Telephone poles: Telephones lines only?

[tstage]

Well, my last post on the pulling power of the Mikado seemed to generate quite a bit of discussion - even though the original topic kinda migrated to different "sub-discussion".  Not that I mind.  Good information is still good information!  Anyhow, my next question is about telephone poles.

I picked up a set of the Rix telephone poles at my LHS today and started to put them together this evening.  (The set of 18 poles/36 crossarms goes for ~$5.)  The poles are set up so that you can add up to five crossarms to each pole, if you want.  And the proper spacing between the crossarms is automatially built right into the sprue so that you can just glue the pole to the crossarm while it's still on the sprue.  The finished telephone poles add some very nice realism to the layout.

With that said, I need to ask a few naive (and possibly stupid) questions:

1. Were telephone poles (that ran beside the mainlines during the steam age) strictly used for telephone transmission only, or were they also used for other things, as well?
2. Did telephone poles ever carry electrical lines?  Or, because of the transformer, were electrical lines designated strictly to utilily poles?
3. If separate, how were electrical poles run in conjunction with telephone poles along auto roads?  Different sides of the street?  Were they also run along the main line somehow?
4. Are there any good pictures of telephone/utility poles during the 30s/40's to glean some good prototypical modeling information from?
   

Anyhow, thanks again for your assistance with my question on the Mikado.  Many thanks also for those of you who will be contributing to this thread, too.

Tom

[Anonymous]

Were telephone poles (that ran beside the mainlines during the steam age) strictly used for telephone transmission only, or were they also used for other things, as well?

"Pole line" is the correct term.  It was used for signal circuits, signal codes (for CTC), communications lines, and power.  But it depends on the railroad, the location, and the year in question.  Not all were present all at once at any one place, necessarily

Did telephone poles ever carry electrical lines?  Or, because of the transformer, were electrical lines designated strictly to utilily poles?

The pole line very frequently carried both power (such as 2300V) plus signal circuits plus communications lines.  Sometimes the power lines were separated by placing them on a short top crossarm., sometimes on the same crossarms -- depends on the voltage and the railroad.

If separate, how were electrical poles run in conjunction with telephone poles.  Different sides of the street?  Were they also run along the main line somehow?

Sometimes separately, sometimes together.  A common practice on high-density, important main lines was to run the signal department pole line on one side of the main track (with the power lines for the signal battery chargers) and the communications department's lines on the other side of the track.  But just as often they were all on one pole line, if there weren't too many lines for the crossarms, and too many crossarms for the pole.

Are there any good pictures of telephone/utility poles during the 30s/40's to glean some good prototypical modeling information from?

Railway Signal Engineer -- an old trade journal, now defunct, had lots of photos.  They are not easy to find outside of a few university libraries that still have them.  Otherwise, you have to piece together from here and there.  Don't overlook going out to the field to look -- there's still a LOT of pole line out there that isn't much different than it was 70 years ago, with the exception that the communications department lines are rarely used now, so in general, they've been removed.

S. Hadid

[Anonymous]

Tom,

Thanks for that Mikado thread.  I learnt a lot from that one.  However, now that we know they might have been pulling 70 to 80 cars I don't want to see any little short 30 or 40 car trains on your layout behind a mike.

You might have already looked at this previous thread. http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/41123/ShowPost.aspx

I found that old one when I was looking for a newer one.  Had some photos of roads with power lines one side and phone lines the other.  Here it is, and you started it!!  Guess you know all about that one, sorry. http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/926706/ShowPost.aspx

And then it is perhaps only along railroads that you want.  Not roads and highways.  Sorry for wasting the bandwidth again. 

[Anonymous]

Poles along the right of way usually carried railroad specific only items, power to signals. communictions plus some had Western Union connections, It seemed every station had a telegraph office.It was not uncommon to see six or even eight cross arms on poles back then. A four track mainline would have at least six, a sinngle track branch, up to  three.

Street poles carried municipal electric, telegraph and phone lines.Many photos from that era show three or four cross arms on street poles as well.

This is a general estimate, that should give you some ideas for your own placement.

