James River Branch: Telephone Pole

The Token Telephone Pole

It may seem odd to most, but I have a curious fascination for things abandoned and decaying. One of the classic icons of railroads in decline or abandonment are old, dilapidated telephone poles. Occasionally you can still find them here and there, even along a long-gone right-of-way.

I would love to be able to model them in number, but because of the compact nature of my layout, there aren't many places to put them. I may eventually find a way to incorporate more, but for the present, I have modeled just one. If nothing else, it certainly cut down on my time at the workbench.

Curiously, there are multiple kits available for Z scale telephone poles. I had to discount the Micron Art version because of the way they're made for assembly: the crossarms have large, obvious loops top and bottom that secure them to the pole—not a candidate for the macro-photography I frequently do. 3RWorks in Germany makes them as well, and they're quite nice, but they also seem to be a bit oversized. Plus, being photo-etched metal, the crossarms are a tad skinny. Finally we have the laser-cut StoneBridgeDesigns kit. I happen to like these the best, as the insulators have some dimension to them. But... the crossarm braces are (out of necessity) part of the crossarm, making them much too thick.

This left scratchbuilding as my option, and since I only had one to make for now, this was not onerous. After checking a few dozen reference photos, I started with a piece of square stripwood, which I sanded round. This offered the advantage of being wood, for better cosmetics, and afforded me the opportunity of tapering it, which was not an option for the kits, which all used brass rods for poles.

Next, I made the crossarms from more stripwood—I happened to find some rectangular stock of the right proportions. Then I made braces from etched brass fret material. Finally, I sliced the insulators off of the StoneBridgeDesigns crossarms, and attached them to my stripwood crossarms.

The most fun came from making the pole look dilapidated. I omitted some insulators, and one crossarm was attached to the pole on an angle, its braces bent and broken. After staining the pole with multiple India ink and "driftwood" washes, I painted the insulators with pale gloss green paint, and turned the braces into pure rust.

I installed my token telephone pole near the Canal Street crossing to join all of the other details there, including the crossing flasher, relay box, ground throw, and water main valves. Because of its location, the pole is taller than normal in order to raise the wires over the road. However, owing to the return of the crossing shanty, the pole had to be moved, so it got shortened and installed next to the high bridge, next to the railfan.

Square stripwood is sanded round and slightly tapered.

Rectangular stripwood is cut to length to make crossarms.

Details are attached to the crossarms, including insulators and braces.

The pole and details are painted with various paints, stains and washes.

The pole is installed on the layout, joining a number of other details.

Subsequently the pole was moved to this location beside the bridge.