"I am going to add some telephone wires to my lay out" I said to my good friend and model railway adviser, Wilf.

He turned white and said "Noooooooo, you will be for ever breaking them and they will restrict your access to the track"

He was, as ever, quite right, so I had to get my thinking cap on. After much thought and consideration, plus a fair bit of planning, I came up with the following solution.
I would only fix the cables in a couple of places then loop and leave loose all the other connections, that way the 'wire' would fall off when knocked.

Wilf had kindly given me a reel of invisible thread that he had found at his local haberdashery store, it is a little stretchy so gives if knocked so is ideal for what I wanted.

The following is a little 'How To' which I hope will help and encourage this addition to any ones lay out who may otherwise not think it worth the constant repairing.

John :)

The first job is to 'plant' your poles. Their position is very important, try to place them so the wires are away from your main access points and of course high enough to allow your trans to run underneath them.

I planned to run my lines to both my station and goods shed so this dictated to a degree their position. I also wanted them to exit the lay out in a way that would suggest a continuation of the telephone net work.


 

I had drilled holes for the poles to fit into and secured them with a mix of super glue and PVA glue. While they dried I set about making the receiving pins for the station and goods shed.

My goods shed was already fixed in place, however I had left my station loose and this proved idea because it will move if the wires are knocked, again preventing brakeage and allowing the wire to just unloop from around the fixing pin.

I drilled a small hole in the roof of the station and of the goods shed. Next I cut down two track pins which were glued into the holes (see what a cheep skate I am).


 

 

 

The next part was a little more fiddly but still very easy (I can only do easy). I tied the end of the invisible thread using a small knot around the Goods Shed Pin and added a tiny dab of super glue.

Then I took the thread to the station fixing pin and just looped it around. The thread was then taken to and looped around one of the Porcelain Insulators (the white bits on the pole) and taken to the final pole, resting the thread inside of one of the Porcelain Insulators and finally into a tree so I could pull the thread through and attach it to the bottom of my base board, thus securing it and making it look like it was going off into the distance.

I added a second line, this one going into the ground, up onto the first pole then over to the last pole, again just looped. This too was taken into a tree and fixed to the underside of the base board.

 
 

 

The wires are a copper/green colour in real life, latter ones being covered in a black rubber. I wanted mine to stand out so I painted them a silver/white which shows up very well when using a flash light to take a photo but under normal conditions are visible but not 'in your face' and look just about right.

The whole process took less than two hours. I also used the invisible thread to add fishing line to my fishermen's rods, plus a dab of paint for a float on one and a little ball of Milliput for the other guys float.


 
 

 



 



 

I have caught the wires on a number of occasions and every time they have either just moved the station building or, more often, fallen off into the goods yard.
Both of these scenarios are very quick and easy to rectify.

So in short, I think this is a simple and durable system that will add a little more to a lay out.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, all the best,

John :)

It is good to have wires on the layout and I like the way you have made them nice and tight. Getting the colour right and the scale thickness is a challenge though. Your wires look about right scale wise.
I have seen somewhere that an elasticated thread has been used that is black in colour. Will try to remember where I saw it.

[user=11]Bob K[/user] wrote:

It is good to have wires on the layout and I like the way you have made them nice and tight. Getting the colour right and the scale thickness is a challenge though. Your wires look about right scale wise.
I have seen somewhere that an elasticated thread has been used that is black in colour. Will try to remember where I saw it.

I have used that Bob in my Charde station - will get a photo later.  If John doesn't mind me adding it to his thread ?

[user=606]Sol[/user] wrote:

[user=11]Bob K[/user] wrote:

It is good to have wires on the layout and I like the way you have made them nice and tight. Getting the colour right and the scale thickness is a challenge though. Your wires look about right scale wise.
I have seen somewhere that an elasticated thread has been used that is black in colour. Will try to remember where I saw it.

I have used that Bob in my Charde station - will get a photo later.  If John doesn't mind me adding it to his thread ?

I don't mind at all  :)

Is this the stuff, Sol?

http://berkshirejunction.com/subdirectory/ez-line/

Yes,   Max
http://www.modellers-warehouse.com.au/product-detail.php?d=EZ%20Line%20Black%20Heavy&c=18

Mine was from Modellers Warehouse called oingo boingo  before they changed the name.

As used on my layout for power wires   using the heavy grade

Hi John,

I'm no expert on any of this, but are these telephone or telegraph wires? I have read that the average branch line had a minimum of 5-7 lines for block control (telegraph) and railway telephone. A small station would probably not be directly connected to the GPO. I suspect the telephone line to the station would have gone through the signal cabin (the switchboard would be on the ground level).

One other thing I've noticed is that not all insulators were on the tops of the cross bars, many were underneath. I have no idea why.


Nigel

I really like those wires Sol, they look very good!

MaxSouthOz they look excellent to, lots of modelling uses which is a bonus.

Nigel They could represent either, my station doubled up has a Home Guard HQ during the war so they may have had an extra phone line installed  ;-)

Great feed back and help thank you all  :thumbs

John.

Hi John,

Nice storyline. You must have a concrete pillbox lurking somewhere. Up until the late 1950's and early 1960's on branch lines telephone communication was still carried over the telegraph lines, which carried the sacrosanct block control. The GWR had a system where 8 way stations could be called on the one line. Check out samhallas.co.uk for a nice history of railway telecommunications. Interesting reading.

Nigel

Thank you Nigel, I will check that out :)


"Nice storyline. You must have a concrete pillbox lurking somewhere."



It just so happens I have  ;-) I need to weather it a little more and make the hooks rusty.

I have used invisible elastic thread on Blossom Hill ,I will look up where it came from.
I think it was a magician accesories web page.  Take a look see if is as required.

What would be good is if we could devise a way of creating the "swag" which would need to be consistant thoughout the post distances, and over the several lines. pva coating or something.

This might be what you were looking for Reg?

Thats it ,thanks Bob. :thumbs