From: [email protected] (George Osner)
Subject: Those power lines!
Date: 08 Sep 1996 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
organization: American InfoMetrics
newsgroups: alt.railroad
A trivia question that has been driving me nuts: the "power poles" along
railroad tracks are shorter than regular poles elsewhere in the community.
Why is this? Any help with this question would be most gratefully
received. Email to: [email protected]
Thanks!
From: "John H Bowen"
Subject: Re: Those power lines!
Date: 10 Sep 1996 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
references: <[email protected]>
organization: The Grid, San Luis Obispo, Ca, USA
newsgroups: alt.railroad
George, many years ago I climbed those railroad poles and repaired the
phone communications of the Great Northern in Idaho, Washington and Mt.
Those poles contain telephone and semaphore circuits. Most maintenance had
to be done from motor cars and we were not equipped to handle very long
poles easily. So the poles were usually about 20 foot high and set fairly
close together and close to the rails. They had zero connections to utility
company lines or telephone company lines. The phone lines had very little
voltage but were twisted every couple of hundred feet to reduce
electromagnetic interference. The semaphores used up to 600 volts and on
wet days we would sometimes get nicked in an ear by a semaphone line. You
always remembered those days as well as the days you fell down a 20-30 foot
pole because the wood was rotten at the top and your climbing hooks "kicked
out".
I suspect that in 1996 most railroads don't use those old systems anymore
and rely on radios, satellites, and common carriers for communication. Even
in 1959 most of the techniques were thirty years behind the times.
All my relatives (father, grandfather, - railroad family) were upset when I
quit climbing poles and went to work for some upstart computer company
called IBM. They told me in 1959 that the Wall Street Journal said, "the
world needs a fixed number of computers and after they are built, IBM will
probably fad away." You can guess what happened to me. I could afford to
retire in style at age 53 and I did.
John Bowen in Nipomo, Ca
George Osner wrote in article
<[email protected]>...
> A trivia question that has been driving me nuts: the "power poles"
along
> railroad tracks are shorter than regular poles elsewhere in the
community.
> Why is this? Any help with this question would be most gratefully
> received. Email to: [email protected]
>
> Thanks!
>
>
From: [email protected] (BarneyP)
Subject: Re: Those power lines!
Date: 13 Sep 1996 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
sender: [email protected]
references: <[email protected]>
organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
newsgroups: alt.railroad
I am a communications field manager for one of the major railroads. I
enjoyed reading John's answer to George's question about the pole line.
I'm sure it was 30 years behind in '59, the amazing thing is we just
stopped using the "open wire" communications lines two years ago. These
lines were used by our dispatchers to talk to operators and field
personnel along the right of way. The signal (now called "train control")
department still have their wires on the pole line. Most of these wires
use low voltage to control the signals, but sometimes there is power,
usually 110V, but can be as high as 7700 volts.
We use some of the most modern technology available for communications,
especially in the data sphere. And at the same time we are still wrenching
use out of systems that have been in place for decades.
[email protected]
From: "Donald D. Forsling"
Subject: Re: Those power lines!
Date: 14 Sep 1996 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
references: <[email protected]>
content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
organization: Donald D. Forsling
mime-version: 1.0
newsgroups: alt.railroad
George Osner wrote in article
<[email protected]>...
> A trivia question that has been driving me nuts: the "power poles"
along
> railroad tracks are shorter than regular poles elsewhere in the
community.
> Why is this?
George, I think the main reason the poles are shorter is that they are not
"power poles" supporting wires carrying electric power. The wires
supported by these poles carry communications services (voice and
data--earlier telegraph, teletype and telephone) and signal and
electric-switch controlling circuits. All are low voltage applications.
Thus, there's no need to go to the extra expense (in the interest of
safety) of keeping them so high that they'd be out of reach of any but the
most determined and well-equipped trespasser. It's an increasingly
obsolete system that has been very widely replaced by microwave, buried
fiber optic cable and, in some applications, satellite communications
circuits.
Cheers.
Don
