Cover Story

Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", December 2000, page 2

John Crawley's son, who lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico, purchased the insulator from a car dealer from California. 

The writing on the breaker bar is: Westinghouse-500 AMP-22000 Volts. On the insulators is: Pyrex Pat. 5-27-19 Made in Corning Glass Works, Corning, N.Y. 

John would appreciate any information or someone he could write, regarding its use. He has not found an electrician who is old enough to know what it is or what it was used for.

John Crawley, Abilene, Texas

COVER: PYREX HEIR and PYREX in the AIR. John Crawley of Abilene, Texas sent photos of some kind of electrical insulator acquired for his November birthday last year. .. and William Hough of Plainwell, Michigan shares insulators in service.

William Hough's dream is to be there the day 
these are taken out of service.

William Hough thought the photo of the carnival power insulators might be of interest in an "insulators still in service" article. These Pyrex 330s (?) are being used in Hastings, Michigan. It is about 20 minutes north of Kalamazoo. There are only two poles with these pieces still on them. I could only go about a mile up each way and all the others have porcelain power pieces on them like the one on the lower left crossarm in the photo above. This is also as close as I could get to the insulator pole using a 200 mm lens. 

Maybe I will get lucky some day and I'll get a few of them when they are replaced.