AN UNUSUAL ELECTRIFICATION SCHEME

in 7mm Scale

This project started as a challenge I set myself. The South West Scotland ScaleSeven
Group, of which I am a member, had built a small shunting layout by the name of
Clydesdale Iron Foundry. It was built for the Gauge O Guild competition in 2002 to
build the most interesting layout in an area of 2002 square inches. It won third prize.
As the layout was a working diorama based on Glasgow’s industrial scene in the late
fifties I had an idea to make it a bit more unusual than the average shunting layout
and render it more requested for exhibitions.

THE HISTORY

Many industrial railways were to be found in Glasgow up until the mid 1960s and
nearly all of them involved steam-hauled transfer workings from various inner city
goods facilities and docks to factories and shipyards. The most interesting and
complex of them however was that owned by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and
Engineering Company of Govan. This operation involved a small four-wheeled steeple
cab electric locomotive built in 1940 by Dick Kerr in which raw materials were
delivered by train to the Govan goods yard and wagons intended for Fairfield’s were
then pulled by this locomotive 700 yards along the main Govan Road to the shipyard.
The locomotive shared the track and overhead wiring with the Corporation trams and
as such was equipped with a bow collector mounted on top of a wooden tower on its
roof. This situation lasted until 1958 when the trams were withdrawn and replaced by
trolleybuses. When the tramlines were severed and lifted from each end of the line
between the goods yard and the shipyard, this left an isolated island of tram track for
the loco to use, but which was now no longer able to provide an electrical return to
the power supply. The problem was solved by the removal of the single tram wire
above each track and the installation of a replacement third set of trolleybus wires
down the middle of the road, suspended between the two pairs that were used by the
trolleybuses themselves, the electrical return now being provided by the second wire
of the new pair. The goods yard, shipyard sidings and engine shed were similarly
wired up so the transfer operations to and from both ends of the line could operate as
before. The locomotive lost its bow collector; the wooden tower on its roof was
widened and fitted with a pair of trolleypoles. I remember seeing this strange beast
on quite a few occasions when I was a child and the whole arrangement fascinated
me.
It was this long-held fascination that prompted me to see if this very unusual
operation could be recreated in model form for the Clydesdale Iron Foundry layout.

MODELLING CONSIDERATIONS

I decided right from the outset that if this was going to be done at all, it was going to
be done properly. Being a perfectionist, I was disappointed by the many attempts I
had seen at overhead electrification which were badly executed. The main problems
always seemed to be;

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 1. Kinked contact/running and span wires.
2. Generally overscale fittings and wiring
3. Oversprung pantographs and trolleypoles that caused grossly unrealistic
upward deflection of the contact wire and consequent poor running and
appearance.

These were fundamental problems that had to be solved if I was to realise my dream
of a model electrification installation that was virtually indistinguishable from the
prototype.
I also determined at this point that actually collecting power from the overhead was
an unnecessary complication. This would require working insulation on the system
rendering the chances of dead-scale appearance almost impossible. Also, with the
added consideration of wiring up storage yard space, I decided the disadvantages
were overwhelming and attempting it would actually detract from what I was trying to
do.
It seemed to me that most modellers who had tried to execute electrification schemes
supposed that the problem of overscale upward defection and kinking of the contact
wire would be overcome by introducing large amounts of tension. Experience has
taught me that this causes more problems than it solves. The support poles have to
be of overscale thickness to withstand the sideways force of heavily tensioned wiring
on curves (and even then they always have a tendency over time to lean in to the
curve, when in reality they should lean back) and soldered joints frequently give way
under the strain. I decided to come at the problem from the opposite direction-
reduce the springing on the trolleypole or pantograph. This is also another advantage
of not using the wiring for current collection, the pickup does not have to be in firm
mechanical contact with the wire – that it touches is all you require. For pantographs,
all that is needed is for the spring to be removed and stretched until it is
approximately one-and-a-half times its original length and then remounted. If there
are two springs, remove one completely and stretch the other. The result is a pick up
which will still rise to its full height (if the stretching is done carefully) but not do so
with as much “push”. The consequence of this approach is that the overhead gear
can be constructed with almost exact scale components, be only lightly tensioned and
guaranteed to operate in a very realistic fashion.

