Stringing Atlas telephone poles

[chutton01]

Assuming you mean these Atlas poles, the 'unused' side crossarms I believe were used to support lights - the crossarm supported a mini-bulb, with the wire threaded through the block at the end of the side crossarm.  I didn't have lights w/ my Atlas set, but I had a similar set of poles which did have lights threaded through a side crossarm.
I cut off the bottom 2 crossarms (and filed away the support brackets), and removed all but 3 of the insulator on the remaining crossarm to get a telephone/power-line pole type pretty common in the suburban US (don't know if that pole image is from a suburb, but it's representative of the type I needed.

[loathar]

The only time I've seen unused cross arms was on track side poles that were abandoned and had their wires removed or stolen. I've never seen current, functioning poles with extras. And I pay a lot of attention to how power lines are run. (don't ask...)

[Texas Zepher]

jecorbett

A few of the poles have an extra arm sticking out to one side supported by an angle brace. I'm trying to figure out the reason for these. Does anyone know?

If I understand the description, this would be a junction pole where the lines drop from the pole to a termination point (station, maintenance of way shed, interlocking tower etc.).  

these poles have 18 insulators on 3 arms. That seems like overkill for the effect I want. It probably wouldn't be hard to cut off the bottom arm or some of the insulators but I wondered if in the real world, extra insulators would have been put on the poles for future use and left unwired. That would give me an excuse to do less wiring without any surgery.

Depends on the era being modeled.  When the poles were put in, there had to be a separate circuit for every pont-to-point dedicated connection that they wanted to make.  As time went on the technology and public switched networks reduced the need for maintaining so many private wires.  In that case the wires were taken down and the crossbars & extra insulators left in place.   So my point is the older in time one goes the more wires there would be, as one advances in time there are less wires with extra cross members and insulators sitting around on the poles. 

I think that the Santa Fe main line had only two crossmembers on its poles between Newton Kansas and La Junta Colorado in the 1960s and 1970s.     The UP (Kansas & Pacific line) had a single cross member with only one pair of wires on it until just the last few years.   Now there are polls and the crossmember with no wires (and the insulators are vanishing quickly too).

[jecorbett]

I will soon be making my first attempt at stringing telephone poles. I will be using the Atlas poles and E-Z-line. I've don't recall seeing any how articles on this so I would be interested in any tips anyone has. My though was to use CA to attach the lines to the insulators but can't decide whether to loop the line around the insulator or simply lay it against them. If there is another option, I'd like to know what it is.

Also, these poles have 18 insulators on 3 arms. That seems like overkill for the effect I want. It probably wouldn't be hard to cut off the bottom arm or some of the insulators but I wondered if in the real world, extra insulators would have been put on the poles for future use and left unwired. That would give me an excuse to do less wiring without any surgery.

 One last question. A few of the poles have an extra arm sticking out to one side supported by an angle brace. I'm trying to figure out the reason for these. Does anyone know?