Hi Gerry -- Thank you, I appreciate the compliment.
Hi Randy -- The short answer is yes, my catenary is based on the Euro-style Amtrak catenary above New Haven. I hope you will find a close resemblance between their's and mine. However, that is not the catenary I wanted to build.
My preference is Pennsy catenary, ala the Port Road, A&S and Old Pennsy main. I had a layout years ago with that style of catenary. As it was my first stab at O scale catenary, my build techniques were much rougher then (which should be painfully obvious), and it was an O27 layout, (ugh, I broke so many rules...don't ask). However, the catenary WIRE's Pennsy flavor was obvious, (not the supports). I soldered every single joint, and those are little pieces of copper wire (blipps I called them) between the trolley and messenger wire, which were all soldered by hand. That system was a double-track main, and took over 5 years to build. It then took me just over 5 hours to tear down after I had to move, and it's all history. I was (and still am) quite pleased with the wiring technique. However, the catenary support system is appalling to look at over O27 track, hideously over-engineered, and rather embarrassing to share. I only took a few pictures and video, just enough to show how NOT to do catenary support.
These days I have a challenging home life with a special needs little boy, and my wife has some medical issues of her own. From the drawing board I knew that my new catenary scheme would have to be much more elegant and less time-consuming for me to be able to do. I wanted to run trains, not spend years building catenary; my build time was limited as it was. So, I decided to go the simple Euro-style route.
When I move somewhere bigger, I will try the Pennsy catenary again, as that is what I really want. However, for this layout, in this season of my life, the Euro catenary is a good compromise, and I am very pleased with the results. The trains roll with hardly a hiccup ever.
