Good Fences Make Good Neighbours on Pembroke
…There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’…Mending Wall, by Robert Frost
Behind the engine shed on Pembroke, the fence separates track from a (probable) hay field. The engines are hardly going to jump up and roam the hay field, and the hay isn’t likely to cross over and sue the railroad when it gets run over. And anyway, if either of them took a mind to getting across the fence, this puny wire fence is not going to be a deterrent. Still, there would have been a fence there.
Thanks to Rob Kirkham, the 1.5 metres or so of fence required actual fence material, and consequently, it took about as long to put up as a real fence of comparable length. To lay out the holes for the 1/16″ styrene fence posts, I bent a piece of wood that was marked at 12-scale-foot intervals. At each of the marks, I drilled a hole, and planted some post material.
When building the cattle pens, I found it was best to keep the fencing under some slight tension, which is easiest with the material on the outside of a corner. So, I put the wire material on the far side. This choice also made it easier to hide the dots of CA holding the wire in place.
Was it worth it? You bet! But I’m glad Pembroke is a small layout.
A piece of wood marked for the fence panels helped make the fence smoothThe posts need to be trimmed for length now that the wire is in placeThe wire is really noticeable at the front of the layout.
