Insulators

One of the offshoots of my interest in railroads is a past interest in collecting insulators. You know, those glass or porcelain thingamabobs on telephone poles. There are lots of people who collect these and there are even insulator shows from time to time. I went to one in Houston one time and it was very interesting seeing some of the rarer insulators on display.

I got interested in these things sometime in the late 60’s or early 70’s when I found some lying around somewhere – probably along the railroad tracks. My father and I embarked on a number of mostly unsuccessful insulator hunts. Most of the ones we saw were still in use and it would have been difficult and illegal to collect those. We thought any discarded insulators along the way were fair game, though.

There were several good finds that we had. I remember one time, my father somehow got word that the Chicago and North Western Railway had taken down some poles and left the insulators lying at the base of the poles. This was somewhere out west of Sterling, Illinois. We made a trip out there and collected about 100 insulators most of which I no longer have. I kept only the better ones that were not chipped or were unusual in some way. I recall that a lot of them had a spiral groove to hold the wire. And some of these had the name HEMINGRAY with a backwards E.

Another of our collecting successes was along the Chicago Great Western Railway. This particular part of that railroad was abandoned in the early 70’s and the wires on the poles along the right-of-way were cut at intersections. So, we were confident that there was no electricity in them. But how to get the insulators off the pole without lugging a ladder around? We created a 10 or 12 foot pole with a loop of rubber insulated wire on the end. The wire was slipped over the insulator and then twisted tight on the glass and then turned. We were able to slowly unscrew and remove the insulator in this way. There were some neat porcelain insulators along this line that looked hand made. Still have them.

Eventually I lost interest in collecting these since they were taking up so much room and they were getting harder to find. I still looked for them in every antique shop I went in and occasionally would find an interesting one. I have acquired several purple ones this way.

When I moved to Texas, I was driving around with my wife one day and spotted a bunch of poles with insulators lying along the Santa Fe railway northeast of Dallas. Couldn’t resist grabbing a few. We went back there and hiked here and there along the line picking up a few select others as well. This line runs from Dallas to Paris, Texas. This kindled a renewed interest in collecting these for a while but it faded again.

I have some of the better insulators on display on my display shelves in my model train room.