I was driving through Idaho and noticed some incredibly short either power or telephone poles next to the railroad tracks. They were literally less than 6 feet tall, and some looked to be no more that 3 feet off the ground. They had 3 wires/cables running between the poles. Sorry no pics since I was driving 80 mph on the interstate and couldn’t pull over. Why would they have such short poles? Someone please fight my ignorance.
That’s common everywhere, even in Canada. I think the lines are for signalling, and not power. Therefore they needn’t be strung at heights where people can’t touch them. They’re just low-voltage communication lines.
I’ve seen those occasionally in California too. I think they must have once been full-grown telephone poles that got kneecapped. :dubious:
If they are for signalling I sure wouldn’t want them to be at a level where someone could snip a wire and cause a crash…
Railroad signals are designed to be failsafe. If the circuits are broken then things stop. Railroad rights-of-way in populated areas are often protected by fences so the risk of sabotage (or drunken shenanigans) is slight. But it is not zero.
Not likely. RR signal systems are fail-safe designs; loss of connectivity will cause signals to default to yellow caution or red stop signals.