Safety First
After installing a Preiser figure beside the shack at the branchline switch, I took notice of his precarious place in life: mere feet away from a deadly vertical drop. Although there was none on the original HO Scale layout, I decided to install a fence along the top of the stone retaining wall.
I started with some etched stainless steel split rail fence from Micro Engineering. This product has been discontinued, which is a shame as it's a versatile detail, so I had to use it wisely. For this application, the farmland quality of the fence had to be altered, which was accomplished by clipping away the bottom rail.
I placed the modified fence on the top of the retaining wall, and marked the locations of the posts with an ultra-fine Sharpie.
Using a #60 drill bit in a pin vice, I drilled holes for the posts. This was quite easy since the retaining wall is made from casting resin.
Then it was out to the garage to hit the fence with a coat of Rust-Oleum ruddy brown primer. When that dried, I installed the fence, then applied CA to the post holes with the tip of a knife blade.
The last step was to touch up any spots where the paint was nicked off of the fence from handling—stainless steel doesn't like holding onto paint. And with that, I felt much better for that lonely fellow standing guard over the branchline switch.
Then, using the same material and technique, I installed the fence along the culvert by the old mill, the only difference being that I used grey primer instead of brown. Incidentally, this fence does exist on the original HO Scale layout.