[tstage]

I had nearly forgotten the recent Aug 2006 MR article in their How To Build Realistic Layouts (pgs. 30-33) but ran across it today looking for something else.  Maybe it will answer some more questions...

Tom

[tstage]

I read through the above-mentioned Michael J. Burgett article called "Stringing details in the sky" and it turned out to be pretty helpful.  However, it still left me hanging with unanswered questions about pole lines.

One thing that frustrates me about writers is that they often "assume" you understand all the lingo.  (For the most part, Mr. Burgett did a reasonable job of educating the reader.)  However, being somewhat a RR newbie, I'd like to find out more of the history and the when, hows and whys of the RRs doing something the way they did/do.  Unfortunately, I'm guessing that the publication writer's freedom to elaborate are somewhat restricted and are also kept on a fairly tight word count.

Anyhow, the way it's looking,  I guess I just need to get through my head that to get the information that I want, I'm going to have to do the bulk of the research myself.  At any event, at least this gives me some sort of foundation to build upon.

I hope that if I ever get the opportunity to write something...anything, someday (Ha!  Fat chance!), I will always have the newbie in the forefront of my mind, as I'm writing.

Tom

[Anonymous]

Tom,

Seems really strange to me that they would string power and phone lines on the same poles.  However, there are enough people say they did it so who am I to doubt?

It is a commercial thing that I wonder about.  The power company owns the power lines and the phone company the phone lines.  Who owns the poles? Or do they share the cost of poles?

And then there is the safety and public liability issue. Power lines are sort of nasty.  Phone lines are pretty innocuous by comparison.  Seems to be a fertile field for litigation if something goes wrong with a joint facility.

However, there are plenty say that the various lines were carried on the same poles, so they must have got over those concerns.

 

[Anonymous]

Tom,

Seems really strange to me that they would string power and phone lines on the same poles.  However, there are enough people say they did it so who am I to doubt?

It is a commercial thing that I wonder about.  The power company owns the power lines and the phone company the phone lines.  Who owns the poles? Or do they share the cost of poles?

And then there is the safety and public liability issue. Power lines are sort of nasty.  Phone lines are pretty innocuous by comparison.  Seems to be a fertile field for litigation if something goes wrong with a joint facility.

However, there are plenty say that the various lines were carried on the same poles, so they must have got over those concerns.

Railroad pole lines are owned by the railroad, not the power company or Bellco.  They sometimes carried leased lines such as Western Union, but the power, communications, and signal circuits were all railroad, with rare exception.  Electrified railroads are a special case.  They often later sold or leased their separate high-voltage power lines to power companies, which either sat on an easement on railroad property or the right-of-way was sold to the power company (the latter usually after the railroad was abandoned).

[tstage]

A few things that I've found out so far is that the eastern RRs did use the pole lines for electricity - but only for shorter distances.  Since electricity was fairly plentiful and towns were closer together, eastern RRs would tap off of an already existing power line and use that to power their signaling boxes with.  On the other hand, western RRs - because of the great expanses of terrain - used the poles to run much longer electrical lines.

As a general rule for pole lines:

• Top crossarm was used for communication (telephone, telegraph)
  
• Bottom crossarm was used for signal systems
• Electrical lines were the very top crossarm and usually short (2 or 4 insulators) in length, as compared to a full-length 10-insulator crossarm.

Some things are a bit clearer for me now.  But there are still a number of information gaps to fill.  Oh, well.  That's the joy of research.

Tom

[Anonymous]

I thought about a "general rule" but I don't think there is any such thing.  I've seen thousands of miles of pole lines that have the power on the lowest crossarm, field side, and communication and signal circuits mixed up indiscriminately.  Depends on the railroad, the date the line was built, the route the line follows, and God knows what else.

S. Hadid

[tstage]

S. Hadid,

Agreed.  The "general rule" I stated was taken primarily from the above-mentioned article I read and was an "across-the-board" observation made by the author.  In all reality, what you are stating is probably closer to the truth.  With the diversity of practices and a discrepancy of some standards amongst RRs, it's not a surprise why there isn't a real definitive answer to certain prototype questions.

Although pictures and information on the NYC are supposedly prolific, they are also difficult (and/or expensive) to obtain - even online.  I'm hoping to eventually change that...

