What method did conrail use to remove the catenary?

If anyone watched the gippsland line catenary removal? I wounder if conrail did the same of diffrent. If you find a vid or picture on how they removed it reply. Thanks
~ Coren

Like anything they shut the power off cut the wires remove them then cut the towers down in 3 parts the section over the tracks gets cut out and placed into a Gondola then the legs on both sides are cut and placed into a gondola and they move to the next tower and start over again.

No im taking about it as in the PRR high line/ The Towers and transmission wires remain.

I miss the high line before the catenary is gone....

The high Line and Port Road catenary are all gone.. except the ones that has PRR signals on the Port Road, as thats left alone. Very simple... they simply use an excavator (backhoe) with metal-shearing snips that acts like a bolt cutter and snip it into 3 or 4 shorter length pieces and truck it out, weigh it in the nearest scrap yard and all monies goes to NS.. They snip the top and the crossarm, then snip the middle then lastly pull the foundation and snip off the bottom.. The Port Road is now devoid of catenary poles..

Dave

Revived.....I seen a line with PRR catenary connecting to the NEC and its abandoned and the railroad bridge is missing where the septa TROLLey line and road crosses under

That may be correct in there was a line that the caternary remains up to feed power to other lines, but it could be one of the routes Septa owns that's been sort of half-butt railbanked (in that while the ROW is more or less intact, the odds it will ever see trains again are about the same as taking a train to Mars).

CorenDirebrew wrote:Revived.....I seen a line with PRR catenary connecting to the NEC and its abandoned and the railroad bridge is missing where the septa TROLLey line and road crosses under

I suspect that you saw the Oxford Rd. branch of the PRR crossing Erie Ave. and the Rte. 56 trolley just east of "B" St. & Whitaker Ave. The Philadelphia Electric Co. poles allow for future electrification of this abandoned line.

Was Oxford RD branch electrified and I saw a abandoned branch with its bridge missing above Tabor Street, PRR poles look new

lvrr325 wrote:That may be correct in there was a line that the caternary remains up to feed power to other lines, but it could be one of the routes Septa owns that's been sort of half-butt railbanked (in that while the ROW is more or less intact, the odds it will ever see trains again are about the same as taking a train to Mars).

Catenary towers remain in place, with Amtrak transmission lines still intact and energized, across the ex-PRR Manayunk bridge and along the ex-PRR Norristown line up to the Trenton cutoff ( NS Morrisville line (which was obviously once electrified)). From that junction, the wires travel westward to Glen interlocking where the Trenton cutoff joined the main line. These lines serve as a backup to the transmission lines along Amtrak.

CorenDirebrew wrote:Was Oxford RD branch electrified and I saw a abandoned branch with its bridge missing above Tabor Street, PRR poles look new

The ROW that crossed Tabor Road was actually the Reading's Frankford Branch. It ran from the NY Short Line (now CSX and Septa Fox Chase Line), through the old Sears property to a warehouse near Frankford Avenue. It actually terminated on the second floor of the warehouse.

Did PRR make the reading catenary

I know that this is an old thread, but here's some additional revelant information:

CorenDirebrew wrote:Did PRR make the reading catenary

No. Assembly of the Reading's alternating-current catenary system was a "home-brew" project performed entirely by the RDG's own labor force.

The total electrified mileage (track-miles as well as route-miles) of the RDG was much less than that of the PRR, since Pennsy's catenary was intended for a truly massive quantity of electrified freight traffic as well as a large number of intercity as well as commuter passenger trains; many more than the RDG operated on its own routes. The much more modest scope of Reading Company electrification allowed them to do it on a "in-house" basis. This saved a great deal of money.

BTW, Reading also had some vague fantasy plans for someday electrifying their New York Branch all the way to Jersey City NJ, in combination with electrification of the Central RR of New Jersey's Bound Brook-Jersey City mainline. (The CNJ was mostly owned by the Reading during this time period.) Alas, this never happened.

The only part that the RDG did not do itself was to actually fabricate the steel I-beams and the catenary contact/messenger/steady span wires. The lines which were electrified also received a completely new automatic block-signal system, which was installed at the same time that the wires went up for AC traction power. Those automatic block signals were the classic old General Railway Signal Co. type "G" triangular, three-bulb heads that were finally retired & replaced only in the last decade or so. The new signal heads now only exist at interlockings; automatic signals were removed from the ex-RDG half of the SEPTA railroad division starting in approx. 2005, because SEPTA's commuter trains now use a Cab Signal display system (plus other related "improvements") instead of traditional lineside signal appliances.

Method used was MANUAL LABOR ...

On the Schuylkill Branch, they used a yard engine, a flatcar with scaffolding bolted to the deck to put the linemen up near the wire, several gondolas, a wreck train tool car, and a caboose. It was slow work taking the tension out of the wire, disconnecting the hangers and insulators, then putting the scrap into the gondola. They staged the train at Earnest Yard in Plymouth Meeting. It took about 2 months IIRC.

They used the same work train at Morrisville Yard to take down the catenary.