Double track catenary - current UK outline

[dr deltic]

take a look at my pics of the EMU,S, N Brass portal's and fishing line used on Dimsdale View layout.

[Pengi]

Just watched the vid. That layout is stupendous - love the fantastic scenery too. Did you use the light or the heavy catenary portals?

[JosephP]

Have hit a snag. I have a station that is just shy of a 900mm long. Looking at pictures of layouts and real stations, realise I will need gantries. Have been searching for StatesmaN on Google and nothing turns up although one article said they might be out of business. Can anyone help in locating these?

N Brass have a terrific range which should cover just about every situation. But you could also use I section brass or plastic to make up the portals/headspans with registration arms cut off the Dapol masts. The kits will give a finer appearance but slightly fiddly to put together if you have no previous experience with etched brass.

[Pengi]

Thanks, I have no experience of using etched brass - going to do some research on that. I also have another slight issue, that my electrics are 1:160 scale but my layout is 'just for fun' so I am going to have to ignore that (seen the price of the continental cat systems)

[JosephP]

take a look at my pics of the EMU,S, N Brass portal's and fishing line used on Dimsdale View layout.

Nice video although a formatting problem means that is the shortest 08 I have ever seen!

Fishing monofilament catenary does look quite good but no droppers between the suspension wire and the contact wire. And this is on simple catenary. With compound catenary (Woodhead route and early WCML), this would be even more noticeable as the clips between the two lower wires are quite large.

[JosephP]

Thanks, I have no experience of using etched brass - going to do some research on that. I also have another slight issue, that my electrics are 1:160 scale but my layout is 'just for fun' so I am going to have to ignore that (seen the price of the continental cat systems)

I take it that you have locos from several different countries??? If so, no need to be too specific about the look of the catenary masts. The Dapol mast is not unlike those on more modern European electrification schemes so you could use them (and some homemade plastic gantries) happily enough - whether with or without the monofilament wires.

[Pengi]

Thanks again. I have Eurostar and Thalys - that I run together and not with the UK DMUs so that the scale difference is not so noticeable.

[Lawrence]

I have seen EZ-Line used for lining between telephone poles on a layout don't know if it would be the answer, it is nice and elastic so even when stretched it will return to shape, the guys who used said it was invaluable for their show layout.  One company that stocks it is http://www.little-cars.co.uk/list2.html (actually this list has lots of nice scenic bits on it  )

[Ben A]

we used Dapol catenary, with no wires,
cheers

Ben A.

Sorry to be picky about the English language with a distinguished BBC journalist but... that is an oxymoron. You can not have catenary without wires. The wires ARE the catenary.

Absolutely right.  I should have said we use Dapol posts without wires.

The monofilament does look good on the Woodhead layout, and is certainly worth considering for Horseley Fields, though the 25kV AC we are depicting is considerably finer than the DC type used for MSW electrification.

Also, one shortcoming appears to be that the contact wire is not horizontal - rising up between posts toward the suspension wire as they are both in tension from the droppers.

Or am I mistaken?

cheers

Ben A.

[EtchedPixels]

Also, one shortcoming appears to be that the contact wire is not horizontal - rising up between posts toward the suspension wire as they are both in tension from the droppers.

Or am I mistaken?

Its certainly not visible on the layout, and it shouldn't be materially the case because the lower wire is under most of the tension.

[Sprintex]

Take a look at some shots of Mini-MSW.

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/gallery/image/26961-mini-msw-1/

That is about the best catenary I've seen on an N gauge layout, it's something I'm very interested in as I need to do it on my layout eventually.

My only slightly picky criticism is that in those pictures it looks a little too white, although that may be due to the photography? In reality as far as I've observed the contact wire is green (copper carbonate) if it's been up there for any length of time, whereas the support wires I've seen are usually grey/black. This could vary in different parts of the country depending on what the support (or catenary) wires are constructed of 


Paul

[Mustermark]

Thanks, I have no experience of using etched brass - going to do some research on that. I also have another slight issue, that my electrics are 1:160 scale but my layout is 'just for fun' so I am going to have to ignore that (seen the price of the continental cat systems)

Pendy, i had little experience of etched brass but i found these portals quite easy to do... Trick is you need to buy two formers from N Brass to go with them... One is for the gantry and the other is for the legs. You wrap the fine brass sheet around the former and Bob's your uncle.  Dab of super glue gel. Spray with grey primer. I used these for my signal gantries.

[Pengi]

Thanks, I have no experience of using etched brass - going to do some research on that. I also have another slight issue, that my electrics are 1:160 scale but my layout is 'just for fun' so I am going to have to ignore that (seen the price of the continental cat systems)

Pendy, i had little experience of etched brass but i found these portals quite easy to do... Trick is you need to buy two formers from N Brass to go with them... One is for the gantry and the other is for the legs. You wrap the fine brass sheet around the former and Bob's your uncle.  Dab of super glue gel. Spray with grey primer. I used these for my signal gantries.

Thanks for this - might give them a go. I have bought one pack of the Dapol posts from our 'For sale' section.

I have also been looking at a DVD of a cab drivers view from Wolverhampton to Liverpool (bought for a £2 at a charity shop!) and never realised the different types of gantry and posts and the mass of wires at certain places (definitely will not be adding the wires at this stage - even though the visible part of my track is simple). This is because I live in third-rail country and only see the wires when travelling. I can see that there is one definite advantage to modelling the steam era - no wires or third rail to worry about!

[edwin_m]

Wolverhampton to Liverpool is part of the original 25kV electrification from Euston to Liverpool and Manchester and uses a fairly heavy form of OLE with mainly metal structures to support the wires where there are three or more tracks. 

Later schemes (Weaver Junction to Scotland, East Coast etc) used the Mk3a equipment which is much lighter and uses headspans (cross wires) between tall poles on multiple track sections.  The Dapol masts represent Mk3a, which also has much less height between the contact and support wires than older types.  Headspans have now fallen out of favour because a dewirement brings down the wires over all the tracks, and Mk3a has been found to be inadequate in some other ways, so the bits of electrification done in this century and the much larger schemes to come are likely to reverto to heavier construction.  All of these variants do however normally use single track masts either side of a double track. 

[njee20]

The wires on Kinlet Wharf certainly look very impressive, be interested to play with some of that monofilament stuff!