Tom

[chateauricher]

The very first poles along railroads were telegraph poles since the telephone hadn't been invented yet; and switches were operated manually since electrical motors were still not as reliable or economical as human muscles.

As for who owns the poles carrying both communication and power lines...  I can say that in Québec, the power company (Hydro-Québec) and the phone company divided the province up into different districts.  In each district, one or the other owns the poles.  This way there would be no arguing over who is responsible for repairing a broken pole.  When cable television came into a region, they sometimes had their own poles, or paid the owners of the poles for the right to string their wires on the poles.

I would imagine that the railroad company owns the poles along its rights of way, leasing "line rights" to other companies (power, telephone/telegraph, etc).  It is also possible that (in the early days of railroads) the telegraph company owned the poles, while paying the railroad company for the right to put poles alongside the tracks.  Such agreements would be mutually beneficial.  The railroad would have access to telegraph/telephone communications, and the telegraph/telephone company would have an easier time building and maintaining their lines.  Of course, often the telegraph/telephone companies were owned (at least partially) by the railroad company.

 

[Dave-the-Train]

AAARGH!  I have stuff on this... but I can't find it.

For a start... How would you feel about having a tickle of mains voltage run through your telephone?

This gives the simple solution that power lines are usually kept seperate from all other lines - except where the power lines are insulated - -  and where one crosses the other a sleeve may be provided on one or both...

When looking at pics power lines sit on different insulating pots from communication and other lines.  Power cable is also heavier for the most part so the fittings carrying it are heavier and stretch  less distance from the post or wall... don't forget that all cables may be bracketed from walls.

Also... all cables need to solve the issues of tunnels and bridges... both where the track/pole line run over the bridge and under the bridge.  The best thing I can suggest is to study as many pics as you can find.  Don't forget that a lot of pole line poles and other fittings get left in place long after the cables have been salvaged for scrap or rotted and dropped off (when the cost of salvage is too high).

There have been articles in both the real RR press and the model press... one at least in RMC if i recall correctly.

I can't recall whether it is power or comms lines but over long distances the engineers switch the cables around so that they do  not set up frquency interference between themselves.

it's also worth looking at how the cables are jumped around the posts at corners and junctions.

Sorry this can't be more specific.  I will try to find the copies I have.  hope it helps as a guide for what to look for.

and then...

Part of the solution is to answer the questions...

• why would the power and comms be together?
• whose power and whose comms are they?
• why would the RR want/need power to follow the track?
• where is the power generated?
• where is the power used?

This is very era specific.  Don't forget a lot of outlaying RR facilities didn't have mains electricity even up to abandonment.

[tstage]

Thanks, Dave.  If you do end up eventually finding that info that you were looking for, I would interested in it.  No rush though.  Thanks!

Tom

[tomikawaTT]

Just a couple of comments to tie off some of the loose ends:

Three phase AC lines do the "let's swap positions" thing.  You might see one wire rise up to a separate insulator (pole mounted,) then another wire pass under it between poles, then the first wire drop back down, almost always on the opposite side of the pole from where it started.

Pre-radio, there were frequently two bare wires mounted on pole-mounted insulators below everything else.  A conductor of a train in trouble could clip his telephone (or, earlier, portable telegraph unit) to them, and thereby establish communication with the nearest station.

When the rails entered a tunnel, the pole line usually went over the mountain.  If there was some problem in the tunnel, the communications lines would remain intact.  In the early days, that was the ONLY communications line!

Likewise, when the rails crossed a bridge, every reasonable effort would be made to disconnect the wires from the bridge structure to prevent loss of communications if something happened to the bridge.  This might include stretching the wires completely across the river or gorge (sometimes with "flying crossarms" to keep the wires separated if the span was long enough) or putting poles out on the ends of extended masonry piers well away from the bridge structure.

Chuck

[jeffhergert]

  Modern communication lines capable of carrying multiple circuits also were transposed.  The lines that I see along the UP and former CNW in eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, some I don't think are maintained but still up, have some lines transposed about every 10 poles.  There is a x shaped fixture with 4 insulators on the crossarm for this.

Jeff