Here are two pictures you readers might be interested in which were taken this past fall along a railroad signal line not too far from my home. I'd known of this line for a number of years, but had never paid a lot of attention to it. Having lived out of town for the last few years, though, I decided to check it out a bit closer and get a few additions to my line construction photo collection. Was I in for a surprise!

No sooner had I lined up the camera for a wide-angle view of the poleline fading off into the distance, I spotted what turned out to be a perfect Locke 14 (CD 202) on the nearest pole. Further investigation revealed at least a half dozen 202's...and ten "B" (CD 190/ 191) pairs.. still in use (and all mint to near mint shape) along a five mile stretch of the line! In addition, there were numerous long-shank (transposition) wooden pins, U-169s and U-179s to be found.

As it turned out, the overhead lines were actually no longer in use; the railroad had just never taken the time to dismantle them. Officials there told me that I could have anything I wanted along the line -- provided I could get it. This was not easy as most of the poles were 25-30 feet tall. To make a long story short, I ended up renting a bucket truck and operator/lineman from a local electrical contractor. In the span of about 2 hours, I got a truckload of interesting stuff and quite a few photos worthy of enlargement. The outing wasn't cheap, but it certainly was fun! I'm sending two enlargements to Chris Hedges for inclusion in the National Insulator Association archives. Needless to say, it was quite a thrill not only to get the insulators, but also to see them "in situ" along an authentic old line! Hard to imagine in 1987, isn't it?!?

The line was especially interesting as it had apparently never been rebuilt after WWII. Most of the insulators were CD 162 STARS...which were nice pieces themselves. There was hardly a Hemingray-42 to be found!

My hired lineman removing a CD 162 STAR signal.
Notice that there are two "B" transpositions
(CD 190/191) on the pins to the left.

The picture (above) shows one of the nice CD 202 Locke 
transpositions on the right of the top crossarm. Immediately 
below is a brown porcelain U-179.