*the poles await their fate!
Greetings and salutations great people of the forum! I have a couple of postwar GG 1’s. I had made some “live “ catenary poles out of the vintage metal type MTH telegraph poles. This was a success for running my NH 2350’s.
*I took down the poles and wire for renovations purposes and haven’t gone in the cement refrigerator (my basement) to reinstall them yet. Btw, They work magnificently on the predominant 031 curves of my layout (for the EP5 locomotives).
It occurred to me when the catenary wires were up that my GG-1’s being traditional sized would not traverse the catenary wires at the 031 curves. They would just slide off laterally , pantographs would fully extend ( sound like looks like boing!) then get caught on the wire at the end of the curve , now the edge of pantograph became lodged over the power wire, pantograph snapping off when resuming the straight track path! . Hence the amazing traveling rubber isolators, I wasn’t thinking obvious physics involved! lol. So I made some changes in positioning of the towers on a test area to support the pantograph to catenary wire relationship while traversing the dreaded 031 curve (just kidding the entire layout has 031’s). Well now that that worked I needed to make the decision which placement (EP5 vs GG1) for which coolest loco! I would choose the tower placement for the GG 1’s Except the Million dollar Question now remains: How to keep those little rubber baby isolators connected to the roof of the engine and of course the base of the pantographs running the 031 (particularly since they are banked)? can’t make this stuff up! So, I definitively need the isolators for functional reasons ( metal body GG1’s and live AC power overhead) and they look and act the part of support (standing quite still on a shelf) but in order to prevent more severe consequences I may just go back to the original pole placement and just run the 2350’s. Gotta stick with what works, right? Maybe not!
Has anyone managed to keep the isolators from tripping outward? Yes? How?
thank you for your patience!
lerrof, just trying to plan for spring! No pun intended!
