I have an HO layout with a river and trestles across about a 24’’ span. How would I go about crossing the river with highline wires? The river is about 10’’ deep from the top of the trestle. Do I need to place highline poles to the trestle somehow? Here is a pic that will explain it better
Thanks for any and all info, Mike
Are you talking about railroad wires(signals,etc), or electrical/phone for regulars consumer use? Many railroads bolted their cross arms to the bridges, some times they built girder towers to carry lines over bridge, and some times if access was easy they ran regular poles down the embankment and across bottom then back up the other side. Now with many lines using optics and less wire, I’ve seen the lines dropped into conduit and run along the outside of guard rails. I hope this helps.
Thanks, I am modeling in the mid to late '70’s, and I do not think it would be right to have poles down in the bottom of the river since the banks are rather steep on one side, but I will re-think that option. As far as running electrical lines along the trestle, would I simply add some timbers sticking out from the side of the trestle and attatch the wires to them and up to the poles on the sides of the river? Thanks from Mike and all the little people on the West side of the river with NO electricity.
A pole line will usually follow close to and parallel with the right of way but in this country (UK) difficult terrain would seperate the two. At tunnels the pole line would take off over the hill while at long bridges it might be carried on brackets from the bridge or descend the valley and climb the far side as suggested above. The big changes came when effective insulation came along and wires went from bare copper or iron insulated by air to bundles of wires in plastic insulation.
Prior to plastic various vile combinations of rubber or a disgusting gunge called gutterpercha were used. Earlier insulations were both expensive and short life so they were only used where they justified their cost.
As insulation improved it was increasingly moved from pole lines to troughing along the track side. Both from troughing and pole lines insulated cables would and still do cross bridges on racks or, sometimes, on the deck.
Then again… not sure about US… but power supply (electricity for Mike and his friends) would come from utility companies not the RR company. I believe that the Utility company might use the RR as a route for their power lines if they could negotiate a contract… but someone would need to confirm or deny this.
Hope this helps
That is a nice scene. I would think about some huge metal towers built from a bunch of open girder pieces and a full span of wire. You see these still in the west. You would have to get some pics to determine how much sag would look right. You will then have to figure out where the wires came from and where they go. The wire will add something magical to the scene.
The method used for many decades to carry power across the Hudsn River on the Poughkeepsie RR Bridge had modest-sized, light framework arms extending outward perhaps ten feet beyond the track ties and actually affixed to the tops and one side of the I-beam cross supports of the bridge. These arms were spaced about 20 feet appart and were just below track level, with three heavy insulators attaching each line. See the mediocre picture below as an example.
(from the book Bridging The Hudson: The Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge )
CNJ831
Thanks ART, I have utility wires on the East part of town, and would like them on the West, (so would Mr. Fillmore). If I understand you about the large metal towers, those are the ones that are maybe a quarter mile or so apart. and are very tall. We have some of them here in Okla. I have given some thought to using them. Thanks again. Mike
The railroad’s code lines would run along side the trestle.
High voltage utility lines would be strung from massive towers on each bank (and would probably dominate the your scene.) Low voltage utility and teleco lines would, most likely, be run through a conduit mounted to the road bridge.
Nick
Where I live the wires simply span the entire river, almost a kilometer wide with no suports in the middle. I would do it like that, easy and found in real life.
Magnus
maybe i can help here. Since im a lineman, since im asumming your talk distrabution and not big transmission lines. we usually place poles 150 to 200 foot apart unless we are crossing rivers, in that case we use what we call a h structure on both sides the wire hand off the bottom of the horizontal crossarm. these h strutures give the added strength ther would also be guywires on the poles to the ground helping to hold them
hope that helps
ray