BEGINNINGS

The system I had intended to construct required trolleypoles. After a lot of research I
discovered that Terry Russell Trams supplied a 7mm scale swivel head pole at a very
reasonable £2.50 each, so I bought two. On receiving them I noticed that the head
was made from a filed down 8BA cheesehead bolt which was overscale and the
springing arrangement consisted of a pair of steel wire loops which actually formed
the hinge between the pole and its base. (Fig.1) Now I’m not criticising Terry’s
products, far from it, they are excellent value for money and well made. I merely
thought that for my dead scale approach, some improvements could be made.
I started by cutting them down to 130mm long and replacing each head with a 10BA
cheesehead bolt filed in the same way as the original 8BA one and mounting it in a
new brass plate soldered to the end of the poles. (Fig.2) The slot in the bolt head was

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a nice snug fit on the wire I had chosen to use on my system, namely 0.5mm hard
drawn brass which I obtained in one metre straight lengths from a local model shop
that specialises in radio controlled model boats and aircraft.
The springing arrangement had to be changed as the steel loop method introduced an
increasing upward push on the pole as it was lowered. This was going to be a problem
as on the layout, the wiring has to drop in height to pass under a bridge and at this
point the trolleypoles would be almost horizontal to do so. The spring force would
increase under these circumstances to levels that would push the wiring up
unrealistically as the poles attempted to follow the wires down under the bridge.
The steel loops on the poles were secured at each end by being wrapped in fuse wire
and soldered. I picked at this with tweezers to catch the end of the fuse wire and then
unwrapped it so the end of the two loops were freed from the pole base. I then cut off
the tails thus released with snips. This meant the loops only acted now as the hinge
and not as the spring. The pole base is a horizontal length of 0.7mm brass rod and to
this I soldered a 3mm length of identical rod vertically to the end of it. At the base of
the pole proper on its upper surface I soldered a small piece of scrap brass in the form
of a hook. These two items were to secure the new coil spring which would provide
the replacement for the steel loops. (Fig.3) The spring itself was made from 33SWG
soft stainless steel wire I obtained from a dental technician friend of mine many years
ago. Similar thickness soft brass would probably do the same job. This was wound
round a piece of the 0.7mm rod held in a vice until a length of 9mm was achieved.
The ends of the spring were then bent down to form horizontal loops and these were
attached to the securing points on the trolleypole base. I found that if a small nick
was filed in the vertical rod at the outside end of the base, this prevented the spring
from jumping free of its mounting and vanishing across the room! This end was then
very carefully dabbed with low temperature solder to fix it in place without the risk of
the pole’s base being reduced to a kit of parts.
After both poles were finished I sprayed them with cellulose primer and then matt
black. The tails that are used to mount the poles in the vehicle were kept free of paint
so they would swivel freely in the long tubular rivets that came supplied. I decided to
temporarily mount the poles 14mm apart (trolleybus wiring was 2ft gauge in nearly
every British undertaking) in a plasticard gantry of the correct height which I fitted to
a seven plank wagon. This was to be my testing vehicle for the wiring during the
construction phase and while I worked in parallel on scratchbuilding the steeple cab
locomotive.

LOCOMOTIVE CONSTRUCTION

The locomotive used by Fairfield’s shipyard was, as can be seen in the pictures, a
very simple affair. It was essentially a ten foot wheelbase motorised wagon chassis
with a steeple-cab body in which the driver stood. The actual loco is preserved at
Bo’ness by the Scottish Railway Preservation Society and I obtained permission from
them to take photographs and dimensions from it on site. From these sketches and
photographs, I drew out side and end elevations in Autosketch, a simple computer-
based engineering drawing package. I then printed the drawings onto tracing paper
and, using Sprayfix adhesive, stuck them onto 60thou plasticard and cut them out.
This created the structural shell onto which I attached another set of body parts, this
time cut from 15thou to produce the outer detailed skin.

