievements. I've wanted a layout since the late '70s (I still have all of my original N gauge stock from that era gathering dust in my garage). But the only time I've ever had enough space to get something started, I ended up getting divorced a year later! Alas, what little I had built got "accidentally" destroyed before I got it back. So I now satisfy myself by watching your work, and dreaming. I'm looking forward to everything coming up in 2024. (But don't rush it, lad. Because I'm also dreading the time when everything's done, and there's no more room for anything else in Chandwell!) Happy New Year to ya!
