It's my understanding that the Contact Wire & Messenger were stretched...constant tension...to prevent distortion with temperature changes. How then could a piece of Contact Wire be spliced in place by Linemen after it was burned & damaged by an arcing pantograph shoe? Looking for an 'A Man' out there that's done this work to answer question about how tension was maintained once Contact Wire was cut between Hangers.
urrengr2003 wrote:It's my understanding that the Contact Wire & Messenger were stretched...constant tension...The PRR catenary was not of the constant tension design; that was only done with the more recent installations using weights. Not that this answers your question about retensioning methods, but it need to be understood first.