IMPROVING THE PERFORMANCE OF TROLLEY POLES!
Recently, a problem , which we thought had been vanquished, came out of the shadows, mainly trolley pole that do not have enough conductivity to carry both the track power and the computer signals for adequaste DCC operation. when first converting to DCC years ago we discivered many poles that, while they would function well on DC , they just were erratic on DCC. Itr was been brought to our attention that some of the trolley poles recently imported by Bowser and contained in the recent New Orleans 900 series streetcars and PCC cars may have been finished using Electrostatic Spray Painting (ESP). ESP painting covers every surface including those that can not be seen. In doing that, it can introduce resistance into the trolley pole.
The best way to get around this problem is to remove the springs, clean the areas to be soldered and solder both ends of the springs to the trolley pole base.

Using a typical Bowser 12600 trolley pole, the first step is to remove the top of the springs from the trolley pole base. In the photos at right, the left showa a pole assembled and the right photo shows the pole afyer the springs have been removed.They hcan vebe dislodged carefully with an Xacto knife as they are not solderedto the pole mounts. The mount has been trhoughly cleaned with a Dremel wheel brush and scraped with an Xacto knife.

Note: This paint is NOT easy to remove. That is the benefit of the ESP process.
After thoroughly cleaning the mount, replace the springs and solder them securely. Then do the same thing with the bottoms of the springs, clean the mounting area, replace the springs and solder them.
Throughly clean the trolley shoe, and test your pole on the car. You will immediately notice the difference especially if you are running on DCC. If you like, then carefully paint all the unpainted surfaces with flat black paint and you are back in business!