My O Scale Utility / Telephone Poles

I like the poles and especially like the transformers. You say "Crow River", but I just went on their site and didn't see them. Can you help me with this?

http://www.crowriverproducts.c...cale_White_Metal.htm

Part # is O-49.

George

Got it. I missed it. I'm going to order them and maybe some other stuff so I can get the free shipping.

They have some great and unique stuff.  I painted and weathered their electromagnet; came out pretty good I think.

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/t...very-scrapyard-needs

George

Very nice work!!!

Can you give some dimensions??? Cross arm width, pole height etc??? I bought supplies to make my poles but could not get the sizes right. THX

Very nice.

Thank you Spence and Dave.  Very kind of you.

To answer your questions, I didn't do anything special to determine heights and cross arm widths other than look at the prototype.  And that is my recommendation to anyone trying to build utility / telephone poles and street lamps.  I have been blessed with a number of photographs that show the type of poles I built.  I am reluctant to publish them here because they are the property of the Weirton Area Museum and Cultural Center and don't want to violate their copyrights.

But the good news is that you can Google (images) of telephone / utility poles and see just about any variant under the sun.  The prototypes give you a huge amount of freedom to model whatever takes your fancy.  Literally, in the real world, these poles come in all sorts of flavors.  Just in my own home town, I have 12 variations in a total of 28 poles! 

To answer your questions:

The small cross arms are 1 and 1/16" wide.

The large cross arms are 1 and 7/16" wide.

I am using the 9" Weaver utility / line poles.  The have spaces (holes) for 4 cross-arms.  From tallest to shortest:

• 8.75" (35 scale feet) above sidewalk or ground
• 8.25" (33 scale feet) above ground
• 7.75" (31 scale feet) above ground
• 7.25" (29 scale feet) above ground

Note that Weaver also makes a 6" pole.  Check out the Weaver website for all the variations.  By the way, I am very impressed with the Weaver product.  Very!

All the top cross-arms are at the 8.75" (35 scale feet) height.  For the poles with 2 cross-arms, I put the lower one at 7.75" (31 scale feet).  Transformers were just a tad lower than the 7.25" hole.  But there's not formula.  I did what I thought looked good and prototypical.

Hope this helps.

George

Nice work just make sure you get that real flexible material for the connecting wire. There is enough flex in the material so as the poles dont get broken or knocked out when you reach into your layout. I believe Scenic Express carries it.

Steve

Here's a little sampling of a few "interesting" prototype poles from the early 20th century in Newberg, PA,

I've heard more than little criticism that I should not use poles with more than 1 or two crossmembers on them for the era that I model, and every time I just pull out this picture...

Trainman, the other really good source for transformers is Keil-Line.  They make an excellent pair of transformers that I will be using on some other poles.

George

mwb,

The Weaver poles are models of Pennsy line poles.  And they could have as many as 8 cross-arms.  Your prototype is correct.

George

MANY THANKS!!!!

Can the Weaver poles have cross-arms the width of those in that picture??  There's some with at least 5 insulators per side.  Picture also shows some information on bracing that's useful, I think.  Transformers seem a sparse in my era,

I would say yes.  I bought the set of Weaver 15" painted utility poles; this includes 9 poles and a bunch of cross-arms.  Each cross-arm has 10 insulators (5 for each side).  My cross-arms are drastically shortened because that's what the prototype looked like.

George

mwb,

Just to clarify.  The Weaver 9" poles have 4 holes for mounting cross-arms.  If you want more, you have to drill holes yourself.

George

I checked on the Keil-line transformers. They're more elaborate than Rusty Stumps, but they're also 3X more. It's worth considering. Unfortunately, it's really hard to find pictures of all the Keil-line stuff. I just went through the entire 412 product list on Walther's site, but very few pictures. There's lots of stuff I might be interested in, especially the parts to build signals, but without pictures, it's a crap shoot. Does anyone know if Keil-Line has a catalog with pictures?

I think they have a paper catalog but nothing on line.  I'd shoot you a photo but it's late and I have to go to work tomorrow.

George

Very nice.

