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Originally Posted by Plokoon11
Hey Mcgrath618, or anyone who is knowledgeable in railroads and electricity. Is there any websites that has information on the Northeast Corridor, how the catenary systems work ect. I have been trying to learn about the history of electrification on the northeast corridor. I feel like it is a big part of how the philadelphia area looks. For example, why there are so many wires above the rails ect. What they do.
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I don’t know of any website off of the top of my head, but I’m probably pretty qualified to tell you most of what you need (though I’m first and foremost a track guy—NOT an electrician). Hopefully this can get your research started:
The structure you see above is called a “K Frame” or “Bowtie Pole.” They appeared in about the late twenties all along the Pennsylvania Railroad. They are as iconic as anything else along the railroad. They are still manufactured new, and SEPTA is slowly replacing most of the former Reading Lines’ infrastructure with Pennsy-based infrastructure (see: Glenside Station).
In the catenary itself, you tend to have two wires: the messenger wire, and the contact wire. What the contact wire does is probably fairly obvious, but the messenger wire essentially allows the contact wire to hang from the poles without obstruction. In a lot of cases on curved track, this will be at an angle opposite the superelevation of the curve as to smoothly “curve” the wire around the bend.
Most of the other wires you see on the poles are high voltage lines that are owned by either Amtrak or PECO. PECO leases a lot of space from SEPTA and Amtrak for their overhead wires. These run to various substations along the line, and while they might provide power for the line, it’s usually also just for public utility (specifically if it’s PECO).
Most of the electrification currently standing on the NEC was done in the 30s, whereas I believe some of the Keystone Corridor is still running on catenary structures put up in the 1910s. Pretty much everything East of Paoli is the old type.
Then the Reading had their own thing going on…
Wikipedia will probably be able to get you started. Read the PRR’s general page, and then the articles for the NEC and Keystone Corridor.