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The chassis was built by constructing a brass frame into which was placed an 80thou
plasticard floor. The W irons were supplied by Slater’s and the wheels turned up for
me by my friend Ian Middleditch. David Franks of LMS Models, assembled and
mounted the Mashima can motor and Blacksmith 50-1 double reduction gearbox
which drives one of the axles. Given the three or four wagon maximum load this loco
pulled, two axle drive was considered unnecessary. The chassis details were added
using various brass sections and thicknesses of wire. The axleboxes and springs were
scratchbuilt using plasticard and microstrip. The brake shoes were from Parkside
Dundas. The body was then painted with grey car primer and a top coat of Vauxhall
King’s Blue. The chassis is matt black. The transfers were made by me using Corel
Draw 10 and printed onto transfer film using an Alps MD1000 printer.

PLANNING THE WIRING PATTERN

The Clydesdale Iron Foundry is approximately nine feet long and consists mainly of a
through line which appears from under a bridge and splits to form a passing loop,
recombining before it goes offstage. (See plan.) There is an engine shed road which
the locomotive had to be able to sit on during times of inactivity. The advantage of
trolleybus wiring is that this siding did not have to be wired. The loco could reverse
into it while the trolleypoles swung out on the main line wiring. However the passing
loop arrangement meant that the wiring had to split as well and this involved the
challenge of creating two overhead points (frogs) which not only had to work, but be
of exact scale appearance.
The planning stage involved plotting on the actual layout the position and suspension
points of the wiring. This was done by pushing Peco track pins into the baseboard at
each suspension point with the requisite 14 mm gauge. The relationship of wiring to
track could be quite loose as the trolleypoles can swing to a scale twelve feet either
side of the track centreline. The sight of the trolleys swinging from one side to the
other as the locomotive traverses the layout can be very gratifying.
A decision had to be made about whether the wiring was to be suspended from either
bracket arms mounted on traction poles by the trackside, or from span wires that
would be strung between plain poles or buildings. The suspension points had to be
determined allowing for clearances between track and traction poles where these
were to be used.
In order for the trolleys to take the correct route as they pass through the frogs their
positioning is critical. As there are no moving tongues in the frogs to divert the trolley
heads as in the prototype the trolleypoles must have a tendency to follow the correct
route automatically and this is done by placing the frog directly above the turnout’s
crossing vee. As the locomotive passes through the turnout, the poles are pulled in
the direction the loco is taking and by the time the swivel heads reach the overhead
frog, the trolleys are sufficiently far over in one direction or the other for the heads to
take the correct route. Needless to say the frogs have to be constructed to a very
high standard of accuracy in order to allow this to happen without dewiring.
Once the frogs’ positions were finalised and the various suspension points decided
upon, white sewing thread was stretched between the track pins to give a graphical
representation of the wiring pattern at ground level. Any adjustment of the
suspension points could now be undertaken to refine the appearance of the layout
and iron out any kinks or unevenness in the wiring’s route.

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CONSTRUCTION BEGINS - HANGERS

The first thing that needs to be constructed is the gantry which is used to anchor the
overhead as it leaves the scenic part of the layout. In order to give it some strength to
resist the (minimal) tension that is introduced to the system, I fabricated it from 3mm
milled brass H-section beams which were soldered together according to the plan in
fig.4. The running wires terminate in two v-shaped troughs that are the equivalent of
a re-railer, enabling the poles to be run onto the wiring without difficulty as the
locomotive leaves the fiddle yard. Another gantry is needed for the other end of the
layout which has the tensioning gear attached to it, but we will deal with this at a
later stage.
We now have to tackle the construction of the support hangers and ears. These
consist of two strips that are attached to the top surface of each of the running wires
to register them above the track, which are attached to insulators and held in gauge
by a spacer bar. There are various types which are shown, together with their
commonest uses in fig.5, but reference should be made to photographs of trolleybus
wiring in order to thoroughly acquaint oneself with the various types and how they
are used. Ken Blacker’s book on the trolleybuses of London Transport is an excellent
source.
The first thing to do is construct a jig for the assembly of the hangers in order to
simplify the job and ensure consistency as this part is quite fiddly but not unduly
difficult. I made mine from a length of 10 x 5mm Tufnol bar which is drilled as in Fig.6.
I found Tufnol to be very satisfactory as it withstands the extensive soldering involved
at this stage of the project.
The insulators that the ears are attached to are each made from two 10BA
cheesehead bolts soldered head to head. Two of these are placed side by side in the
Tufnol jig, which is held in a vice, with the screwdriver slots lined up. A 1 x 0.5mm
strip of nickel silver or brass (I used 2mm Scale Association nickel silver rail) is placed
into the slots of the two bolt heads leaving the ends protruding from each by about
5mm. Now place another 10BA cheesehead on top of each, thus enclosing the spacer
strip and solder the heads together with Carr’s 225 solder and plenty of flux. Once
cool, the assembly can be removed from the jig, the threaded portions of the bolts cut
off and the resulting two joined “insulators” cleaned up with files. You will now have
an assembly like the one in fig.7. Now you have to fashion the tails at each end.
Depending on the design of hanger you’re after the tails can be bent up, down, one of
each or left straight. Once bent to shape with thin nosed pliers, the ends have to be
drilled 0.5mm in order to accept the span wires or bracket arm fixings. Next you will
have to drill vertically down through the “insulators” with a 1mm drill for the ears
proper to be attached. I used a pillar drill but you could do if freehand if you’re
careful. Make sure you drill slowly or the heat could rise sufficiently to melt the solder
holding the whole lot together! (Fig.8). The ears are made from two 10mm strips of
the same material that was used for the spacer bar. Drill a 0.5mm hole in each at its
midpoint and then file or grind each end to the shape in fig.9. Now thread a piece of
single strand copper telephone wire through the hole, fold it back on itself and close

