Power Lines: Telephone poles w/wires and High Voltage Power Lines/Towers

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Has anyone ever seen power lines or telephone pole lines cross over above a railroad track?

-Ron

2

This is a bit of an odd question - of course there are tens of thousands of examples - here’s one from Long Island to start with. The only thing is the wires must be higher at their lowest point than the rated clearance (the ‘Plate’ clearance pattern - the posted example is Plate C I believe) - actually, there has to be a safety margin too. This example from Bound Brook is probably Plate H (double stack rated). High tension power lines are way above the clearance limits.

Aha, this example from Linden, NJ has everything you need - regular power/telecom lines, and High Tension lines, crossing over the NEC (Catenary) - and the Staten Island RR is also there too.

3

Thanks. I know it was an odd question. I’ve seen them cross roads, highways and rivers. Just starting out so I wanted to be sure that my layout doesn’t look corny if I string them across above the track in a place or two.

Thanks,

-Ron

4

In Model Railroader Oct 1981 there was an article by Gordon Odegard about Railroad line poles.

Wolfgang

5

We have a few up here in a more rural part of my area where one sees that there are two powerlines—and we are talking the poles with only two lines here—that have poles next to the tracks a little taller so that the lines go up and over double stacks.

6

At some point the power lines and phone lines have to cross the tracks (just like roads, highways etc).

I’ve noticed phone, low voltage power goes underground at overpasses in urban areas. don’t forget the orange balls on the long cable runs.

7

If I’m not mistaken, the orange balls on power lines are only near a farm where the farmer owns an aircraft and are there so he doesn’t fly into the power lines.

8

That is true. There is also a variant that uses red/white flags on those long runs around grass runways.

Also, if modeling a housemove or large transformer move you can also use Orange flags on lines going over the roads. That was put on to identify location of overhead wires on construction sites for excavators etc.