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Maybe this will help too. I've taken lots of photos of the utility poles, crossarms and wires accompanying the U.P. mainline up Weber and Echo Canyons here in Utah...and the way the wires are attached is certainly different than what I get from Dave's description. Photo (1) - U.P. Utility Pole Crossarm Details in Weber/Echo Canyons in Utah:Photo (2) - U.P. Utility Pole Crossarm details showing which side of the insulators the wires are attached to:In photo (2), the tracks are to the right...the wires are placed on the side of the insulators which are furthest from the rails...which may only be a matter of placing the wire to the outside of a radius when the poles are forming an arc when following the rails, which these obviously are.Crossarms are commonly placed on alternating sides of the poles, just as Mark has done on his test diorama.Also, the tops of the poles usually stick up further from the last crossarm than what either Dave or Mark have done...and the tops of the poles are cut at an angle to shed water as can be seen in photo (2).When looking at the wires closely, even though many of these are just leftovers from a previous era, you can see that they're not all the same. This is because there is an order to their placement and also to their thickness and the material they're made of. I found a diagram that explains one way the wires were organized on trackside utility pole crossarms...Photo (3) - Diagram of wires on typical railroad utility pole crossarms:Because of the differences in both gauge and materials, it would be interesting to string different colors of EZ-Line in appropriate positions on your utility pole crossarms.Interestingly, the real wires are so small that they are only obvious when viewed at certain angles and lighting. I'm still debating as to whether I want to string all that EZ-Line on each insulator on each crossarm as is common up Weber and Echo Canyons which I am modeling.However, the green translucent insulators that Dave has on his crossarms are very eye-catching and are similar to a project I've had on the backshelf for a few years. Now that quality 3D printing is available to the hobbyist with an economical 3D printer, I think I'm gonna bite the bullet and purchase one to get some of my stalled projects off the ground...my U.P. style crossarms and insulators being the first project since I've got the basic 3D model finished.Photo (4) - U.P. style utility pole crossarms...I need to slightly modify the insulators to make them a bit fatter before I make further progress: Anyway, @Mark W , your photo has convinced me that this project I've had on the back-burner for about four years is worth pursuing. Your backlit photo is fabulous!Merry Christmas!Bob Gilmore
I remember Wallula Gap well since I grew up in the 50's and 60's in Kennewick. Shot my first rattlesnake there at a place called "Hover" (pronounced "hoe-ver") near the U.P. mainline whilst hunting jacks with my M-1 carbine. Oh, and we did fry it up and eat it later in the day! YUM!At that time, I wasn't into model railroading so I don't remember the white stripes on the utility poles, BUT...I do remember them in Weber and Echo Canyons when doing my research on the area and building my 12' long version of Wilhemina Canyon, Ideal Concrete Siding and Spur, and the Devils Slide Station. I never knew what they were for, but guessed they had some function as you have described, so I included them in my scenes because they were there on the real utility poles...not because I knew what they meant!Photo (1) - The Thousand Mile Tree Monument in Wilhemina Canyon between Weber and Echo Canyons, just east of Devils Slide on the U.P. double-tracked mainline. Scratch-built utility poles before my cat ate them one night:I don't have any historical information as to when they started painting the poles with the mileage stripes...but I found this...Photo (1) - 3700 Class Challenger helper running light westbound at Petersen, and a utility pole with three stripes painted on it to the far right! GREAT! As for the last few years, they are still on the mainline in Weber and Echo Canyons, but they're not painted any longer, but the "stripes" are wrappings of reflective material.Photo (2) - Mile #954 pole with four "stripes" and a mileage placard at Echo Yard (or what's left of it) a couple of years ago:I'm happy I'll be able to include this detail on my 1947 through 1956 era U.P. layout!Dave @davefoxx , the next photo is for you...Photo (3) - Lots of interesting details here including power lines attached to their insulators as Dave suggested up top. Also note the potpourri of different styles of insulators being used on a single crossarm!Evidently, U.P. didn't give a rat's rear about what the insulators looked like, just that they functioned properly. Also, back when they were first installed and maybe for several years or decades afterwards, it could be that the colors and styles were more standardized, but after 60 or 70 years, the "potpourri" is what it looks like today, and would be an interesting modeling challenge. I keep having to remember that this mainline in Echo was first laid in 1868 or '67, and telegraph poles were put up just as quickly as trains were running. My green-glass insulator I found on the abandoned U.P. mainline near Locomotive Springs out in the desert just south of Idaho, has a patent date on it of 1893...sooo...my estimation of 60 to 70 years in place may be too conservative.Merry Christmas!Bob Gilmore
Here is an old Erie pole that someone cut down for the copper.
The white rings around the poles are 1 ring is 1/4 mile from mile post 2 rings is 1/2 mile from mile post 3 rings is 3/4 mile from mile post
The white rings around the poles are 1 band is 1/4 mile from mile post 2 bands is 1/2 mile from mile post 3 bands is 3/4 mile from mile post 4 bands is at the mile post. These were in acceding order
@Dave V Nice (but I thought that Dr. HotBallz was going to shuffle the pertinent posts into a new thread). I suppose quoting Bob's posts works too. Also too bad that the photos are not hosted here locally (Google photos). While unlikely, there is a possibility that Google changes the way they serve out their photos and we'll lose all those extremely helpful images. Just thinking ahead . . .
Huh?
This: https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=46044.msg599160#msg599160
Yes, but you addressed Dave V like he made these posts. Sorry if I got confuzzled...
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Topic: Lineside pole clinic (Read 3368 times)
