It was specifically, about mechanical testing of new ways of hanging catenary, especially new methodologies using measured weights hung over pulleys, to provide a specified tension in the wires. A tighter wire will remain straighter and permit higher trains speeds. But too tight and it snaps. So a way of auto-adjusting catenary tension to account for expansion and contraction is important.

But while a constant tension system will eliminate wire breakage due to the reactive tensional forces of a rigidly hung catenary, the lack of such forces might allow the wind to overcome the available tension in the wire. Thus the lateral forces caused by wind, can then seemingly "stretch" the wire off to the side of the track.

So either some mechanism must be used to dynamically increase tension to counter the wind; while at the same time adjusting in the opposite direction for contraction in the cold; or it must be known at what wind speed the wire will drift too far, in order to suspend electrified traffic before that happens.

So it was also about wind testing, to learn how to make a constant tension catenary instantly adjust to a gusting cross wind. It was this wind component of the test program that caused the UP to conduct the tests at Farmington, Utah, where the worst winds on the UP were relatively frequent.

As to whether they were actively pursuing an electrification program at that time; I doubt it. I think it was just part of a long term R&D effort - advancing the state of the railroad art. No one in the district engineering office at Salt Lake ever suggested it was anything else - At least not to me.

OPB