3rd rail and catenary works.

As many will know, I model the Southern Region, 1960's era, and have decided in the interests of more authenticity, that it's about time I added a third rail to my layout. The various bits to start this process are on order from Hattons, but then I decided that, as happened in some SR depots, I should add a catenary system to the depot area instead of the third rail. This setup was used in some depots from a safety point of view, as it was decided (long before the days of "Elf n' Safety), that it could be hazardous for staff crossing the tracks with 750 volts DC on the third rail! Since I have 3 of the DJ Models Class 71's on order and expected shortly, and these loco's had both third rail and overhead pantograph pickup, they should fit right into this 'new' setup. Researching on t'internet, I found that the overhead system used at the time was basically very simple and based on tram system overheads, nothing like todays 25kV system now in use in the UK. Peco do a 'starter kit', but it seems it's modelled on present day systems, so 'scratch build' is the order of the day. With this in mind, I decided to use "Evergreen" type plastic sections (actually from a cheap Chinese batch of sections bought on Ebay) to fabricate the support poles, reinforcing the hollow tube uprights with some surplus green plastic coated garden wire for strength, the design following a few photo's found on the internet. I intend to try using some 0.7mm piano wire for the actual pickup wire, attempting to solder to the cross wires (not tried this yet!), and since I happened to have a quantity of 4mm clear plastic Phillips head screws, drilling through the centre of the thread length, cutting off the head and chopping the resultant length of thread into 2, mounting one each end of the support wire so it looks like an insulator, (which I may paint brown at a later date), this gives me a reasonable resemblance to the genuine article. (I'm no 'rivet-counter'!) Hopefully, the pic gives some idea of what I've achieved so far, and the whole of each support post will be painted grey shortly, before fitting onto the layout and adding the conductor wire. As I'm only doing a short distance, 2 twin track, 1 twin to single track, and 4 single track support posts will be ample for my needs.

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These are the clear plastic screws I happened to have 'in stock'. I've used these before as 'Electrical insulators' on a dummy substation I built some time ago. Once painted "BR Bauxite", they quite closely resemble the brown pot insulators used for many years on higher voltage electrical systems, though nowadays most are of a clear 'glass-like' construction, which, unpainted, once again give a fair representation. To be continued as I progress.
Keith.

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After a spray coat of grey acrylic had dried, touching in the "insulators" with 'BR Bauxite' brown made them somewhat more like the original article. To weather or not??? After all, in the 60's, they would have just been recently installed, so not sure. Maybe some sooty black from diesel exhausts, but as the track below runs into the Diesel and Electrics maintenance shed, as opposed to the nearby 'on-the-way-out' steam shed, steam loco's wouldn't have used this track. Anyway, once the paint has hardened, I need to drill 4.5mm holes in baseboard and servicing platforms to accept the posts, (which is why one twin track set of posts is shorter than the others), and glue into place. I also will need to clean paint off the support crosswires if I'm to stand any chance of soldering the conductor wire to it.
Keith.

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I've now got all the support posts in position on the layout, awaiting delivery of some more 0.7mm piano wire as I found I hadn't enough to complete the job. As a result, now I have my 3rd rail stuff from Hattons, I moved on to starting that. I'm using Peco IL-120 conductor rail chairs which come in a pack of 120, with insulator washers to raise the rail if required (I won't need to use these), but first, the chairs themselves need painting brown. To say this is a fiddly job would be an understatement, a couple of hundred of these painted, and you could lose the will to live--- why can't Peco mould these in brown plastic instead of white???! The pic below gives an idea of the size of these parts.

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Anyway, moving on, I made a start on the actual installation. Peco themselves suggest drilling the end of every 4th sleeper to install one of these chairs. That may be good for Peco's business, but not for my sanity, so I settled on every 10th sleeper, 65mm centres, and it looks about right to me, so onward and upwards. So far I've managed 14ft of track, using IL-1X code 60 rail section, again, fiddly to slide the chairs onto, but do-able, and the results look fine to me, though I have around 300ft of track, but won't be doing it all. Seems to fit in ok, at least on the pic below!

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At present, I've not soldered the catenary wires on, purely because I have more 3rd rail work to do beyond the catenaries, and as has been said, it's easy to snag yourself on the wires, so until 3rd rail work in that area has been completed, it's still 'work-in-progress!'
Keith.

 

Well, I've now completed my catenary, just a short run into the 'maintenance shed', as some Southern depots apparently didn't install 3rd rail into the depot itself due to the inherent danger to staff clambering around under loco's. In the case of Class 71 loco's, these were equipped with both 3rd rail and pantograph pickups, enabling them to access these depots without difficulty, and as I'm shortly expecting delivery of 3 DJM Class 71's, these should fit the scene admirably. Here's one view of the completed setup.

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The reason for the delay in completing this catenary is that the two tracks above and to the left needed the 3rd rail adding, so until I had completed this, there was a high risk of my damaging said catenary, so I had to wait until this was completed and clear of the area before I could finish the catenary wires. Below is another view.

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