There are no direct lightning protection measures in the contact network and the lightning withstand level of the contact network is low. Erecting lightning conductors is an effective measure to protect the contact network from the direct lightning. We adopted the ATP-EMTP software to build a lightning contact network model and analyze the lightning performance of two different schemes including the elevated protection wire and erecting the lightning conductor. At the same time

the shunt coefficient and coupling coefficient were also analyzed to explain the mechanism of the lightning. The research shows that the lightning performance of the first scheme increases by about 20% and the second is about 40%. The shunt coefficient of the pillar is about 80% which is much larger than that of protection wire and lightning conductor. The shunt coefficient of the pillar decrease by about 2% and the second decrease by about 4%. The two schemes can effectively reduce the potential of the pillar. The coupling coefficient of the first scheme increase by about 10% and the second scheme is about 50%. The two schemes reduce the voltage of the insulator so as to improve the lightning withstand level of the contact network.