# Telephone Pole spacing.



## flyerrich (Feb 17, 2014)

Anyone know what the HO spacing is for telephone poles?


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## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

Common real life practice is 75' or so in urban areas for 40-foot poles.
Rural areas would be 75' to 100'.

In HO scale, a spacing of 80-90 scale feet looks fairly realistic.

Trackside poles are generally about 40 poles to the mile. Decades ago, pole-to-pole distance was considered 3 car lengths. Before radios the head-end crew would count off the poles to determine when to slow down, so the trainman could get off the caboose to realign a switch and get back on without stopping.

Trackside poles should be 18 to 20 feet from the closest rail. They should be erect or with a slight tilt away from the track and have an average height to render wires about 22 feet above grade.
Where lines cross a highway or a track, pole-height is gradually increased to provide minimum clearance under the lines -- 18 feet for highways, 25 feet for rails.

_If you're going to string wires, I recommend Berkshire Junction EZ-Line plastic polymer elastic line for telephone and electric wires.
It comes in .010" and .020" thicknesses, in 100-foot lengths.
Different colors too_.


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## lajrmdlr (Apr 25, 2014)

If you're going to put wires on them, let the wire sag between poles just like on real telephone poles. Before locos got speedometers, the poles along RR tracks were at a definite spacing (40 poles/mile) so the hoggers could count them in a given time to know how fast they were going.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

This thread reminds me of an older one about telephone poles.....

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=23905&highlight=poles


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

lajrmdlr said:


> If you're going to put wires on them, let the wire sag between poles just like on real telephone poles. Before locos got speedometers, the poles along RR tracks were at a definite spacing (40 poles/mile) so the hoggers could count them in a given time to know how fast they were going.


40 poles to the mile would be more like 132 feet between poles. Has the spacing been reduced over the years to the more like 75 to 100 cited by the first responses, or is the 40 / mile spacing something unique to one part of the country or railroad? Or does it represent a rule of thumb that is easy to remember rather than the true spacing (because checking speed that way wouldn't be terribly accurate in any case)?


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## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

I seem to remember an ARA chart (or map) that shows varying 'poles per mile' figures, i.e., 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, etc, up to 70 per mile.
I guess they would be published and distributed for each area or zone, but it sounds pretty confusing to me.
All I know is, 80 to 90 scale feet looks right.


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## teledoc (Oct 22, 2014)

I retired after 41 years if working for N.J. Bell thru to Verizon, and the typical standard used here has been spacing of 100' to 125', between poles. I don't know how that equates to H.O. scale, but that is what we had in the area that I worked in. Some of the outer Rural regions did have shorter spans, of around 75', which was dictated by the size of the poles, that were placed. The shorter, narrower poles had to have closer spacing.


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## highvoltage (Apr 6, 2014)

teledoc said:


> ...the typical standard used here has been spacing of 100' to 125', between poles. I don't know how that equates to H.O. scale...


100' would be about 1' 2"
125' would be about 1' 5"


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## LateStarter (Mar 12, 2016)

There's an area in Mount Holly where the street is about fifty feet below a section of NS/CSX mainline for about a mile along a steep grassy bank.
There are no houses on the grassy bank side of the street, but from a front porch on the opposite side, you have to look almost straight up to see the trains go by (it reminds me of the Chicago 'L').

Telephone poles are across the street from the houses, so from a train-perspective you'd have to look straight down to see the crossbucks and wires.

The street goes on, and bends through a split in the grassy bank, under a deck plate girder bridge. At the moment, I'm not sure if the telephone and power lines follow under the bridge or not.

Although this scenario is probably not all that unique, it would make for a very nice visual if modeled.


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## MtRR75 (Nov 27, 2013)

Here is an older post on the same subject -- with similar, confusing opinions.

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=23905


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

MtRR75 said:


> Here is an older post on the same subject -- with similar, confusing opinions.
> 
> http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?t=23905


In other words, as with so many other things in this hobby, the correct answer is, "It depends".

I guess as long as it looks good to your eye, then you have it right.


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