Before I finish the framing of the fascia, I wanted to finish some of the more fiddly jobs at the back of the layout, which will be tricky to reach when the top framing is done. It'll always be removable - I've used the same design on the other two modules - but the less you have to do it the better. Adding a row of telegraph poles was one of those fiddly jobs...

As on the spring module, I used Ratio poles, simplifed the number of bars slightly, and added a suggestion of wires by using four strands of EZ-line. More would be nicer, but it's a real fiddle adding the lines and four doesn't look too bad.

The spring module was only a bit longer than 6 foot and I spaced the poles at 40 cm intervals, so didn't need to use many. The summer module is longer, and the poles needed to run the whole length of it. In the end, though, it wasn't any harder stringing the wire provided I took care not to gum everything up with superglue.

Ideally, you'd string the wires with a bit of sag between the poles, but that's stretching my skills to the limit I'm afraid. The problem is that the Ratio poles are sufficiently bendy that the wire, even though it's very stretchy, begins to tug at them once you've added a run or two. So if you started with a bit of a sag to start with, it could become a huge sag by the time you've finished adding all the wires between all the poles. For the sake of sanity I kept the wires taut. They are still very stretchy so it's hard to damage them.

Incidentally you can spot some shadows being cast onto the backscene. I'll need to paint some more trees onto the backscene to soak them up, but that can wait for another day.

Even with the wires at equal tension, some of the poles end up buckling a bit, especially as the line changes direction. I bodged some diagonal bracing to the worst offenders, hoping it would look convincing enough once painted.

Adding wires is one of those debatable modelling touches where you could argue they are better omitted, rather than being done in such a way that they don't ring true and consequently draw the eye when they should just blend into the scene. On balance I think they're worth the trouble but I can see the arguments against. In any case, the telegraph poles alone add a much needed vertical element to the scene.

Cheers, and thanks for reading.

Edit - here's a bit of progress toward concealing the shadows, by adding more trees to the backscene. Still some shadows there, but at least now they're not obviously against the sky, and can be further reduced by adding 3-d foliage in and around them.

The Bachmann N class has just received a decoder, so it's been getting a good bit of running over the last few days. I'm very fond of these models.