N-Scale Working Catenary

[Dave]

I recently purchased some Vollmer catenary equipment to play with. I will use a small oval of Kato Unitrack. One rail will be powered and the overhead catenary will provide the power for the other leg.

 

My question to you folks; does anyone know of any N-Scale electric locos that can get one leg of power from the overhead pantograph? At this point, I don't care if it is Japanese, European or Amercian.

 

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Vato]

bachmann HHP8 in N scale

[Vato]

by the way, u can power both track, loco have a switch, track to catenary

[fripphead]

I have a Roco unit that switches, as well as an old Arnold SCNF loco that also does the overhead power. I believe that the Euro manufacturers are more 'hip' to the live overhead. NCAT (now best found thru Yahoo groups) is the US promoter of live overhead catenary. Personally, I've wanted to go that route, but have never actually tried it- yet... 

[Sinus]

I remember i had such feature in eighties of last century (so long ago) with my TT gauge locos.

[Martijn Meerts]

Pretty much all the long-standing European brands (Minitrix, Fleischmann, Roco, Arnold) have live pantographs. Some of the lower grade introductory models (like the cheap Minitrix ICE3) don't have live pantographs. 

 

I did actually run with live catenary on a layout long ago, which I built myself at the time. There are a couple of issues with it though. There's additional noise (pretty much like the noise that Marklin H0 stuff makes), and the pantographs are fairly fragile and wear fast. Also, if a pantograph hooks behind a piece of catenary for some reason, you'll be looking at major repair work. Most catenary wire is also way out of scale, but it needs to be, otherwise it'd wear down way too fast.

 

That being said, for some reason it's really cool to see trains run on live catenary :)

[kvp]

One of the main reasons of using live catenary was that it allows 2 trains on the same loop to be controlled independently (with common rail wiring) without using blocks and cab control. Marklin and its brands for example makes all of their electric locomotives, even Z scale ones switchable between overhead and track power. One problem is that these locomotives have working pantographs, so they are either have to be kept down or need a wire to be able to run on a layout. The japanese way of using the masts only, is better from a scale perspective because you don't need the thick overhead 3rd rail to keep the pantographs down, even when you aren't actually powering the trains from there. This is why japanese pantographs stay at any set level, so you can have them up without a wire. Of course this means you can't have the nice sparks and the sight of the pantographs moving up and down under the wire. Also, you don't have a locomotive take down the catenary or get its pantograph teared out if a wire join gets misaligned.

 

As far as i can tell, most tomytec train collection models have the capability to run with live pantographs, because everything is provided for adding one. (including places to route and connect the wire without milling or cutting) IST even has a kato tram with a working pantograph added, so it's doable for japanese models too.

[westfalen]

I once set up a four foot length of Summerfeldt catenery on an N-TRAK module and ran an Arnold Rapido GG1 from it but that's as far as I went because I felt the overhead would get knocked about too much from track cleaning at train shows.

[Martijn Meerts]

I once set up a four foot length of Summerfeldt catenery on an N-TRAK module and ran an Arnold Rapido GG1 from it but that's as far as I went because I felt the overhead would get knocked about too much from track cleaning at train shows.

 

That's a good point as well, cleaning track becomes a lot more difficult, especially around area's with several turnouts.

[Fenway Park]

Tony McDiarmid always had Sommerfeldt catenary on his exhibition layouts. On the last one Shin Izu he converted a Tomix ED61 to take power from the catenary. Not an easy job on those old Tomix spring drive chassis, but it worked. All the other electric locos and EMUs had Sommerfeldt pantographs but non working. It looked very good with the pantos up just touching.

However, it made track cleaning very difficult as well as re railing derailed trains. 

[brill27mcb]

One of the main reasons of using live catenary was that it allows 2 trains on the same loop to be controlled independently (with common rail wiring) without using blocks and cab control. Marklin and its brands for example makes all of their electric locomotives, even Z scale ones switchable between overhead and track power. One problem is that these locomotives have working pantographs, so they are either have to be kept down or need a wire to be able to run on a layout. [...]

 

Actually, it would be better to use a "common overhead wire" approach, unless you have reverse loops in your layout design. One train runs from the overhead and one rail, while the other runs from the overhead wire and the other rail. This provides (with two power packs, one wired to each rail) independent overhead operation of two trains, with direction control and requiring no control blocks. This technique is used a lot in U.S. trolley modeling, particularly in scales where the rolling stock comes with insulated wheelsets (HO, N,etc.).

 

Rich K.

[kvp]

Actually, it would be better to use a "common overhead wire" approach, unless you have reverse loops in your layout design.

Or diesel or steam engines. With common rail, you can run one engine with a pantograph, one without or two electrics with one switched to track power. With a simple 2 loops layout, this means 4 trains at the same time and using only conventional analog controllers (just make sure your controllers can be common wired, modern ones couldn't). Most european electric locomotives are already pre wired for this setup with a change over screw somewhere in the roof.

[westfalen]

Of course these days we have this thing called DCC. :)