Railway power lines | The Art of keeping them STRAIGHT

Whenever you travel in a train you might have seen these hanging weights near the poles and a strange connection of wires near to them. What exactly are they? Why couldn’t they just use a simple conductive wire arrangement similar to the normal power transmission system? Let’s learn about the details of auto tensioning devices.

[yishujia]

When I was a little boy, I always wonder why there are so many complicated components up there. Thanks for the explanation.

[gaurav_gandhi]

I have travelled 10+ years in Indian trains and i have daily seen all this mechanism and now i can really understand them, thanks a lot.

[aardvarkd]

A great explanation. Respect to the 3D artist for a job well done.

[jacobpalmer]

This guy puts a lot of time and effort into his animations

[shekarlakshmipathi]

Tooo good an explanation. I love the way you start with a problem, suggest a solution, and improve it step by step. Also the graphics is great. Also, the way you narrate is at prefect cadence with appropriate pauses. You are doing great service. I wish I learned these when I was younger, oh well! Better late than never.

[legitscoper]

As European Train driver, i couldn't spot a mistake. Good work.
Only thing that would have been lowkey important is how the Panthograph switches wires without getting tangled up ripping the overhead line down.
These devices look like a sled, and are installed at the said point.

[paulrandig]

I worked that out by myself one day when I was standing on a bridge across a railway. When I had got it, an ÖBB Railjet train passed. Imagine my surprise when I saw the exact same train in your video!

[atg]

I loved traveling by train as a child and would stay up all night looking out the window. I used to wonder what the weights were all the time then when I learnt about thermal expansion at school I connected the dots but never knew for sure. So glad my "guess" was correct. Thank you for the video. Great explanation!

[.]

Incredibly clever design just to keep wires straight.

[someolddude]

Not only does the wire need to maintain a constant height over the rail, it also needs to zig-zag sideways, on a horizontal plane over the rails. If the wire was like a straight line, it would quickly wear thru the pentagraphs single contact point. By zig-zagging sideways, it moves the contact point back and forth, over a bar of carbon at the top of the pentagraph. The video kind of shows this, but doesn’t explain that extra bit of complication.
I’m not an engineer, but I play one on TV, so I know what I’m talking about.
I also play a brain surgeon. Come see me for discounted rates.

[WaefanChang]

This. This explains all the questions I've had regarding railway powerlines. I had guessed that the weights were used to tension the system, but I couldn't understand why the braces seemed to have "hinges". I also didn't understand why there seemed to be so much interwire bracing on higher-speed systems. Liked and subscribed.

[dplanet]

Its so amazing how genius and clever were those people (or maybe just one person) who designed all that so the cables dont drags.

[michelpereira]

This video should be used in every railway school!!! Schools use the same old methods since the 60s' with pictures in books with 1000+ words whose understanding depends on subjective aspects. Teaching methods have to evolute with society and also adapt to the students and not just the opposite.

[-._.-._.-]

Can't imagine how many times i tought of this while waiting for the train. I'm not even subbed to you, but it showed up on my recommended. Thanks a lot!!! Now i finally know.

[sagarrawat]

How much an engineer have to think for such a system seems very easy and simple. So many concept and many techniques used.

[justandy]

And this is the design for a simple bit of straight track. I can imagine how quickly the complexity of the design will increase when you add multiple points and diamond crossovers. Very clever people designing these systems.

[jaye]

It's amazing how many engineering concerns need to be taken into consideration to achieve such a simple result.

[Tnime]

Hats off to those intelligent brains who proposed these ideas to make our life easy. 🙏

[tvoommen]

The contact wire, catenary and droppers assembled together reminds me the engineering of suspension bridges.

[billmoran]

The old New Haven Railroad used a very elegant design that reduced the need for intermediate supports and did not require swing arms. It was a triangular shaped wore arrangement with two catenary wires on the top and one contact wire on the bottom. The wires were spaced by droppers designed to keep the contact wire level. Because there were two catenary wires with spacers between them, the whole wire assembly remained straight in the horizontal plane and could be installed with fewer supports.
That arrangement worked well for about 80 years.