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the two tails together with pliers. You now have an ear hanging from a double wire
tail. Push this tail through the vertical hole previously drilled in the insulators and
solder with Carr’s 145 and again, plenty of flux for a good clean joint. You can now
snip off the excess wire above the insulators and clean up with files but leave the
solder on top slightly domed as this is more in keeping with the prototype’s shape.
You now have a finished ear and hanger assembly which should look like the drawing
in fig.10. Make as many of these as your pin-and-thread plan on the layout calls for.

FROGS AND CROSSINGS

Constructing any frogs or crossings your plan needs comes next – and this is the
difficult part. Having said that I started from scratch inventing the techniques required
as I went, you can follow what I discovered with far less trouble and bad language!
At each frog site, using the thread layout, measure the distance that lies between
8mm beyond the toe end of the projected frog and 8mm beyond the point where the
“crossing vee” is. Note it down. Now cut two pieces of 1mm ply to the size you
obtained by the size necessary to cover the whole frog site. Fig.11 shows what I
mean. Now lay one piece of ply across the frog site and mark at its edges, the places
where the threads appear from underneath. Draw the plan of the frog on the ply
using these marks as guides. (The radius of the diverging line can be quite sharp as it
was in the prototype – the curvature of the divergence was taken up by the moving
tongue mechanism and the rest of the frog’s rails were usually straight). Cut the ply
into pieces using these drawn lines. You now have a jig kit for the frog you are about
to build. Cut a piece of the 1 x 0.5mm strip used earlier and glue the ply pieces down
onto the other piece of ply you have, using the strip in the places where the frog’s
“rails” will end up. When you have done this with all the ply pieces you will have a jig
that holds the frog rails in place while they are soldered together.
Now cut a series of 1x0.5 strips to make up the frog’s elements and file a taper on the
“closure rail” sections so they merge with the “stock rails” as if you were building a
turnout. The taper must be perfect and smooth such that at its end the overall width
of the resulting joint is the width of the strip you are using exactly. At the crossing of
the two rails, a half lap joint must be constructed and fig.12 explains. A standard frog
has one of these and a diamond or 90 degree crossing has four. When you are happy
with all this solder it all together with Carr’s 225, remove from the jig and clean up
and polish the blade ends with a glass fibre brush so they are perfectly smooth. The
next procedure is to cut plates from 15 thou nickel silver to cover the places where
the rails cross or meet - fig.13 shows the idea. This is intended as a reinforcement and
support of the soldered parts and should be done with the embryonic frog back in its
jig. The plates are cut oversize so that there is an overhang either side of the rails.
They are then soldered carefully with more Carr’s 225. Remove the frog from the jig
again and clean up making sure that any meniscus between the rail and the plate is
removed as much as possible. This next part is crucial for reliable operation of the
finished frog. Turn it over so that it is lying flat with the plates on the bench and,
using a slitting saw – NOT a carborundum disc – cut the rails through to the plates as
shown in fig.14.
Run the blade back and forth in the cut until you have a smooth path on both sides of
the diverging rails and the crossing. This is the path the trolley heads will follow and it
needs to be smooth so polish with a glass fibre brush and/or files until it is. Once

