catenary for O gauge

Morning Bill:

Buco Spur O GmbH in Switzerland is still manufacturing their catenary system for 3 rail "O" gauge trains. Here is a link to their web site, and to the spare parts section for catenary. https://buco-gmbh.ch/produkt-kategorie/oberleitung/

Hope this is of some help.

Peter.......Buco Australia

Unfortunately, Peter, those are not enough parts to assemble a catenary of any size.  They are also pricey considering that the Swiss franc is equal to the US dollar, and 1.50 Australian dollars.

The MTH catenary, while oversized, was a good start but, since MTH discontinued it, you can only find them on eBay were the sellers think they are worth several gold bars.  I have the MTH catenary, but it has limitation in geometry.  I was going to make some changes but quickly discovered that K&S stop making shaped brass and aluminum pieces 4 years ago.  I needed some 1/4” brass H stock to fit the MTH masts.  You can only find flat stock, rods and tubes, but it may be enough.

Unfortunately, Bill, the short answer to your question is no.  On the bright side, there are a number of topics on the forum about creating your own catenary system with some excellent ideas and very good results.

Good luck.

@WftTrains posted:

Is any company making catenary for O gauge trains these days? 

Thanks in advance,

Bill T

Yes, Bill, there is.  These guys display this product at York:

https://www.trainlayouts.com/p...s/index-catenary.php

Stu

Anyone remember what Marty F used? Didn't he use Marklin parts in making his?

Bill, you might want to look at Model Memories Online of Powhatan Va.. I personally know nothing about

them but there produce line might be of interest to you.

http://www.modelmemories.com/oprods.htm

Truly impressive modeling work.

@bigkid posted:

Anyone remember what Marty F used? Didn't he use Marklin parts in making his?

I’m pretty sure Marty made is own.

You can find the Railking system used from time to time.  I have enough to go around 2/3rd of my 7x16 modular layout.  It is certainly a compromise system, but it looks better than nothing to me.  On my next layout, I will be looking for a more scale approach.

@WftTrains  Search for "catenary" and posts by either "scale rail" or "marty fitzhenry" Scale Rail has a 2012 article in OGR magazine on building catenaries using the Marklin HO catenary "wire". "I can't find it, but know its there somewhere".  He also has an article in run #248 describing his layout. Fitz has one in run #235.  Of course there is the topic "Show us your catenaries". 

There is an old old article about the PIT-MARK catenary system; using Pittman poles and Marklin wire (or rather stamped steel catenary like MTH uses).

That is what I used to create the catenary system.

Pittman had a catenary system that came on a big placard with poles attached and copper wire; I found a whole lot of these poles on eBay. See above photo of a one-sided Pittman pole and I adapted the end to fit the support holes on the Marklin stamped pieces.

@PRRMike posted:

Bill, you might want to look at Model Memories Online of Powhatan Va.. I personally know nothing about

them but there produce line might be of interest to you.

http://www.modelmemories.com/oprods.htm

Truly impressive modeling work.

This system looks amazing but pricey. I noticed their wire length between poles is 36". The Marklin HO stuff alot of modelers use is 14" in length. Is 14" the longest Marklin makes? What would be PRR protypical for O scale? (how many inches between supports)

I'm working on developing a system using Lionel 3424-76 signal poles and Marklin catenary, but I don't expect to show much in the way of results until next year sometime...

@AlanRail, perhaps your Pittman adapter could be used with the Lionel pole? 

Mitch

PRR distance between poles on a mainline is/was (I think) 270'.  That's about 5.6 feet or 67" in O scale.

I am hoping Menards makes some nice, inexpensive, non-working catenary for my few electrics to run under.

@bigkid posted:

Anyone remember what Marty F used? Didn't he use Marklin parts in making his?

Marty used Marklin HO-scale catenary wire, and the poles were scratch-built out of steel stock welded together (poles and bases) and wooden cross-arms glued to the poles. The poles were VERY sturdy. If you upgrade to a digital subscription, you can watch the video of his layout on this forum, in which he describes in detail how he designed and built the system.

@Arthur P. Bloom posted:

PRR distance between poles on a mainline is/was (I think) 270'.  That's about 5.6 feet or 67" in O scale.

That is a little bit of the geometry issue I mentioned with regard to the MTH system.  Their wire pieces are 20” long which translates to just about 70 feet.  The result is a virtual forest of poles.  On the other hand, unless you have a huge layout, the prototypical almost 6 feet will look wrong.  I haven’t tried yet but, I think somewhere around 3 feet will look a little better.  Now you would need a wire that will be self-supporting over a 3 foot span.

As we all know SAG is an issue; even with a long wire supported at the ends.

That's why Marklin and MTH used a metal plate to simulate the supported catenary.

Lionel 3424-76 signal poles could be modified as a 3D print with an end connector for the Marklin wires. I think the Pittman poles being metal would be stronger as well as could conduct electricity to the Marklin wire.

I have seen catenary where rather than use wire, they used metal rail to be able to maintain the stiffness (basically the pantograph is touching a metal strip rather than wire, what would be the typical wire support really was for shore. At one point I played around with a prototype catenary setup, trying to replicate what they use on real trains utilizing springs and other gimmicks to keep the tension (not on a layout, just playing around on the bench years ago).

Thanks for the discussion all.  Considering a working catenary is in my plans, any discussion is worthwhile.  I did a search on distances between support poles. Both CalTrans and Toronto are using roughly 180 feet, shorter in switch areas. That's still 3.75 feet in O scale. Not sure how to get rigidity and sway stability over that distance without a whole lot of tension. On the other hand the Marklin 12 inch HO wires measure out to about 87 feet in scale. Now I can understand why the MTH were 20 inches. 

