New Poles from Abbott to Auto building

New Poles from Abbott building to Auto building

March 22 2023

Specifications: Here is a very incomplete list of items we have on site for the new overhead wiring.
We have a large number of the parts needed to put up the overhead wire. Just need to sort through them and clean up some of the parts.
New over head about 670 feet with new 14 poles,3 overhead frogs (switches). This just covers the overhead from the current Abbott building to the new platform.
Using 4 cross arms, and 10 span wires for wire support with 3 lighting arrestors. Pole cross arms go on the Abbott building and poles 9,10 and maybe 5. Wire spans to support the trolley wire go on the rest with pole #2 and #5 getting the most pull offs. Pole #1 replaces the old pole at that location which we need to support the first turnout. We took it out since we did not do the overhead wire but intended to replace it later.
Several of the new pole locations by the Abbott building are places where we had poles in the past BTW. At one time we had several tracks in that area and we had poles to get power to them along with lights for the area. The museum had power in the current auto building and we ran power to the Abbott building on a pole line where we are going to put in the new poles. Same for the track. So in away we are just replacing things that we took out years ago.
A backbone span to support the Western turn pull off's connects poles #3,4,6 and #8. On the East site a similar span #1,2,5 and #7 poles.
In the past I have talked with Gerry Reinolt about renting a pole truck (includes one operator from his company). Do not have a current cost on that but we need a way to put in the 14 holes. We will get the concrete delivered and not mix it ourselves like last time.
A guess at pricing is attached, got these numbers when we started this project October 30, 2017 and updated some of the pricing maybe a year or two ago when we started the permit process. Some of the wire overhead and support list are duplicates from two different suppliers, we will at order time pick who had the best price/delivery. The pole pricing is the most complete and I think the closest to what each pole will cost us to install. So add say 5%-10% to the prices for today's pricing for the overhead and support since I have less confidence in those prices.
I would like to get a shipping container to put at the job site to hold and sort all the parts for the overhead. At the moment we have parts in two major locations.

July 2026
As of Fall 2026, the museum has a contract with Acme Constructors to install the poles.

pdf's of spreadsheets as of 3/22/23

Pole Layout from Abbott Building Switch to Platforn behind Auto Building (pdf)

Standard Pole Hardware for Overhead Wireing (pdf)

Support Wire items (pdf)

Items we Have (pdf)