Telephone Lines

[M Wright]

What is he best way to model telephone lines in &mm to the foot scale?  It needs to be greenish or coffee coloued and 0.3-0.5mm. I will have to be elastic??? But at the same time it would be nice if it drooped???? It needs to be strong, not too easily caught and broken when dusting.  Any ideas? Thanks.

[AY Mod]

https://www.modelscenerysupplies.co.uk/brands/EZ-Line/EZ-Line-Rope

 

Available in several colours, elasticated and if you are patient you can achieve some droop.

[Giles]

Andy is bang on. I used the green EZ line on Denton Brook

 

Denton Brook by giles favell, on Flickr

[Sprintex]

I'm intrigued as to why telephone lines would be green? Having been a telephone engineer in the past all domestic drop-wires are black as they are plastic or rubberised coated, whether the single type to one house or the thicker OH cable for multiple lines (like you see along country lanes sometimes).

 

Railway telegraph wires might be different and just be exposed copper cable, I don't know? That's the only way I can see they would be green, just like overhead catenary.

 

 

Paul

[uax6]

Bare telephone wires (open wires in GPO parlance) were made of Cadmium-Copper, which in its roar state is a dark coppery colour (I've got some new old stock at home), when it weathers it verdigies up to a greenish hue, but then continues towards a black colour.

What might be causing the green-ness is that some types of early insulated span wire was covered with a green insulating material. This was not used for complete runs, only where there was a need to have an insulated section (for instance where the span crossed an un-insulated power circuit), and it would have been just a single span, terminated off at the pole on either side of the crossing.

 

Overhead catenary used to have both the contact wire and the catenary span in copper, but quickly this changed to having an all alloy catenary span as it was cheaper.

 

Note that all telephone/telegraph pole routes had wires that dipped. There were tables that specified the tension that wires were to be erected with, so that expansion and contraction could occur without overstressing the wire, so any wires on a model need to show this, exaggerated as the normal model will have the poles placed closer than in real life. Having them like panio wires (A technical telecoms term!) is just wrong and they would not last any length of time in real life..

 

Andy G

 

 

[Ramblin Rich]

Given the lack of weight, it's very difficult to achieve a realistic, smoothly curved 'sag'. Then the question is, do you have tight wires, sagging but irregular wires, or none at all? I'd rather have the tight but regular look than irregular ones.

[Giles]

It takes some doing - but it IS possible to get an even sag across all your wires - I've done it - moreover, they are removable for transport, and go back with the same sag each time. The EZ line is fairly easy to pull to the desired tension, and secure with super glue, and then you just pull the next one to match it - going post by post. 

[KeithMacdonald]

Has anyone tried Black Monofilament Fishing Line?

 

 

[Pete the Elaner]

On 28/03/2019 at 18:33, Sprintex said:

I'm intrigued as to why telephone lines would be green? Having been a telephone engineer in the past all domestic drop-wires are black as they are plastic or rubberised coated, whether the single type to one house or the thicker OH cable for multiple lines (like you see along country lanes sometimes).

 

I agree. I have only ever seen black wires but...

 

even green wires (such as OLE which is more than a few days old) usually look dark when you look up toward them, because the background is usually sky, which is very bright. We look down on model railways though. Even if the wires should be green, they look a little odd because we are not used to looking at them from this point of view.

Wires on a model railway are often over-scale, so toning the colour down helps to disguise this.

This is one area which I believe that something can look wrong when it is actually correct.

[LNERGE]

Green I what I expect to see with bare copper wires. I do have several rolls of bright orange 'ite' covered wires used on power circuits (with red insulators). I have all the gear to install it too. The last time I did that was about three years ago for a friend along side his railway.. 12 wires over three spans that do actually carry the block and omnibus telephone plus a few repeaters back to the box.