Following Seething’s first exhibition appearance at the Falkirk show last year, we identified a number of improvements that could be made.

• Stability of Layout
• The Control Panel
• Uncoupling Magnets
• Length of Layout
• Detailing the Structures

The narrow width of the layout meant that the H-shaped legs were too narrow (at around 14 inches) which made the layout wobble a lot and a good thump would have knocked it over.  Michael suggested adapting the method he uses on Jack’s Hill, i.e. having the foot of the legs wider that the layout.  

I’ve now added a lower beam 18 inches wide, with the adjustable height feet relocated, which has significantly reduced the amount of instability.

I next turned my attention to the control panel, which was a simple tupperware tub with 3 toggle switches to control the points.  This is a bit unsightly and required the operator at the back of the layout to get the attention of the front operator to set a route.  Bill uses Macro’s operated via the NCE handsets on both Eaglesham and Rockvilla.  I’ve now done this, it took no time at all, and it works (don’t ask me how, its pretty much voodoo).   I have kept the original control panel and wiring incase of Macro failure at an exhibition.

Currently the uncoupling magnets are the centre of my attention.  These permanently fixed square magnets are hidden between the sleepers, and whilst being successful (when you can see them), they attract the attention of some of the steel axle stock which causes stuttering whist running slowly over them,  this can cause uncoupled cars to recouple, which is most annoying.

To combat this problem I am moving over to larger permanent magnets, 22mm x 11mm mounted on a hinged platform under the track.  I am using a servo to lift the platform to below the sleepers to allow uncoupling, reversing the servo to drop the magnets away to allow the uncoupling movement to take place.  It has taken a lot of trial and error but we have just cracked how to get consistent reliability. 

I’ve spent the last few months working on bringing the layout up to scratch ready for the buildings to be built and added.

New track has been laid on the extension boards, which are permanently fixed to the existing boards, and the track has been ballasted.  After a while tracking down a most annoying short (which bizarrely didn’t show under DCC power), I’ve fully cleaned the track and tested the point servo’s and wiring.

I have also spent a good bit of time ensuring that the wheel back-to-backs are consistent across all the stock, as well as standardising on and setting the Kadee couplers to the same height for reliable uncoupling.  I am in the midst of installing uncoupling magnets using square N35 Neodymium magnets from first4magnets.  Bill and Michael recommended these.

I had some unbuilt rolling stock kits that I have built up, which is another job done!  A plastic wheelset replacement is also underway, these wheelsets being replaced by metal Kadee wheels which are non-magnetic.

My next job is planning and building the structures, I’ve bought a number of Walthers kits to use as a basis.  I was struggling to work out how to blend in the backscene with the entrance to the fiddle yard.  Originally I had a girder bridge at a slight angle (see further down the page) which was hard up against the backscene, Bill simply increased the angle which will allow a structure to be place to hide the entrance better and blend in with the backscene.

In addition to all the above, I’ve been buying more stock, which I do not need, and I definitely don’t need an 86ft boxcar.  Never mind 3 of them…

With my return to the office, the ‘home office’ has returned to its rightful place as my hobby room so I decided to rescue Seething from the loft after being most miffed at heavily modified Pacers built for Pendleshaw being unable to move themselves.

I decided to revisit the previously talked about extensions to both boards.  These were built from 9mm ply on spare skirting board wood for a frame and were, quite frankly, ridiculous.  Therefore I decided to rebuild them in a more socially acceptable manner, using 3×1 timber, fortunately I was able to reuse the ply tops.  

I’ve picked up a few more items of stock – 2 cabooses (cabeese? cabii?) and a switching loco, all in Rock Island livery.  The caboose models are different from each other, one is a kit, the other rtr, from Athearn and Roundhouse respectively.  I’ve been enjoying building the kit, taking my time to paint the interior and roof to give a bit of life to it.  I’ll do the same painting on the rtr one.

As part of the trans-atlantic change to the layout, I’ve decided to extend the baseboard at each end by 12″ each.  Originally I was only going to extend the fiddle yard board, to provide support for the slightly over hanging sector plate, but decided to add another extension to the other board to keep it symmetrical.  Or maybe because I had 2 pieces of plywood the exact size in my shed…The obvious benefit of this extended length (now 8ft) is slightly longer trackwork and train formations.  The fiddle-yard extension is in place, extra track laid for the headshunt and wired up.  I have also extended the rear siding and sector plate approach tracks.

When Seething was Seething Lane, the entrance to the fiddle yard was hidden by an overbridge, which I have done away with, to be replaced by…an overbridge.  To be fair, the original was a stone and plate girder affair, the new one is a truss girder structure.  This from an old Airfix kit, which I have modified with new fillet iron work to represent crudely welded repair patches.

Work will continue on the rest of the layout over the next few weeks and months​

Not happy with the looks of reliability of Peco points, after coming across this document I decided to take a knife to my points.  I wont go into detail as the link covers all that needs to be done very well, but to sum up I removed the plastic sleepering around the tiebar area (photo 1), and replaced these with single-sided copperclad strip (photo 2).  The first two photographs show the before and after effect.  I also added soldered links between the running and stock rails, taking away the reliance on the point blades for power conductivity, as per the third photograph.  Time will tell if these modifications make a difference, but one paint and power are applied I will hopefully notice a difference.