Pantograph operation

muns

muns

Well-Known Member
Staff member
GSC Moderator
Country flag
Hi all,

A while ago I purchased a LGB DB101 loco that has two sets of pantographs. In this particular model, they are manually operated and my intention will be to automate them. This raises the following questions.....

1) Which pantograph should be "up" when going in which direction?
2) When changing direction, is it the norm that the pantographs should swap over and if so in what sequence should this occur, i.e. the raised one lowered before the lowered one raised or vise-versa or both at the same time?
3) Would the same sequencing etc apply to other locos such as the Taurus, LCE, GE4/4 II & III?
 
In answer to your question Mark, Swiss railways usually tend to have the rear most panto up. Apparently, should it be damaged, the front panto can then be used to get the loco going again.

RhB certainly operate this way.

Some locos, like the Taurus, are multi voltage and can have 2, 3 or 4 pantographs, depending on which countries the loco can operate in. (Some French locos are 'bi-courant' as they use 25V kV ac and 1.5V dc.) So the pantograph which will be raised will be the one for the voltage that the cat is energised at.

A loco under a dc energised system like the Dutch 1.5 kV will often use both pantos on starting; I've seen this when living over there. Some overbridges in the Netherlands, especially those that can raise for shipping, are not wired, so the train loco will 'drop its pants' and coast across.

One of the former Eastern Bloc countries does not wire crossovers, so you will see the loco lower its pantograph before crossing to a parallel line and raising it again.

The new RhB Allegra 3 car units can operate on the 1000V dc Bernina line, from the pantos mounted on either power car, and when initially starting, will draw power from both pantographs. When on the 'main' system of 11kV ac, the panto on the centre car is used.

So there are lots of choices and no specific answer to your query Mark.

I would therefore invoke 'rule 8'....
 
Thanks Gary..... :confused:
 
My understanding is DB locos generally will use the rearmost panto, for the reason Gizzy mentioned above **except** when hauling freight trains with exposed cargo (eg. car transporters, flammable cargo), in which case the front panto is commonly used to avoid sparking damage and other muck falling on the cargo. That's how I run my DB N gauge stuff anyway.
 
Another advantage of using the rear Pan. is it gises the driver an extra couple of seconds to drop the Pan. if hes sees something wrong with the overhead electrical equipment.

This is one of the reasons virgin pendolinos use the rear pan, and not thre forward one.

I know its not a loco, and its not continental europe but thought I'd share that nugget of info.
 
When changing direction, usually, the second pant is raised so both are up then the first is retracted. Prob to ensure constant power to lights and power systems and to reduce arcing.
 
In regard to the pendo's, I thought the reason for using the rear one was to do with saving energy? Less drag with the way the pant pivots when using the rear one?
 
Not long ago, like in the last week or so, I saw LGB pantograph motors on Ebay. I cannot seem to find them at the moment. They may have been sold. But I thought they might work for you. Otherwise you could use a switch machine, inside of the loco, and control it remotely via one of those inexpensive keychain size transmitters. Just some of my thoughts.
 
On locos the usual wisdom is that where there are two pans the rear one (in the direction of travel) is raised so that if a defect on the OHLE (the wires) takes it out, it doesn't take the second pan with it as it disintegrates. There is then a chance that the train can be moved using the (undamaged) second pan although in practice the wires are often down on the track or the top of the train by this time, making it all academic... The same applies to a Pendolino or to any other single unit train that has a power line along the train.

Multiple units don't have power lines (only control feeds) between units so each unit needs its pantograph up. Believe me, a 12-car (3x 4) hitting something hanging down usually results in a lot of sparks, three mangled pans and a stranded train with lots of angry passengers.....

M
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top