Nice.  good attention to detail.  I notice you have service transformers with two post insulators, so it will be a power system wired in delta form.  Very cool. 

Thanks for all of the information!  Good options.  I have to review my photos of Lemasters at the turn of the century to see what exact configuration(s) were prevalent there. I think that Wiseman also has additional details for poles tha tI need to look at again.

Now that I'm researching telephone poles, I'm riding around looking at them all the time... while attempting to keep my eyes on the road of course. When I was learning how to paint clouds I was riding around staring at them. Then when it came to painting rocks, I took pictures of them while heading east on I-64, but my wife was driving so it was safe. Anyway, I'm writing this because I find that pole design varies from location to location and power company to power company. The drawing specs came from a document on utility poles at government installations. I find that the diagonal bracing under the cross-arms around here are longer and extend out further on the cross-arm than the book showed. There's also differences in how the lighting suppressors are installed, and fuses between primaries and the transformer. But these details may be way over the top for 99% of modelers who just want the suggestion of utility poles on their layout.

Yeah, I do that, too.

George

Every time I start a new project and I'm staring at something, my wife asks, "so what you working on now?" She thinks I'm an obsessive...

OK Trainman, check out the Keil Line transformers.  One set is in the package.  The other is on the pole.

Hope this helps,

George

Here are some new photos of two additional utility pole types.  The first is the final set of poles with single cross-arms, single transformers, and single 3-wire standoffs (Type 5B).  The second is my first 2 transformer pole with cross-arm and standoff (6A).

At this point, I've completed 17 of the 28 poles for the City of Weirton module.  Next up is the 3-transformer pole and all the lighted (street lamp) poles.

George

I like that the Keil-Line Xfrmr's have a bracket with pins on it for installation, plus it comes with the low voltage brackets too. It's more money and you get more stuff.

Trainman, how would this look?  I mounted the transformers as shown above, but what do I do with the bars and brackets?

Obviously, this is not my area of expertise, so the help is appreciated.

George

Here's the photos that I collected showing various kinds of transformer configurations. Hope this helps.

Very useful, Trainman.  Thank you!!

George

DITTO!!!!!

Folks,

Here is my set of utility poles.  Over the last few days I also made progress on some lighted versions.

The foremost lamp is lit, but it's not really visible.

This shot is a little better.  See the glow?

I put a backdrop behind the pole to enhance the effect.  Now you can clearly see the light. 

George

These are very nice!  Good system.  I was thinking of this thread when I bought some of that stretchable utility line yesterday.  I'm going to wire my poles, etc. 

Thank you, Lee!  Are you thinking of EZWire? (I think that's what it is called.)

George

E-Z Line from Berkshire Junction. Available in .003 and .007 thicknesses. For O'scale use I would choose the larger. The battleship rigging I did used the .003 which is very fine and would be almost invisible on the layout.

Great thread George!  The problem with so many layouts is that they do not include utility poles.  I'm anxious to watch your progress on the layout!

Neal

I love this stuff and use it for both purposes too (well, actually, cruiser rigging, but let's not split hairs!)

Thank you, Neal!  Of course, progress is just not happening as fast as I would like.   But that's my fault - letting lower priorities like family and work get in the way of what's really important.  

What progress there is, I've documented on the PRR Panhandle thread over in the Photo forum.  I'm hoping to finish the rest of the lighted poles soon, apply putty to all the holes, and then touch them up with paint.  After that, my attention will be focused on sidewalks (scribing and India ink wash), and assembly of the Crawford Crossing highway overpass.

George

Oh, let's!

Heavy or Light cruisers?   And from what era, WW II?

George

See below: I'm building the four US cruiser classes designed in the years leading up to WWII, all in 1:350 scale  Progress as of last week: the Atlanta, Cleveland, Baltimore and Alaska class (a battlecruiser by any other name but the Navy always insisted it was just "a very large cruiser.").   Scratch hulls (the front two are styrene, the others wood, just because it's fun to both as most superstructures and major gun turrets - secondary armament, cranes,ships boats, etc., from 1:350 Trumpeteer and Hasigawa kits . I buy for that purpose.