This winter's building project was a wharehouse (I owe some pictures) and a telegraph system. The wharehouse is just about finished. Left to do is a couple windows and a people door for the office portion. I also built a forklift.
For the telegraph system I've built some telegraph poles (about 300 of them). I bought some 5/16" and 3/8" hardwood dowels cut down to a foot in length. The cross arms are 3" x 1/8" by 3/16" redwood cut from fence boards. The glass insulators are made from clear plastic "pony beads". The poles are notched and the cross arms are installed by #18 x 3/4" brass escutcheon pins pilot drilled with a #60 bit. Once assembled the pins are cut off with my handy dremel and then soaked in Thompson's WaterSeal. The lines themselves will be 26 gauge wire also purchased from a craft store and will be strung on site.
I'm looking for advice on pole spacing and how the system operated back in the '20s and 30's. Also any advice/experience on what went well or not so well on your railroads with telegraph systems.
Thanks,
Rex
Power lines run in sets of 3, so there will be three wires, spaced relatively far apart when they are transporting power. Telegraph don't need to be so widely spaced, so telegraph wires can be either on much shorter cross bars, or on poles with several crossbars per pole. Telegraph poles in the 20s and 30s also needed more wires the heavier the telegraph traffic is, so poles going to a small town might only have a couple of wires, but heading to a bigger city there might be many wires mounted on many cross bars.
Spacing depends on climate - the wires get longer in the summer when it is hotter, and shorter in the winter. If the wires are in an area with a big temperature difference between summer and winter, the poles will need to be closer together, but in a climate which has relatively little difference in temp between summer and winter, they can be spaced further. I think that in more northern climates, spacing can be as small as 30 yards, but further south, they can be spaced further.
Mark
About 12 years ago we took a "kid finally out of the house honeymoon" and one of the destinations was Painted Desert. Near the freeway entrance from the north gate of PD there was/is a segment of the old Route66. On the south side were a string of power poles about 100+ feet from the old road, on the nort side about 15+ feet from the road was an old western union line. Using my wife's 30 inch seamstresses tape measure we determined that the poles were 35~37 feet apart. Crossbars were located on every third pole. On the others the insulators were on opposite sides of the pole roughly vertical spacing of 20 inches (eye ball estimate.) I placed our poles at 18 inches. About a week later SWMBO declared NO, farther apart. A month later we agreeded on 22 inches. I must say I completely agreed with her, the looked much better. I have an antique hand cranked dowel cutting device. I cut the poles from old reclaimed redwood fencing. About 2 years later I noticed that the poles in the area of the dicandra (watered by micro sprinklers daily) were showing serious signs of rot. Cut a new set of poles (reclaimed redwood) and drilled a small hole in the bottom of the pole and cramed in a 4 inch piece of small diameter brass brazing rod. For a Christmas present one year she gave me a telegraph sound board. The sound board was not waterproof so it went inside my weather proof analog control center. The floral wire was removed and replace with wire from a 25 twisted pair of phone cabeling. Removing the insulation with a sharp knife it took over 2 hours and 3 band aids. Sending the signal down this wire it drives speakers in 2 different stations. Still works well. I had to replace one station and speaker due to our dogs evicting a stray cat from the backyard.
Suggest that you do not string the wires until you are satisfied with the pole spacing.
Tom Trigg
Mark and Tom,
Great advice. I'll start with the 22" and see what the "Chief of Staff" (wife) has to say and I'll not string wire until position and spacing is approved. I can put a third insulator in the middle and on top of the pole but that will have to wait until I can get them pounded into the ground.
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