How to Electrify a railroad

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Wow! I'm impressed! I admire your desire to create realistic catenary. Best wishes! Take it slow as you've said. The results will be worth the time, I'm sure!

Ralph

Yeah, it turns out the only real way to get this stuff is to order direct. That said, Special Shapes Company was VERY fast in shipping, so i'm starting to wish i went with them earlier!

I can't say i didn't get good experience with the cheap and easy way to do it, but realistic is better than stand-in

Are there really transmission lines on both sides of the track?

It depends on the location. the Majority of the time, there is at least one pair of transmission lines on each catenary pole (or side of the track), and on the Northeast Corridor its much like diagrammed above, with two pairs per pole. That said, they come in all sorts of configurations, and there is no standard way of doing it. Sometimes, an arm is offset towards the middle of the structure and carries two wires within the poles (usually done on curves with what i suppose are tight clearances).

I have seen areas where only one pole carries the transmission lines (the other is short, if there at all), but this seems to be dependent upon traffic density, numbers of tracks, and the line's relative "importance". For example, many small branches don't even HAVE a transmission lines in many places. However, a good rule of thumb on a heavily used route seems to be a pair of transmission lines per track.

there are a couple exceptions. the NEC near the old "Manhattan Transfer" (Harrison station) does not appear to have any transmission poles over it, and some PRR photos around Merion, PA on the "Main line" appear to be just short wood poles with nothing else on them other than signal lines and some wire cross spans holding the catenary up.

Is it all power for the trains or does it do something else as well?

The majority of these lines do in fact 132,000 volt AC meant for the trains. It is occasionally stepped down at substations to the usable 11,000 volt AC power used by the electric equipment. At the same time however, I've seen what look like regular power lines also strung up on the right of way. The area of the Northeast Corridor around New Brunswick, NJ, definitely appears to have several wires added atop the catenary structures (note the silver appearance over the old PRR brown) that I'm fairly certain are regular power lines not tied into the trains.

It really depends on where you are modeling, and if you are interested in a particular area, i could probably find out the answer.