I bought from ‘the States’ an HO gauge telegraph pole to copy the ‘American’ style and size. I made a template and produced in about an hour 15 metal telegraph poles. (all soldered). ( I will post piccies if anybody is interested). Now air brushed in brown and (I think) look pretty good.
My questions are :-
Do I just plant them trackside without the wires? or
Do I ‘connect’ them all together with ‘wires’? if so,
What is the best thing to use for the ‘wires’?
I hope to post some pictures of my layout in the next few weeks if that is ok.
As for wires there are several schools of thought on this. In reality a scale width cable would be so thin as to be virtually impossible to model. Some modelers will leave the poles without wires, other will string wires. One of the issue of stringing wires is how likely are they to be snagged during normal operation of the layout. You can imagine the disaster that could occur with a whole string of poles pulled down. You can use Lycra thread in a dark color. It will stretch and minimize damage, or at least reduce it. I would expect that a good sewing store in England would have this thread.
I grew up in and around Bedford for several years of my childhood and have fond memories of visiting and uncle and aunt in Gt. Yarmouth. A really nice part of the UK is East Anglia.
And I live in Bedford right now! Not in England, mind you, but Bedford, Massachusetts.
There is a product made specifically for this purpose. Unfortunately, my hard drive crashed, and I’ve lost the link. It’s an extremely stretchable thread which many modellers have used and raved about. You install it with a bit of slack, like real wire, but it will stretch and recover if you accidentally snag it on a tool or piece of rolling stock while working on your layout.
Welcome to the forum. Some of us LOVE pics, so have at it.
I would string the wires; even if they are not visible in the prototype, we know they are there. If there are none on the layout it will look like the poles are not in use.
As Simon mentioned, you’ll need to take special precautions when doing things on your layout after you add telephone and/or telegraph lines. If you decide you want to add the lines after all, some folks highly recommend the product E-Z Line because it stretches but returns to it’s original shape.