Looking at the ModelMakers wire, I had thought it was rather expensive. However on second look they are at $48 for 12 feet of wire ( 4 sections at 36").  Even used Marklin is going for $2 to $3 per section. For the extra dollar or two, that should be offset by the costs of the extra poles.

Now I have something to think about.   

Model Memories 36" wire is interesting for straight sections: here's the other issues: curves and switches.

to do curves and turnouts you will need much shorter spans and closer pole spacing.

@AlanRail posted:

Alan - have you added these to the 3D printer catalog that OGR has recently opened?

@BlueComet400 posted:

Marty used Marklin HO-scale catenary wire, and the poles were scratch-built out of steel stock welded together (poles and bases) and wooden cross-arms glued to the poles. The poles were VERY sturdy. If you upgrade to a digital subscription, you can watch the video of his layout on this forum, in which he describes in detail how he designed and built the system.

Our club has all of Marty’s catenary. Saving for a future project. He used marklin wire but also used o27 rail under mountains and scenery

@Danr posted:

That is a little bit of the geometry issue I mentioned with regard to the MTH system.  Their wire pieces are 20” long which translates to just about 70 feet.  The result is a virtual forest of poles.  On the other hand, unless you have a huge layout, the prototypical almost 6 feet will look wrong.  I haven’t tried yet but, I think somewhere around 3 feet will look a little better.  Now you would need a wire that will be self-supporting over a 3 foot span.

20" = 80 scale feet .1/4' = 1 foot.

@Dave Koehler posted:

20" = 80 scale feet .1/4' = 1 foot.

That makes all the difference in the world.

Hi Marty told me he built his own catenary, and he built it as he thought Lionel would have built it, welded pieces of metal painted them and built the base at the bottom and welded that as well, his catenary always ran perfect and no electrical problems.  no sparking great layout. I'm glad it will be used on your layout Ben!

Alan

the copper color posts are the Pittman poles the rest is resin printed.

the Marklin wire connects to the two studs

Here’s my first try at 3d printing an Amtrak Catenary. Just going off photos. Haven't had time to make adjustments and attempt more.

Here are a couple of concept photos of my quick 'n dirty overhead using Lionel poles, brass tube and brass wire. 

As you can see, even with single span "wire", the clearances should be adequate for pantographs and, at a buck a pop, the poles are certainly economical enough!   

Mitch

@M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

Here are a couple of concept photos of my quick 'n dirty overhead using Lionel poles, brass tube and brass wire.

As you can see, even with single span "wire", the clearances should be adequate for pantographs and, at a buck a pop, the poles are certainly economical enough!   

Mitch

Interesting approach, Mitch, but I must say I was quite surprised that you aren’t using gi-raff pantographs   But seriously, are you planning on powering locos from the catenary or is it just for appearance???

@Apples55 posted:

Interesting approach, Mitch, but I must say I was quite surprised that you aren’t using gi-raff pantographs

Hee! 

But seriously, are you planning on powering locos from the catenary or is it just for appearance???

Theoretically, one can do either.  Probably mostly for appearance, though. 

Mitch

@Danr posted:

That makes all the difference in the world.

yeah 2 1\2 " is a lot . I have strung both trolley wire and catenary ,in N ,S, HO and G  , and placement of the poles have to be exact!

@biscuitag97 posted:

Here’s my first try at 3d printing an Amtrak Catenary. Just going off photos. Haven't had time to make adjustments and attempt more.

That looks great, how stiff is it?

Over the decades there have been several articles in making your own catenary  wire with a jig and soldering the power wire  to the vertical  support wires and then to upper support wire.   Its putsy and takes time to cut all the vertical wires to length, but not hard to do.

@Dave Koehler posted:

…….. Its putsy and takes time to cut all the vertical wires to length, but not hard to do.

I have one approximately 60’ loop I would like to put catenary on, so a catenary system (poles/wire) with poles every 3’ would be 20 poles.  I prefer to buy items like this, not spend time making them.  I also do not need them to be operational.  PRR style printed ones would work for me.

@darlander, Dave very enjoyable videos of a great layout. Is that a custom trolley?

@Dave Koehler posted:

yeah 2 1\2 " is a lot . I have strung both trolley wire and catenary ,in N ,S, HO and G  , and placement of the poles have to be exact!

Back in the 70s, I built working HO trolley wire using 1/8" steel music wire for support poles and Radio Shack tinned bus wire for both cross and contact wires (with the contact wire soldered directly to the cross wire).  Crossings were 2-56 washers.  The only commercial castings I used were Suydam frogs at turnouts.   Once I had it tuned in, it worked flawlessly.  Never won any appearance awards, but what the heck, it worked... 

Mitch

@CAPPilot posted:

I have one approximately 60’ loop I would like to put catenary on, so a catenary system (poles/wire) with poles every 3’ would be 20 poles.  I prefer to buy items like this, not spend time making them.  I also do not need them to be operational.  PRR style printed ones would work for me.

just remember you need more on the curves

I'm surprised nobody has ever attempted to backward engineer Marklin's semi- scale HO catenary system into 0 scale. I have a shared passion for both Lionel and Marklin, and the Marklin catenary system is reliable, easy to use, and reasonably realistic.

A cool feature is the ability to run two analog trains in the same block - one off the catenary and one from the track.

I'm thinking that with digital control now providing the ability to run many trains independently on the same track, it's hard to justify the work required to build working catenary any more. I have noticed that new "electric" models today usually are digital-ready but rarely have pantographs that can collect current from overhead wire.