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Northern Electric 3rd Rail Details

 

Friends,

While looking for an answer to Bill's question about cab interiors in Wikimedia Commons, I stumbled onto some very interesting SN stuff that probably most of us have never seen. I copied these pieces out and formatted them for ease of sharing. They will be coming your way over the next few days.

Today I have a very cool detailed diagram on how the NE/SN laid out the third rail at switches. Please enjoy. And yes, as this is over 100 years old, it is in the public domain.

Yours Aye,


Garth Groff ??

NORTHERN ELECTRIC 3RD RAIL DIAGRAM.jpg

 

Garth, thanks for this drawing.? Can you make out the dimensions listed for the 3rd rail height above the running rails and the offset distance from the inside of the running rails to the center line of the 3rd rail?? Thanks many times over for your knowledge and support.
 

Nathan,

My apologies for not getting back with you sooner. I've had a lot of non-train stuff on my plate, and your question slipped lower and lower in my in-box.

Unfortunately, I don't have the original drawing to work from, which was scaled at 1/2" to the foot. Nearly all the dimensions are blurred into obscurity on the electronic version. With a lot of math, some fussing and metric conversions from the distance between the running rails, I have figured the distance from the centerline of the 3rd rail to the inside edge of the running rail (as shown on the drawing) to be about 2' 3". The 3rd rail's top level above the running rails looks like about 6". For modeling purposes, these?numbers are probably close enough.

I ran through my books this morning looking for any description of the 3rd rail. About all I found was in Demoro's book where he says the 3rd rail was 60# standard railroad rail, except for low-carbon/low manganese?48# rail on the Colusa branch. No dimensional information at all, but Demoro wasn't really into technical data (as I found out when I was asked to edit his chapter on equipment). Swett's SACRAMENTO NORTHERN isn't much better. I suspect if you need to know more, you will have to check the WRM archives.

Yours Aye,


Garth Groff ??



On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 10:55?AM <nathandaily@...> wrote:
Garth, thanks for this drawing.? Can you make out the dimensions listed for the 3rd rail height above the running rails and the offset distance from the inside of the running rails to the center line of the 3rd rail?? Thanks many times over for your knowledge and support.

 

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Here is the SN Standards drawing for 3rd rail setup. I got copies of a bunch of standards drawings years ago.?

Mike Dreiling

On Jul 1, 2023, at 06:14, Garth Groff and Sally Sanford <mallardlodge1000@...> wrote:

Nathan,

My apologies for not getting back with you sooner. I've had a lot of non-train stuff on my plate, and your question slipped lower and lower in my in-box.

Unfortunately, I don't have the original drawing to work from, which was scaled at 1/2" to the foot. Nearly all the dimensions are blurred into obscurity on the electronic version. With a lot of math, some fussing and metric conversions from the distance between the running rails, I have figured the distance from the centerline of the 3rd rail to the inside edge of the running rail (as shown on the drawing) to be about 2' 3". The 3rd rail's top level above the running rails looks like about 6". For modeling purposes, these?numbers are probably close enough.

I ran through my books this morning looking for any description of the 3rd rail. About all I found was in Demoro's book where he says the 3rd rail was 60# standard railroad rail, except for low-carbon/low manganese?48# rail on the Colusa branch. No dimensional information at all, but Demoro wasn't really into technical data (as I found out when I was asked to edit his chapter on equipment). Swett's SACRAMENTO NORTHERN isn't much better. I suspect if you need to know more, you will have to check the WRM archives.

Yours Aye,


Garth Groff ??



On Sat, Jun 10, 2023 at 10:55?AM <nathandaily@...> wrote:
Garth, thanks for this drawing.? Can you make out the dimensions listed for the 3rd rail height above the running rails and the offset distance from the inside of the running rails to the center line of the 3rd rail?? Thanks many times over for your knowledge and support.



 

I'm not sure what that diagram is actually showing.... but it is not third rail placement. Firstly the rails that sits on the white painted "rest" is both lower than the running rails and secondly they are too far away from the running rails to be part of the traction voltage supply system.

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