Key information for determination of fundamental design features of magnet powering and protection circuits can be retrieved from the results of transmission line calculations of the superconducting magnet chains in a particle accelerator. Modelling and simulation of the behaviour of long magnet strings provide important data for the expected electrical behaviour and performances under all operating conditions. The presented results of a transmission line study concerns the sixteen superconducting main quadrupole chains QF/QD of CERN's future LHC collider. The paper details the elaboration of the synthesized electrical model of the individual quadrupoles and the associated lumped transmission line. It presents results on the current ripple for a given converter voltage output characteristics, the magnet excitation, leakage and earth currents during the ramping procedure, the impedance resonance spectrum and the need for individual magnet damping and the propagation, reflection, superposition and damping of the voltage waves generated during activation of the energy extraction switches.