Telephone Poles

[Robert Grace]

I know this is bordering on the obsessive--but can anyone tell me the proper distance between telephone poles? HO scale.
Another dumb question--since most structures would have phones, has anyone ever thought of putting their accessories wires on your telephone poles and running them that way instead of under the base?
Full of silly questions today

[Hunt]

Pole spacing depends on lots of factors. See how 40 to 60 poles per mile looks on your layout.

Accessory power wire AWG too large for HO scale telephone poles.

[Robert Grace]

Well, if my math is worth anything, considering 60 poles per 5280 feet, that would be one pole each 88 feet or the length of about 2 40' boxcars or am I way off?

[Virginian]

Actually, pole spacing varies depending on vintage and load.  Now days you are more likely to find power poles than telephone poles, since most telephone stuff is buried, especially in urban/suburban areas.  Go find a country road and count.

Trivia - Alexander Graham Grabowski was the first telephone pole.

[NelsOn-30]

Here they are refered to as utility poles as they carry power, telephone and cable feeds.

Try a minimum spacing that may create the ilusion of distance.

[Rich R]

Just checked my back yard and I have a pole in the far corner, next door does not but the one after does. Lots are 75 wide by 115 deep so I'm gonna say about 150 foot give or take.
But as earlier this could vary with load. These are also power or utilty poles as was mentioned. Telephone is underground for the most part. Makes it damned hard to answer too!

Cheers,
Rich R

[Jim Banner]

I don't know about accessory wires for heavy switch machines and such, but you could run the power for lighting buildings on poles.  You would have to use LED's to keep the current low.  A single LED can light a house or a floor of an office building using only 10 milliamps of current.  That is well within the rating of #40 copper wire, which is about 1/4" diameter in H0 scale.  In fact, you could run up to 9 LED's on a single #40 wire, or even a low power switch machine such as a Tortoise.  A Tortoise machine at the end of a 10' run of #40 wire would lose only a couple of volts, which is normally acceptable.  For LED's, the 1 ohm per foot for #40 wire is only a fraction of the series resistance required and could be ignored on runs less than several hundred feet.

For main feeders, you could use #36 wire, which is about 7/16 inches in diameter in H0, and is rated to handle 210 milliamps or enough for 21 LED's.  Need something even larger?  #32 wire, which is still less than 3/4" in H0 scale, can carry over half an amp, or enough to light  about 53 LED's.  The sizes are for bare copper wire.  Varnish insulated wire ("magnet wire") is a few thousandths of an inch more.  Paint it all black and it will look smaller than its true size.

Now for the problems:  If you try this, expect to spend many hours with a magnifying glass trying to get it to look just right.  The hardest part is getting it to sag properly.  I suspect that a momentary massive overload could heat the wire enough to let it sag convincingly, but whether or not that could be done without destroying the insulating varnish I cannot say.

What I can say, having actually seen it happen, is that anything strung on poles is an invitation to disaster.  Hours of work can be devastated in seconds if you or anyone else reaches for something on the layout and accidentally catches one of the wires.  In the case I saw, the fellow had used thread to simulate wires running all over his 4' x 8' layout.  He had done a marvellous job of it.  He was showing his layout to several of us when a locomotive derailed.  Without thinking, he reached for the locomotive.  Feeling the "wire" against his arm, he yanked his hand out of the way.  Unfortunately, his sleeve button caught some "wires" and he pulled out virtually every pole and "wire" on the layout.

From my observations, power (utility) poles are still used in the older parts of town, the parts where railways are most likely to be located.  And a question:  aren't the poles along the railroad right-of-way properly called "telegraph" poles?  If not, when did they change? 

[SteamGene]

Let's face it, Jim.  Diesels honk at whistle posts.  The C&O is replacing its old concrete whistle posts with new flat metal signs on a metal post.  And the sign?  "W"!   
Gene

[chucknlead]

Wires on the telegraph poles may add "clutter" and take away from your layout rather than add to it. Definitely put in the poles. Like Jim said, if you don't get the sag perfect, it will only detract from the layout. If you are truly obsessed, try monofilament fishing line, heat gun for the sag and airbrush it dark gray.

[Jim Banner]

Good point, chucknlead.  On my own layout, I have just the poles.  Anybody asks, I tell them the scale wires are so fine they are just having trouble seeing them.  Funny thing about the power of suggestion.  Some people have seen my layout and later sworn that I did have wire on the poles and they had seen them!

[Bill Baker]

I used thread for my wires and placed it towards the back side of my layout.  Still, it got hit every so often.  My new layout will have thread running from simple single arm poles in the down town area only.  I like the looks of running "wire", but if you look at some of the greatly detailed layouts like George Sellios, he doesn't have any wires and you hardly notice it.

As far as the distance is concerned, I placed the poles about every block or so in my town area and it looked nice.  I guess that would be about 60 scale feet or so.

[Rich R]

For what it's worth I did locate this.
City block. 264 feet by 900 feet (about 80 meters by 271 meters)
But I doubt that you will find utility poles in a city block anywhere in NYC.

Best thing to do about adding wires to your poles is to paint them on your backdrop.

Cheers,
Rich R

[Atlantic Central]

As Hunt said, this is subject to many factors and variations in real life.

But here are some general guidelines that will make your pole lines reasonably realistic.

Distance between poles for power distribution generally ranges between 90 and 200 feet, depending on the class of pole and the number of wires carried.

More wires, larger poles, closer togther, that simple. So, in HO anywhere from 1 foot to two feet between would be realistic in most cases.

For more detailed info, find a copy of the NMRA data sheets and see D6u.01

And, if they carry electric lines, they are not telephone poles, they are power poles. If they carry both they are utility poles, if they only carry phone lines, THAN they are telephone poles.

Berkshire Junction makes a product called EZ line that is great for wiring your pole lines.

Sheldon

[ddellacca]

Rich,

Insert Quote
For what it's worth I did locate this.
City block. 264 feet by 900 feet (about 80 meters by 271 meters)
But I doubt that you will find utility poles in a city block anywhere in NYC.



I probably found the same article you are indicating.
That was the standard block size for Manhattan for some period of time.

But not a standard for the rest of the country.
I've lived in cities which had 440 foot per long side blocks, and other
cities which had widely varied block sizes.

There is actuallly no standard size anywhere in the country except where
a given city has designated a standard, most likely for each individual
development.

Dick

[Rich R]

Dick,

I agree entirely. Probably not even the same size in various sections of Manhattan for that matter. Also note the super block which eliminated the back alleys which were considered dangerous? “In using superblocks, housing projects aimed to eliminate back alleys, which were often associated with slum conditions.”

Like that worked right!
Wasn’t that where most of the railroads were located? 

Cheers,
Rich R