The LIRR Industrial Service, Inc. shelf layout

[peteski]

Oh yes, lineside telephone/telegraph poles are really lacking in N scale…
Does anybody have any good ideas?

Few years ago some ideas about 3-D  printing cross-arms with insulators using transparent green resin (using wooden poles made form thin bamboo skewers) was tossed around, and prototypes were made, but it seems that the idea kind of died off.

You can find that info in a thread starting with this post: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=45869.msg595675#msg595675.
If you read through the end, you will see some assembled poles with those nice transparent green insulators.

[dem34]

Oh yes, lineside telephone/telegraph poles are really lacking in N scale…
Does anybody have any good ideas?

I scratchbuild mine. If just lineside, wood kebab skewer with either a styrene crossarm and insulators or if available. 3D Printed. If lighted, 2mil brass tube with the light fixture  attached, anode wire in the tube, Cathode using the brass pole. They go quick when you batch them, like trees. And with how much lipsticking pigs you have to do with the old stuff. Times out about the same.

And. I'm sorry. But I will be the great burster of bubbles.
Linesides like pictured will almost exclusively be Signal wires. Each wire is carrying a specific track circuit condition to a relay. Distribution will be paired down a lot in terms of wires but also be taller.
Note, foreground is signal , background is Power and Phone.



But sometimes they will share a pole if convenient.

[robert3985]

Oh yes, lineside telephone/telegraph poles are really lacking in N scale…
Does anybody have any good ideas?

I do.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Lemosteam]

Well the pigs lips are way to short- cannot get even the lowest boxcar under the wires when they cross over track.

Going to bite the bullet and use these for the foreground.  They come pre-"wired" but i am going to replace their wires with RZ line:

https://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/item/US2250

[Ed Kapuscinski]

What about some of the old school ones like... Atlas?
https://www.trainworld.com/atlas-2801-telephone-poles-12-set-atlas-2801.html

[Lemosteam]

What is the height of the pole to the first crossbar, minus 1/4" to mount it?  I suspect they will be too short too.  There are no dimensions on the atlas page or the TW page.

[nickelplate759]

Don't have any handy, but the Atlas poles are almost certainly also too short.  But don't let that stop you!

I used them on an N-trak module (sorry, don't have any photos handy), and where the wires needed to cross a road I just spliced the top of one pole onto the bottom of another to get the needed height.  I used a bit of bronze wire in the splice joint for strength, and it was fine.

Don't raise all the poles, just the ones that need to be high enough to get the wires over roads.

[wazzou]

Don't have any handy, but the Atlas poles are almost certainly also too short.  But don't let that stop you!

I used them on an N-trak module (sorry, don't have any photos handy), and where the wires needed to cross a road I just spliced the top of one pole onto the bottom of another to get the needed height.  I used a bit of bronze wire in the splice joint for strength, and it was fine.

Don't raise all the poles, just the ones that need to be high enough to get the wires over roads.

I've done this as well. 
Most often times, there was a transition of progressively taller poles up to the ones that crossed the track/road so the change wasn't so aggressive or stressful.

[Lemosteam]

I don’t have enough distance to transition. So for $15 at my LHS, I bought two packs of the WS single crossbar version. I have to span the length of the layout, so the smaller ones are relegated to the background to feed the buildings back there. I’m just going to re-thread them with EZ line.

[dem34]

This all seems a lot more elaborate than just gluing 3 pieces of styrene stock to a dollar store skewer that come 200 to a bundle.

[Lemosteam]

This all seems a lot more elaborate than just gluing 3 pieces of styrene stock to a dollar store skewer that come 200 to a bundle.

How is drilling eight holes for eight pre cast (with angle gussets I might add), pre painted and tall enough poles and threading some EZ-Line through the holes in the crossbars more elaborate than cutting, trying to glue plastic crossbars onto wooden skewers, painting, installing, adding (what) for insulators, and running EZ Line across those?

[Lemosteam]

These WS poles are ridiculously easy to use, first though, I removed the thread they supply. The thread is glued into one pole on the end and the others just slide off. The pole with the glue was cleaned out with a drill.

After deciding on the pole locations, I drilled the ground and glued them in place with CA. I waited one day and began threading the EZ Line through the holes in the poles.

I was able to glue a piece of stiff but bendable magnet wire to the very end of the EZ Line. The bundle was able to fit through the holes on the first pole.



Next I threaded the wire into each successive pole, adding a dot of CA at each hole and left enough line at the end to cross the channel and run to the other end of the layout.



The poles are tall enough to have the wires well above the rolling stock. It’s hard to see but the wires do sag properly. The third pole will feed the poles that go to the background structures.

[Lemosteam]

Added ground dirt to the east side of the channel so I could finish up the other four telephone poles. These will be “connected” to the substation that is where the white rectangle is. I really like the WS poles for their ease of installation, and the fine EZ Line running on them.

Also painted the newly added track in at the waterfront for loading barges from the depressed center crane when finished. This track runs in front of what will be rusting scrap metal piles, so I wanted a more rust color ties here.

Next up will be to wire the remaining buildings with ther plugs so I can mount them at their respective spots.

[Lemosteam]

Man, nearly 12 years since I started this layout, and I am astounded at how closely I followed my original sketch (sans extension).  I never laid down any track plan on the benchwork, only sketched it by hand:



The only drastic difference is the crossing at the base of the ramp down from the elevated line that feeds the manufacturing biz under the girders and the short runaround to its left.

[Lemosteam]

The substation has been on hold as I was struggling with how to “electrify” it. I started researching some small subs’ images, and finally landed on both a look and a solution. I say solution, because I want the ironwork and structure to remain removable. The platform is on magnets as is the ironwork, so… more magnets!  The solution was to use bendable wire with tiny magnet chunks at their conduit end and be epoxied to the transformer components. The “conduit” is straightened steel wire for hanging ceiling tile grid, so the magnets will attract to them giving the illusion of conduit fittings.

I also added a WS light pole in front to illuminate the transformers at night that has a wire from the building to the light using the EZ Line.

Here is how it turned out before the wire drops were added:







Here is the substation after adding the wires:













Here it is mounted on the layout. Later I will add magnetized end wires from the catenary ironwork down to the sub, as it is also removable. The station will also supply power to the telephone pole near the corner of the substation. I am also waiting one some pole transformers to mount on the poles to power the other structures