The issues I keep having are that I keep bumping into the masts and have broke at least one working around the masts. One issue is the front track location being close to the edge where I can hit it. So the third rail raises it's head again but just on the front mainline. The catenary will stay on the back main and the mine area and I am thinking 3rd rail just in front. Looking at using .060 styrene channel for my third rail because it bends and flexes rather than metal.
I don't have catenary but plan on installing a plexiglass or similar guard on the edge of my layout where my downtown is along with custom grade crossing signals, etc. Is this a possibility for your situation?
John.... I was wondering if that was going to be a problem. Looks like you have found a work around though...
I believe I have with doing a simple non working 3rd rail out of plastic. This is the section I would convert. 100_0649-1 by John Moore posted Sep 24, 2020 at 11:15 AM Found a video made by an Englishman with a heavy cockney accent that at times was hard to understand due to the accent. The unitrack with its narrow shoulders and tie width outside the tracks will be a slight issue. But the supports go on every 5th tie and I have to keep it low enough not to snag pilots and far enough away from the rails. Overall I have about 9-10 feet to do and my plastic channel is 1 foot per section. Rather than dig up the existing steel masts I am going to just cut them off and then make some steel girders out of them so nothing is wasted. At the station I simply leave a gap where the passengers will walk to get to the outside platform. That gap can be no wider than the truck spacing to enable a pick-up shoe to always be available to be in contact with the 3rd rail or about 20 feet. I will take a section of spare unitrack and build a model at my workbench to test the concept
Well I have been playing at the work bench and the smallest channel made is .060 and I would have liked .040. Tried it anyway and just too big. 100_0652-3 by John Moore posted Sep 24, 2020 at 12:22 PM Next went to a .030 X .040 styrene strip. 100_0654-5 by John Moore posted Sep 24, 2020 at 12:55 PM Better but no cigar yet. I believe that .030 x .030 is going to do it but I am out of it so go figure. Ahh but I do have some .020 x .030 100_0658-8 by John Moore posted Sep 24, 2020 at 1:12 PM And I think the .030 x .030 is it.
With the maybe final product using .030 strip as the 3rd rail. Just below the rails where truck sideframes or pilots don't snag. Opinions welcome. Now I have to find somebody with a stock of styrene, my regular HS doesn't have squat and some steel color paint. 100_0664-12 by John Moore posted Sep 24, 2020 at 2:54 PM
This is a problem with all the scales. shirt sleeves tearing out O scale wire, track cleaning and tearing down HO scale wire. O scale poles are a lot taller and therefore more subject to getting bent or broken. I was using steel poles in both HO and O scale and still had issues. My only thought was to make them razor sharp as a deterrent. Maybe stiches would train me to be careful around them ?
My issues are really only with the front of the layout with the double track and the crossovers. Because the installation of the catenary use about 4 times the number of masts in the curves and the switch overs I really have a concentration in that area. So by transitioning to third rail in that area only is something I should have thought through and done from the beginning. One thing that will pay off though is my designing to layout on kitchen cabinet base units. I can easily slide a chair up and along the layout making the tedious installation of supports for the 3rd rail easier on my old back. A support needs to go in every 5th tie and there is about 15 feet of track to do. I do not have any issues cleaning under the cat because of small compact vac and using a crevice tool. And I am using the Woodland Scenic's Tidy Track tool which gets under things to clean track.
You should not need to change the spacing of the catenary towers on curves. Catenary towers are only for carrying the weight of the wire, not to align it. I say reduce the number of cat towers and move the wires into the curve using a backbone wire and pulloffs. It looks like you could do away with about half of the supports. Tower spacing should be no less that 250 feet. Randy
From what I have read on catenary the spacing is tighter on a curve. If and when the first order of wire gets here it is going to go in the mine area. Whether I go thru the expense and effort to do the back of the layout is up in the air. I am doing away with the cat poles in the front though and replacing it with third rail. Already have the insulators painted and ready to cut to length and I have Vallejo steel paint ordered to paint the rails. Going to order the strip styrene direct from Evergreen because of the difficulty finding what I need.
Well the Vallejo flat steel paint will arrive today in the post and I located some .030 X.030 14 inch long strips of Evergreen styrene on Ebay cheaper than I can get by ordering direct from Evergreen. He had 4 packs for sale and I bought all four plus the shipping was only four dollars. That will give me over 22 feet of third rail and a bunch left over to extend it if I want. The removed catenary steel masts are being recycled into steel girder shapes for car loads and at least one project. The strips being cut into insulators for the third rail have been painted red and that little bit of color about every 10-12 N scale feet will give a nice visual effect.
I agree. If he was simulating wooden poles, those would be closer together, but still use the same pulloff system on curved track segments.
Or inclined catenary. Inclined catenary requires the hangers on compound catenary to be of a length to force the contact wire into the curve, very tricky. Wooden pole suspension is usually not more than 110 feet apart.
Unless you were the Milwaukee Road. It was pretty much standard at 150' for single poles on tangent track.
Which is the primary reason the Milwaukee put bows on their pantographs to prevent damage from wire sag. I guess that was the cheaper solution...
It wasn't so much wire sag, there actually was not a lot of that, but more an issue of alignment. I have seen discussions of how some electrifications stagger their trolley wire, so as to minimize pantograph shoe wear. The Milwaukee did not do this, as theirs was naturally that way, especially in the plentiful curves. I saw many a pole, which even though guyed, had a bow which moved trolley off centerline. In the past, I had discussions about this with a couple of ex-MILW men, and also Noel Holley. And that was how they explained it. If too far off line, the shoe's horn would hook over the trolley, tear out hangers and rip down the messenger wire, or more. The bow prevented hooking.
By the way I know the insulators are normally white until they weather down a lot with grime to a gray or almost black. And my best shot at even getting close in N scale would be some very small white beads and they may be too large. So the square block insulators and the Turtle Creek got a heck of a deal on some red ones from overseas. The advantage of having a freelance mythological railroad on an Island in the Straits of San Jaun de Fuca on the Salish Sea. Look it up and you will find the real Friday Harbor.
Excepting those used in RR company telegraph/telephone use, power transmission line insulators I can recall were all a brown color from the factory. Here is one from the Milwaukee Road. This is the type which sat at the end of an arm. The messenger wire was cradled on it's top:
