RR Telephone Poles

[eastside]

On page 34 of the June 2004 issue of Trains is a picture taken in the ‘70s showing a manifest leaving Seligman. One thing that gives the picture a sense of timelessness is the string of telephone poles with lots of wires stretching into the distance.

Is this still the case with the BNSF transcon? To what extent have the railroads had the sense to replace all that expensive to maintain wire and wood with fiber optic cable? I would also think they get lots of revenue by leasing rights-of-way to telecom companies.

I always wondered what all those lines were for. Were most of them for internal railroad use or used by the telephone companies?

[Big_Boy_4005]

The poles are fast becoming a thing of the past. BNSF and CP have some joint trackage near me where there was some major construction going on all around the tracks. All of the old poles came down. New signals were even installed, but that is probably not related to the poles.

The UP is working to upgrade the Chicago to Twin Cities line. The poles are still up on the section near me, though the number of wires is nowhere near the capasity of the crossarms.

I think it really depends on the line, and the amount of traffic it sees. Some lines aren't worth the trouble, and others are prime real estate. Maybe the deal works out so that the railroads are earning money for the use of the land, and getting the service they need in the process. In the end it means good bye poles.

[mvlandsw]

The pole lines were used for internal communications, signal wiring, and power supply to run the signals and power switches. The communication is now done mostly by public telephone, radio, microwave, or fiber optics. The signal circuits can run through the rails or by radio and much of the power is taken from the public power companies. Some railroads have leased a right of way to the fiber optic companies and have gotten the right to use some of the circuits. In many places this has eliminated any need for the old pole lines.

[Anonymous]

Most old pole lines are gone as others have said. A few, such as on the NS Southern Tier Line still remain in use for signalling and communication.

LC

[Noah Hofrichter]

The WSOR still has poles up on the old CNW line now the Reedsburg sub. They act as milage markers but no longer carry wires. The have the plaque band system, where a plaque states the beginning of the mile, and then every quarter mile a band indicates the number of quarter mile.

Noah

[eastside]

QUOTE: The pole lines were used for ... power supply to run the signals and power switches.

In the remotest reaches do they keep the wires or install something like solar panels to supply power? I'd guess they'd even consider switching to LED lit signals since they're so much more power efficient.

[Anonymous]

Pole lines originally carried communication lines: first telegraph, then telephone. With the advent of automatic block signaling, they carried power to charge the batteries that actually ran the signaling system, or a.c. power, but in some cases the signals remained battery powered, particularly in remote areas with no readily available commercial power.

With the advent of absolute permissive block, the pole line had to also carry a pair of wires for the signals to communicate with each other.

With the advent of Centralized Traffic Control, the pole line had to at first carry individual circuits (very wire intensive) and later with the development of "coded" signals, they had to carry the code wires.

One by one, these functions were removed. Communication went to microwave or commercial Bell lines. Code lines went to through-the-rail systems. Power has been about the last remaining function, and it's primarily gone to commercial drops. In remote areas, solar panels are sometimes used, but because they have to charge batteries -- and batteries are a big maintenance item -- commercial power is by far the more popular choice, even if lines have to be run a long way. As each function came off, so did the wires that carried them -- partially to prevent them from shorting out the still-active lines if and when they broke, partially because they have a positive cash value for the scrap copper, and partially to simplify maintenance of the remaining lines.

In general, railroads are deleting all pole lines wherever possible, not because the land they occupy is valuable (it isn't, except for track), but because they're a big maintenance expenditure and are unreliable.

I'm not aware of any railroad using any of the fiber optic lines along their rights of way except by happenstance because they buy phone service just like anyone else. They are not using them for signaling circuits per se to my knowledge -- at least, I am seeing no evidence that there is any intertie at all.

Railroads did often lease lines or crossarm space to Western Union. I'm not aware they ever leased any to a Bell company.

In general, new signals and deleting pole lines ARE tightly related. New signals are almost always through-the-rail coding.

[eastside]

QUOTE: Code lines went to through-the-rail systems.

Obviously a through-the-rail system would be a lot less expensive, but I would think fiber optic communication would have a big advantage in that it's out-of-channel (as it would be called in the IT world), not subject to breaks in the rails. Indeed, the advantage of out-of-channel communication is that the status of the rails can be monitored independent of the condition of the track.