How do utility pole yards work?

[Chris333]

Thanks everyone! There’s some great links and photos hear. Unfortunately my prototype no longer exists. So I can’t google earth the locations, but seeing what you all have posted has given me some really good ideals on how to fit it in the space I have. My spur will be on a curve and hold about three cars. Cool that that’s a realistic size.

Craig

If you can't find it let me know where it was and I'll use the USGS to find it.

[Dksw]

Here's a pole load I made by sanding a taper into fine wooden dowels while chucked in a drill.  You need the taper to make the loads look right.

[mu26aeh]

Here's the Hagerstown location I was talking about.  It used to be a CSX Trans-Flo/Flexi-flo transloading facility

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6342559,-77.7612602,346a,35y,48.02h,44.9t/data=!3m1!1e3

[nkalanaga]

Mu26aeh:  I haven't seen the MT pole load, so can't comment on whether it looks like it should be HO.  However, some poles are larger than others:

NP 56056, July 31, 1977, in Pasco, WA, picture by Ron Hawkins.  Even given the size of the poles, I believe the stakes may be a little excessive.  But they certainly won't break!

[mu26aeh]

MT pole load

https://www.micro-trains.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=63_64&product_id=4387

[sirenwerks]

Mu26aeh:  I haven't seen the MT pole load, so can't comment on whether it looks like it should be HO.  However, some poles are larger than others:

NP 56056, July 31, 1977, in Pasco, WA, picture by Ron Hawkins.  Even given the size of the poles, I believe the stakes may be a little excessive.  But they certainly won't break!

Those look like spar poles.

[wazzou]

They weren’t using spar poles in 1977.

I sell a fair amount of Piling and just shipped an order of 110’ piling from Eugene, OR to California for pressure treating and back to Tacoma, WA for delivery to my client.
All shipped via trucks.

I’d imagine those are for High Voltage power lines.

[nickelplate759]

They weren’t using spar poles in 1977.

I sell a fair amount of Piling and just shipped an order of 110’ piling from Eugene, OR to California for pressure treating and back to Tacoma, WA for delivery to my client.
All shipped via trucks.

I’d imagine those are for High Voltage power lines.

I've seen pretty darn tall wood poles on city streets in Portland, Oregon  - as tall as a 5 story apartment building. 

[MetroRedLine]

There's a modern utility pole yard in my city (Los Angeles). It has an abandoned single-track industrial spur running through it from a now-abandoned BNSF line running along the north side of it. There is an active UP line to the east (as well as an elevated light rail line above it) but it's not connected to the pole yard in any way. The poles are now trucked in and out, but the spur is still very visible from an aerial view. The poles are neatly organized in sections and there's an office/warehouse/shop building on site.

You can see a zoomable view by going to Google Maps and entering "XQQ4+F3 Los Angeles, California" in the search bar, then choose satellite view.

[sirenwerks]

I’d imagine those are for High Voltage power lines.

I thought that too except that top pole is very triangular at its base.  Then again, pole yarders in the 70s were being designed with steel poles.  FWIW, the rail lines that parallel the Oregon Electric and Southern Pacific down the Willlamette Valley are strung on wood truss-armed single poles and H frames, and these lines pre-date the NP gon photo.  In the area where I live west of Portland, lattice steel towers are dominant and tubular steel is increasingly being used to replace wood and lattice steel.  The high voltage lines that run over Cornelius Pass, to the immediate north of me, are currently being restrung on new massive tubular steel poles, some placed freakishly close to the roads that twist up over the West Hills.

[wazzou]

I've seen pretty darn tall wood poles on city streets in Portland, Oregon  - as tall as a 5 story apartment building.

No doubt.  The NP gon in the photo is 65’ long, so those poles are easily in the 100’ long range.

I’m thinking more in terms of something along these lines. (Pun intended)
These are all over the rural PNW landscape.

[John]

Yup. I’m thinking tapered dowels. But I will need ALOT.

Bamboo skewers

https://www.dollartree.com/bamboo-skewers-100ct/253146

[nkalanaga]

Bryan:  That's what I've assumed since finding that picture, years ago.  When we lived in Pasco, 60s and 70s, there were some very tall wooden transmission line poles, that today would be metal towers of some sort.

One doesn't see those back here.  I don't know if they're more afraid of rot or fire.  It couldn't be wind, because eastern Washington has much stronger winds than eastern Kentucky.

[nickelplate759]

Bryan:  That's what I've assumed since finding that picture, years ago.  When we lived in Pasco, 60s and 70s, there were some very tall wooden transmission line poles, that today would be metal towers of some sort.

One doesn't see those back here.  I don't know if they're more afraid of rot or fire.  It couldn't be wind, because eastern Washington has much stronger winds than eastern Kentucky.

More likely that the trees suitable for making 100' straight poles are/were fairly common in the pacific northwest, not so much in Kentucky.

[porkypine52]

Catch a LOCAL lineman and ask them where the local pole yard is.  Maybe take some coffee, donuts and get free tour........Or else go by on WEEKEND and look.