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these cuts have been made, get out one of your trolleypoles and, holding it by its
base so it behaves as near as possible the way it will when mounted on a vehicle, run
it through the frog with sufficient bias that it follows each of the routes in turn. If there
is no “grabbing” on its way through then you can move on to the next stage. The
outer rails on each route can be cut down to within 10mm of the divergence and if
any fettling is required to get things right, now is the time to do it.
You now have to make the equivalent of check rails to keep the heads from coming
off the rails as they pass through the cuts you’ve just made. These should also be cut
from 15thou nickel and be 1mm wide, soldered with Carr’s 145 to the reinforcing
plates’ overhang outside the rails opposite the cuts (See fig.15) Use a small piece of
postcard between the frog rail and these check rails to act partly as gauge and partly
to prevent the whole thing from being soldered up solid. A steady hand and a
magnifier are handy here. Once the excess overhang is filed off and the whole thing
cleaned up and polished with a glass fibre brush you should now have a working frog
which will allow the trolleys’ free passage in both facing and trailing directions on
both routes without dewiring thanks to the checkrails.
Now take an 18mm long piece of the 0.5mm brass used for the running wires,
squeeze each end in a pair of pliers to flatten it and drill a 0.5mm hole through each
flat. This is the spacer bar that holds the toe end of the frog in gauge and is also its
means of being suspended from a span wire. Another spacer, this time 15mm long is
attached across the plates to act as a stiffener using low temperature solder – be very
careful doing this as the danger of destroying everything here is acute. If the cut rails
come adrift from the plates at this point you will never be able fix it and you are faced
with having to start again from scratch – I know ‘cos it happened to me! Details can
be added to bring the whole unit closer to reality and these are shown in fig.16. The
only other thing that needs to be done is for the running surface of the frog’s rails to
be rebated to accept the running wires at each end. A carborundum cutting or
grinding disc is about the best tool for this job as ordinary filing is too brutal and
causes damage. The rebates should be about 5mm long and as deep into the rails as
the running wire is thick, thus allowing a free and smooth transition for the trolleys
from wire to frog assembly without snagging. This will be gone into in more detail as
we reach the point of installing the wiring itself (fig.16 again).

TRACTION POLES AND OTHER SUPPORTS

Now we come to the point of having to construct the means of supporting the fittings
we have produced so far, as the job of “hanging it all in the air” is getting nearer.
The prototype used traction poles of varying diameters depending on the amount and
complexity of the equipment suspended from them. A standard pole in Glasgow was
9”diameter at the base tapering in three sections to 6½” at the top but could be up to
15” at the base if required. On open streets without height restricting obstacles like
bridges, the running wires were 21 feet above the road.
I constructed my poles from three telescoping sections of brass tube obtained from a
K&S metal centre. The base section is ¼” (US Imperial) diameter and two other
sections are cut to bring the total height of the pole to 205mm which includes 25mm
that is buried in the baseboard. The pole base is wrapped with a length of 12mm wide
masking tape until a thickness of 1mm is built up. This represents the concrete collar
that surrounded the base of most poles (Fig. 17). The top of the pole is capped with

