Dear Jack:

I picked up this insulator in Massachusetts, and the man I got it from said it came from a farm in Seabrook, N.H. It had some white paint on it as if it had been used on a house. Since there's no wire groove on it, a wire slips right off it. I would appreciate any information you might have on it. 

I just retired after 30 years service with the Central Maine Power Co. as a lineman.
Arthur E. Jones, NIA #1807 
Newcastle, Maine

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Dear Arthur: 

I could be wrong, but the only logical answer I can come up with for your item is that it is the center portion of an old glazeweld insulator such as U-931A. There are numerous styles which had a central part essentially identical to your item. 

I came to this conclusion rather instantly, since I recall stumbling through these very things in the old dumpage at the Victor, N.Y. plant of Locke. If your item has any unusual roughness or flaking on the step of the outer surface, this would tend to support my conclusion that this is a part of a broken (defective) glaze. weld insulator of years ago.

Congratulations on your retirement!

Jack

SNAFU!    The telephone prefix 959 is being taken out of service permanently for nationwide use as a testing number for the long distance Electronic Switching Network. Being inherently lucky, our prefix is 959. Thus, effective Jan 30, 1982, our number will be 840-2445.

Jack

Dear Jack:

... Also, I purchased some time ago a little grey-white Locke pony that had GLEN on the top. There was mention of this item possibly being made for an old New England phone company. Do you have any info on a company such as Glen?
Paul Ickes, NIA #1325 
Council Bluffs, Iowa

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Dear Paul:

I have no information on the "GLEN" marking some have reported. Other than your report, Gerald Brown lists one on page 48 of his Second Edition (1972) of "Collectible Porcelain Insulators", owned by Richard Gillespie, Middletown, N.Y. Also, one shown by Frances Terrill on page 21 of the Dee 1974 Old Bottle Magazine, found by Don Betz, Remsen, NY.

It's difficult for me to get excited over this item, since we don't even know if more than one single specimen is involved in these separate reports, and even the wild guesses as to any attribution come to us in roundabout and hearsay fashion. If anyone ever has any concrete information on the origin or attribution of the specimen(s) known, I'll then be all ears. 

Jack

Dear Jack:

I have a sky-glaze, triple-petticoat pin type with an incuse marking as I've sketched, and I can't find this marking in the Second Edition of your "Porcelain Insulators Guide Book". Would like any info you have on it.
Ken Jackson, NIA #1888
Pasadena, Texas

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Dear Ken:

This logo marking is that of Gould, Inc. which bought the I-T-E Imperial Corp. plant at Victor, N.Y. in 1976 (as reported by Lew Hohn in the Jan 78 porcelain column of CJ). The first specimens bearing this marking were also reported by Lew (Feb 1978 column). I missed getting this info into the last two batches of the book made up, but it will be in there the next time around.

The F under the logo on your insulator indicates "F" style of insulator crown and grooves to accommodate that style and size of preformed tie wire.

Jack

Dear Jack:

I've noticed a railway line with an unusual method of transposing the communications pairs (see sketch below).

The pole uses a standard 10-pin crossarm with 12" pin spacing. The pair on the outer end of the arm is transposed every 2nd pole with a 4" point-transposition bracket. The inner pair is likewise transposed every 4th pole, but also uses a 4" "pinch" bracket on the one intermediate pole with no transposing at that point. This causes the spacing of this pair to go from 12" to 4", back to 12", back to 4" etc. 

One lineman explained that the purpose of the "pinch" bracket was to change the spacing of the wires from 12" to 4", but why would they want to do that?!

I'm also curious as to why the outer pair is transposed every 2nd pole and the inner pair only every 4th pole.
Bill Ogden, NIA #1857
Virginia, Minn.

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Dear Bill:

There is mutual coupling from each conductor on a pole line to all other conductors on the poles, plus coupling to any nearby power or signal lines, to earth ground, etc. A proper physical transposition of the wires of a pair tends to eliminate or reduce unequal capacitance of each of the two wires in a given pair to all the other wires on the pole.

If you transpose both these two pairs equally (both at every 2nd pole), you will find upon graphing it out that a capacity unbalance still exists, and this is exaggerated the longer the line is. However, if you transpose the lines unequally by any other multiple, a balance is achieved.

For instance, with one pair transposed every, 2nd pole, the other pair every 4th pole, a balance exists for every 8-pole section of the line. If you transposed one pair every pole, the other pair every 7th pole, there would be a balance over a 14-pole section of the line.

Like you though, I just graphed out your railway line arrangement both with and without the pinch bracket being used, and I find that in either way, a balance is achieved over every 8-pole span. The only possible reason I can see for the arrangement is to make the characteristic impedances of both the lines identical, as would be desirable if these two pairs served a phantom (third) circuit.

Transposition patterns on old long distance lines with several dozen to a hundred wires was a very complex thing -- a real science in itself. Even at that, I think a lot of empirical fiddling was done to get lines to work with an acceptable level of crosstalk. Many years ago, I recall it was a rare event to call long distance without hearing all sorts of crosstalk. With the modern radio links instead of open wire lines, you can phone anywhere in the world and talk just like next door -- sometimes even better!

Jack

Dear Jack:

I'm enclosing an insulator (and return postage) for your inspection and return. Note the bold crown embossing! I got one good one and one damaged one of these in a swap, and I'm quite excited over this find. It even overshadows a real goody that was part of the swap deal -- a nice U-675.

I got some info from an old-timer in Macy, Indiana that there was a plant there that made insulators, but I doubt it. The plant in Peru, Indiana is so close. I'm sure he meant that. More investigation is in order.
Michael T. McLaughlin
Warsaw, Indiana

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Wow! We should all be excited about this one, the first really new item reported for quite some time. It's a dry process item, petticoat firing rest, peppery chocolate brown glaze, marking crudely embossed (raised letters) on top of the crown precisely as copied above.

Everything about this insulator would make me bet my last dollar that it was made by Square-D Company at their Peru, Indiana plant -- only 15 miles south of Macy, Indiana. As we can get to it, I'll query my contact at that plant to see if they have any file info on it. We'll report in this column anything we can come up with as to manufacturer of this item or the attribution of the marking on it. 

Even with it's ho-hum shape somewhat similar to other styles, I've added this item to the Universal Style Chart as U-124 due to the importance of the marking.

Jack