7mm Seghill Sidings, formerly Mill Bank Alley

Blueeighties

Western Thunderer
Good afternoon. Back end of last year, I purchased a small exhibition layout, 'Mill Bank Alley'.
I'm sure many of you know I run the repainting and weathering company Lee's Locos.
Over the years I have had a couple of layout projects on the go, but as is usually the case, personal time is very limited so they frustratingly never came to fruition.
When I started the business all of my work was 4mm. In recent years, this has changed to 95% 7mm, and my personal interests are now also firmly on 7mm.
I enjoy photographing finished models, and was on the lookout for a small well finished layout that would cater for this, and as a bonus maybes allow me to run/test/play (!) With them.
So when this opportunity became available, it seemed perfect.
The layout measures just over 16', this consists of 2 5' scenic boards, and 1 6' off scene traverser storage board.
Whilst finished to an excellent standard, I decided on a few small, but hopefully manageable changes to make the layout my own. I plan to document and discuss these via this thread.

I have previously used computer control for driving the trains, for this one I wanted to return to my old favourite, the NCE Powercab.

Photography is important, so existing layout illumination to be improved.

The baseboards are constructed from mdf, and the scenic trackbeds display serious warping which needs rectification.

Improve the scenic background.

The layout is set 1960-70s, my interest is 1980s, so I plan the following.

Remove the steam era coal storage. Replace the cobbled ground surface area in the yard with something more appropriate for the period.

Remove the provender goods store, area to be made derelict, again more era appropriate.

Appropriate signage.

And no doubt various other things as I go along.

I enjoy documenting projects, so hope this will be of interest.

Regards,

Lee.FB_IMG_1681491494819.jpg
 

Dog Star

Western Thunderer
An excellent introduction to your layout and its future.

I shall follow, with interest, how you try to overcome the dips in the baseboard.

thank you, Graham
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
Replace the cobbled ground surface area in the yard with something more appropriate for the period.
I'd be very tempted to use one of those 'scenic compound' sort of paints, over the top of the existing cobbles, which is what seemed to happen often enough in reality, with the inevitable broken patches that showed the cobbles underneath.
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Hi Lee

I went to university in Newcastle in 1980, I made a few trips to Seghill to photograph the coal trains in 1982, by then most of them had moved over to single 56 haulage, though there were still a few 37s around, when I'm back home I'll post up a few photos from then.
Virtually all the trains were HBA or HEA wagons, it was unusual to see any HAA wagons.

Richard
 

BCN-Pete

Western Thunderer
Great plan Lee,

I look forward to see this develop and of course see your loco's displayed on it (even those that you are temporarily looking after!)

Its a fab layout (by Hugh Flynn I believe) but I find the back scene a bit overpowering rather than a muted backdrop to the main act...perhaps that is on your list as above.

Cheers,

Pete
 

Blueeighties

Western Thunderer
Hi Lee

I went to university in Newcastle in 1980, I made a few trips to Seghill to photograph the coal trains in 1982, by then most of them had moved over to single 56 haulage, though there were still a few 37s around, when I'm back home I'll post up a few photos from then.
Virtually all the trains were HBA or HEA wagons, it was unusual to see any HAA wagons.

Richard
Excellent, I look forward to seeing those! Yes the Blyth and Tyne network was pretty much the last time move over to the 'newer' HAA operation, this was due to the equipment in the power station unloaders not being upgraded.

Regards

Lee
 

Blueeighties

Western Thunderer
So the first issue....warping of the trackbed. You can see it in the attached photos...an aluminium straight edge has been placed above the rubbing rqils. Even though the dip was along the full length of the board, oddly the board sides are nice and straight being properly supported by the traditional twin beam 'sandwich construction'. So the warp was across the width of the board. Cutting some new cross beams, forcing them up from below did the trick, and with the added bonus of not having to screw through the topside disturbing track and scenery. Not perfect, but a vast improvement.FB_IMG_1681836321742.jpgFB_IMG_1681836318761.jpg
 

Blueeighties

Western Thunderer
Next tackled job was the backscene. Looked ok, but even Hugh agreed it needed improving. I generally prefer simple unfussy sky, so the old paper layers were stripped off, and a sky applied via blue paint. I have added a bit of patch painting with greys to break it up a bit, I'll do more with this soon to tone things down a bit more. But I am happy with the improvement so far.

Regards

Lee.FB_IMG_1681836873949.jpgFB_IMG_1681836878514.jpgFB_IMG_1681836881928.jpgFB_IMG_1681836887630.jpgFB_IMG_1681836892269.jpg
 

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Blueeighties

Western Thunderer
Power. As Jeremy Clarkson would say. My chosen weapon of choice is the NCE Powercab. However it's a tad underpowered for 7mm, so ideally it needs a booster. I picked a 5amp Tam Valley second hand, which has proved just the job. I have had some issues when breaking the layout into seperate power 'districts', basically issues arise when the loco bogies traverse over 2 seperate districts. So, an isolated section had to be created in the traverser section, which has meant some cutting of the aluminium channels used for track. Pretty easy work with the Dremel.fiddle.jpgfiddlea.jpg
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Lee

You shouldn't have any issues with moving between power districts, there are 5 separate districts on my layout each with an individual booster and all locos move seamlessly between them.

You must though get the polarity of each section the same, I'm fairly certain that is the problem. It is essential to have the same polarity through out the entire layout for DCC to work correctly.

Richard
 

simond

Western Thunderer
Lee

I’m surprised you’re having issues at power district boundaries.

both rails must be isolated, of course, and the DCC signal must be the same polarity - you can check this with a multimeter on ACV - if it's the same, you’ll see no (or very little) voltage across the joint on the same rail, if it’s wrong, it’ll be pretty much track voltage.

sorry if granny / eggs
atb
Simon

see Richard beat me to it!
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Hi Lee

I'm finally back from travelling for a while, so here are 3 photos taken near Seghill crossing one afternoon in 1982.

slides56 at seg hill crossing.jpg

This one, the 56, is approaching the crossing from the north

slides37 with brake van seg hill.jpg

The 37 is heading north towards the crossing

slides56 with HEAs at seg hill from south.jpg

This one is heading North too.

Richard
 

Blueeighties

Western Thunderer
Been wanting to have a go with this for ages. Needing to lose the cobbled road surface on the layout.
Taking inspiration from the amazing scenic work of Gordon Gravett, and Simon George , I'm having a go at making puddles from microscope slides, and creating dirt tracks with air clay. Early days, but results are so far encouraging. Just a small test piece first, once this dries, colouring and surface texturing to follow20230507_113606.jpg20230507_125237.jpg20230507_125246.jpg.
 

Blueeighties

Western Thunderer
A Monday morning change from loco pictures :) I am just about there with the upgrade, or should that be downgrade? of the cobbled road surface on my layout to a more slapdash rougher surface more appropriate for the eighties.
Some of the original cobbled surface still shows through here and there, as per the prototype.lay.jpglay1.jpglay2.jpglay3.jpglay4.jpglay5.jpg
 

Blueeighties

Western Thunderer
Weeds! Been having a go at making some of that very common one specific to the lineside....'Rosebay Willowherb'. Again taking advice from Gordon Gravett's manual, haven't got it 100%, for starters the colouring extends too far down to the base, but I don't think this is too bad for a first attempt.weeds.jpgweedsa.jpgweedsb.jpg
 
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