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solder. Bracket arms can be constructed similarly using a 1.5mm brass rod or tube for
the horizontal element and 0.5mm wire for the stays (fig.17 again). They are inserted
into the baseboard with a 1in30 backward rake, this being to offset the weight of the
overhead and with the horizontal arm at 90 degrees to the track,. A card template can
be used to incline the bit correctly before drilling commences. When you are happy
with the pole’s position, secure it to the board with Araldite.
The prototype idea was that under load the poles would assume a vertical stance
although this was not always obvious.
Span wires have to be attached to the poles and brackets as in fig. 18 are used. Up to
five or six of type A could be seen one above the other on a single pole to support
multiple span wires or Type B was sometimes utilised. The tails of Type A were always
in line with the span wire’s length. The tails on Type B were parallel to the track and
the wire hoop was used to secure the span wires. They can be bent up from scraps of
1x0.5mm strip, soldered and drilled 0.5mm to accept the span wires.
Buildings were used in many places to support the overhead, facilitating as it did a
less cluttered installation particularly at junctions, where its complexity would have
required a large number of poles in the street. The fittings on buildings were made of
cast iron and since they were quite decorative, were called rosettes (fig. 19). They
can be fashioned from pieces of plasticard and are 8x6mm in size. They are glued to
the building concerned and a hole is drilled through the rosette and the building’s
front wall for a hook made from 0.7mm wire to be inserted, bent over behind the wall
and secured with Araldite. It has to be said that as the span wires attached to these
can be under significant tension particularly on curves, the buildings have to quite
substantial and screwed to the baseboard. Those on the Clydesdale Iron Foundry
layout have a plywood or MDF core.
This brings me to the span wires themselves. The chosen material has to be very fine
and strong, resistant to kinking and easy to work with. Five amp fuse wire is about the
right diameter but is useless on all other counts. After much head scratching I came
up with monofilament fly tying thread. It is marketed from fishing tackle shops under
the name of UNI-Thread. The version I used is given as 6/0 gauge, black in colour and
a fifty yard bobbin of it cost about a pound! This is ideally suited to our purpose. It is
almost prototypically thin, very strong, easily worked with and has a waxy finish so is
not hairy like cotton. It can be secured to fittings etc. with a simple double knot which
is then trimmed with embroidery scissors and dabbed with superglue. The results are
superb and, as in the prototype, almost invisible! The two porcelain strain insulators
used on these wires at the traction pole or rosette end can be represented using No.8
lead split shot, again obtainable from fishing tackle shops. They are placed about
three scale feet apart on the span wire, three feet from the pole/rosette and closed
using fine nosed pliers – but not too tightly or you will crush them (fig.17).

WIRING INSTALLATION

We are now in a position to actually start wiring up the layout. The first thing to do is
fit the run-off gantry to the baseboard. I screwed four one-inch square paxolin plates
to the board and soldered my gantry to them. Make sure the gantry is square to the
track and well secured so it cannot move.
Now place a traction pole temporarily in a small block of wood drilled for the purpose.
This will be clamped to the baseboard edge as a way of keeping the wiring in tension

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and rough alignment as it is installed. Now, with due consideration of the distance
your first frog is from the gantry, solder a piece of 0.5mm running wire to each of the
six tails of the first frog assembly using Carr’s 145. This is best done with the frog
sitting on the bench, running surfaces down so it holds the wires in place in the
rebates while they are soldered. If any further frogs are required, measure their
distance apart and cut the running wires to suit - laying the frogs out on the pin and
thread plan will help achieve this. Beyond the last frog, the running wires should be as
long as possible regardless of baseboard joins as these will be dealt with after
everything else has been installed. After assembly and an in-situ dry run to check for
positioning, lift the frogs and wiring clear of the baseboard and place to one side. You
may need an assistant for this part as the wiring pattern at this point will be very
unwieldy and delicate. String some sewing thread temporarily between the traction
poles in the path of the wiring in order that it can be supported at more or less the
correct height while it is properly secured to the span wires and poles progressively
from the gantry end. Bend up the running wire ends and secure to the holes in the
run-off troughs on the gantry when you are happy the first frog is correctly aligned
above the crossing vee of its corresponding turnout. Do not solder them to the
troughs; if the bend in the wires is about 75 degrees the tension in the wiring will hold
them in place. The opposite ends of the running wires should be bent to form small
hooks that sewing thread can be tied to. These threads are then run to the temporary
pole(s) at the baseboard edge and secured with a degree of tension, such that any
slackness in the wiring is taken up (fig.20) Now tie some span wire thread to the first
hanger or frog suspension bar nearest the gantry and secure it to the supporting
poles or building rosettes making sure the alignment is to your satisfaction. Where
the wiring is to follow a curve in the track, tie a piece of sewing thread to each wire
and pull it into alignment. At the same time, move the temporary pole at the end of
the wiring run to a new position that takes account of the wiring’s new route. Do this
one “pull-off” at a time and mount the hangers on the wires, securing to the
appropriate traction poles before doing the same thing at the next pull-off and so on.
The wiring and ears will have to be bent over the 10mm length of the ear with fine
nosed pliers to provide a nice sharp change of wiring direction as per prototype
(fig.21). Again, study prototype pictures to get a feel for how it ought to look; detail at
this point is difficult as every layout is unique and requires different combinations of
poles and span wire patterns.

