Now, any old railroad photo will show a row of poles with 40+ single wires on glass insulators on crossarms. I always believed them to be telegraph wires. Most of them are gone, but not all. Does anyone use a telegraph today? Or is it possible that the RR uses these remaining wires for lineside signals of some type? I always wonder how CSX Jacksonville can operate a switch in Ohio.
Also on there are/ were electric lines, message phones, CTC code lines, western union & other lease lines. There are still message (ds) phones and electric lines in use all over. Pole lines are dinosaurs in this day and age, but if they still work - they are used. Don’t assume the line is inert.
Fiber optic cables and microwave systems are in use all over. Railroads have the largest private telecom systems in the country, a fact often forgotten.
I didn’t know that…lol.
Any railrans here collect glass insulators?
Just as a historical footnote to MC’s post, the original Sprint LD system was set up by SP to make a little extra money selling excess capacity on their in-house comm/PABX systems. And it was something that was well-run and innovative at the time–one of the first entities to take advantage of the Ma Bell breakup. We bought their servive early on, and for the era it was well-thought out with features that you couldn’t get anywhere else, like on-like accounting code insertion per call. The down side was that (originally) you were limited to locations where the SP network/PABX operated, which was the SP service areas plus big cities where they had offices.
Ahhhh - the sound of the wind blowing through the wires…[:D]
I’ve got about 30 or so, and many different ones. A couple of rubber ones, some of the threaded wooden pegs, and even half a cross arm. I also have an example with the wire still tied on.
They turn up at garage sales a lot, for a buck or two. Most of mine have come from hikes along the right of way, shortly after the poles came down. You don’t find too many good ones if you aren’t there pretty fast after they come down. Most are busted.
…What am I remembering about these “glass” insulators that they contained some harmful material such as PCB’s…or something like that…Any comments…?
I have a few old glass insulators that I picked up along the Santa Fe line in Santa Fe Springs California in the late '60s. I have found that inverting them, putting a small brass chain around the wire recess, plus three chains about 2 feet long to hang them from the ceiling. A votive candle fits in nicely for a mood light.
The glass – and sometimes ceramic – insulators are quite harmless; never fear (although some of them do contain lead – but that isn’t going to hurt you unless you insist on eating them… !). PCBs – which may be harmful – were found, however, in a wide range of electrical devices, as they are wonderful heat transfer liquids and the don’t burn. Transformers, large capacitors, fluorescent lamp ballasts… all kinds of doo-dads. But not insulators.
Modelcar-
Just don’t have them for lunch.
Jay
…Hey thanks…I’m a sneakin’ eater as it is so probably no danger…
I have a couple of insulators off of the NYC’ s Waterlevel route that runs thru Northern Indiana that I got from when my wife and I went for a walk along the ROW.
Kevin
I haven’t heard anything like that, and rather doubt that that would be the case. Most of the insulators were made long before PCB’s were ever heard of. The glass ones should be just fine, as any trace agents would be trapped. If there were problems, I would be more suspicious of the non glass ones, but as long as you don’t lick them, I would think they would be pretty harmless.
…I don’t have any and don’t consume too many of them for lunch or breakfrast but there is something in their history that was brought to light some years ago…I’ll have to do a bit of searching and see if I might find what it was all about. Had a utility line that passed by my home years ago with the multiple crossarms and a couple dozen insulators attached {on the threaded wood pegs}, etc…and they were dismantled years ago and at that time there was some info published about them but can’t remember enough to be more specific.
QM – are you possibly thinking about the creosote which was used to treat the poles and the crossarms? That’s not such neat stuff… although nowhere near as bad as it is sometimes made out to be.
The railroads’ rights of way for steel track are also ever so conveniently perfect for glass fiber. I don’t think they break out income from leasing the ROW but it must be some nice change. We all use the railroads, whether we know it or not, when we use the internet.
See also the thread “Telephone Poles” posted 11 Jun 2004.
Many moons ago (late 70’s or early 80’s), a contractor laid fibre-optic cable along the entire Chicago to Milwaukee (and beyond) line of the CNW. They ran the cables about six feet underground along side the right-of-way.
When they were doing some of the digging, I was “lucky” enough to be called for the work train. The contractors had a huge digger arm that extended outward from the special flatcar it was mounted on. The arm had a sort of claw on the end, which was stuck into the ground and then the whole assembly was dragged by the locomotives. As it moved through the ground, it left a six-foot deep and one foot wide trench into which the crews laid the cable. When we got to an undiggable (is that a word? It is now!) location, such as a grade crossing, they had to splice the cable and then dig a horizontal hole from one trench to the other, and then run the cable under the road (or whatever).
The first time I was called for the job, I was assigned one SD40-2. It proved to be insufficient power for continuous use (short-time rating exceeded). The next day we were assigned TWO SD40-2’s, which worked quite well. It was quite amazing to see (and operate) two high-horsepower locomotives, each pulling over 1000 amps, moving only a few cars at the blazing speed of about 1mph.
Jamie: No, I’m familiar with how and why creosote was{is}, used…
…It just may be I’m thinking of the lead used possibly in coloring some of the pieces…The wife just walked in here and I asked her cold, if she remembers the old insulators and something dangerous about them…and right away, she answered “yes”, but she didn’t know just what it was…Mystery.