TENSIONING MECHANISM

As the wiring installation is almost complete, you need to provide a method of

terminating it on a gantry which is equipped with a mechanism for applying tension to
the whole system. This is very similar to the runoff gantry at the other end of the
layout except that the wiring passes through the top of two 1x1mm channels into
which the trolley heads run as the wiring rises up to two 6BA bolts which are threaded
through captive nuts to enable the tensioning of the wiring via other nuts that are
drilled to accept the running wires. Fig.22 shows the plan of what’s involved.

FINISHING

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With the wiring installed, you now should have a working system, although some
cleaning up will be required. Run your trolleypole equipped test vehicle from one end
of the layout to the other to see if there are any tight spots or places where the poles
snag. The soldering at each ear is the most likely culprit and fine files or emery paper
will remedy the situation. Dewirements and snagging at the frogs can be cured with
fine wet and dry emery paper folded to provide an edge that can be run back and
forth in the blade and crossing assemblies. Try the same with the trolley heads if the
problems persist. Be prepared to persevere with this as it can take some time to
arrive at a situation where everything works as you would want it to. Take heart
though, the end result is well worth it.
Baseboard joins are taken care of by releasing the tension in the system through
loosening the nuts on the tensioning gantry and then cutting the running wires
directly above the board join and bending each cut end up at 90 degrees so that the
gap between them is about 7mm long. Now cut two 9mm long pieces of 1x1mm
channel and drill a 0.5mm hole centrally in the upper part of the channel 1mm from
each end. Place this over the cut ends of the wires so that the trolleypoles will pass
from one wire to the other across the join through the channel. Solder the wires to the
channel at one end only so that the joint can be broken when necessary. When this is
done, carefully reintroduce sufficient tension to the installation with a trolleypole
equipped vehicle attached to the running wires so that the upward deflection is
reduced to a realistic level. Do not overtension the system to make the wires
absolutely level under the trolleypoles. Some upward deflection is prototypical but if
the wiring is still too vertically distorted after tensioning, remove and stretch the
trolleypole springs if necessary. If you have made them from soft wire of the gauge I
have suggested however, you shouldn’t have a problem.
After all is working reliably, you can paint everything. The traction poles can be
painted dark green and the concrete collars light grey. Insulators are painted bauxite
and the hanger spacer bars mid brown – they were usually made of wood in reality.
Span wires should be steel grey and the running wires a light green to represent
verdigris. Make sure that when painting the running wires you use thin paint and do
not actually paint the running surfaces themselves. The clearance between trolley
heads and wire is quite tight and thick paint can adversely affect their ability to
traverse the wiring smoothly. After this is done the whole installation can be painted
with dirty thinners to weather it all down and make it less obtrusive and colourful(!)

CONCLUSION

And that’s it! You should now be the proud owner of a working trolleybus pattern
electrification installation which is as accurate and dead scale as possible. Obviously
care has to be exercised when cleaning track etc. as the overhead is delicate, but not
as susceptible to damage as might be thought. The running wires are quite stiff and
the span wires are very slightly elastic and so both will give but not kink when
nudged. If a span wire is nudged sufficiently to stretch it beyond its ability to recover
fully, the advantage of using thread is that it can be replaced very easily.
Finally I’d just like to thank the members of the South West Scotland ScaleSeven
Group for letting me loose on the Clydesdale Iron Foundry layout. I’m quite sure most
of them thought I was bonkers when I told them what I wanted to do with it! I think
however that the results speak for themselves and the installation attracts very

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favourable comment at exhibitions. The steeple cab electric locomotive used on the
layout was, as mentioned briefly earlier, scratchbuilt and this may be covered in a
future article if the Editor wishes.
Lastly, particular thanks go to Ian Middleditch and Jim Mitchell for
encouraging/coercing me to write this article.

Alan McMillan, Glasgow,

September 2004.

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