Telephone Pole

[Wellington]

Is it just me, I wonder, but might one of the unanticipated benefits of the virus restrictions be an increased propensity to observe? Pre-coronavirus, I occasionally set out for a walk in my local area – but recently, I seem to have started noticing things that I wouldn't normally notice. I think I saw a spotted flycatcher over the weekend…

But there is also this telephone pole, which I must have passed hundreds of times, without really noticing how anachronistic it is. I took a few pictures. It's in a rural area, and it got me thinking about how it ended up where it did. Would I be right in thinking the porcelain insulators would've taken uninsulated phone lines to a nearby farm? Or perhaps all the way up and down this country lane? And later, the phone lines were put underground, except here, where they had to be taken over the road? Just thought I'd ask, you know, as it made me think…

Thanks to other pole-related threads on this forum I now know how to date these things. I'll try and get a date off it next time I'm up that way.

[Herald1360]

It certainly looks old. The number of holes below the remaining crossbars suggest it might have had rather more at some time. I wonder if the GPO/BT reused sound old poles?

[broadgage]

Yes the insulators would have supported bare phone wires, possibly all the way from the subscriber to the exchange. Or sometimes from the subscriber to the outskirts of town, with the rest of the route by underground cable.

The wires were sometimes hard drawn copper for unusually long routes, but more often copper covered iron wire was used.

More recent wires on the same poles are often twin insulated cable, with the cores of copper covered iron. This looks like "figure of eight" bell wire, but is very stiff, hard to handle, and hard to cut or strip.
(As a child I found some and tried to use it for outdoor Christmas lights. Gave up in disgust)

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by broadgage

Yes the insulators would have supported bare phone wires, possibly all the way from the subscriber to the exchange. Or sometimes from the subscriber to the outskirts of town, with the rest of the route by underground cable.

The wires were sometimes hard drawn copper for unusually long routes, but more often copper covered iron wire was used.

More recent wires on the same poles are often twin insulated cable, with the cores of copper covered iron. This looks like "figure of eight" bell wire, but is very stiff, hard to handle, and hard to cut or strip.
(As a child I found some and tried to use it for outdoor Christmas lights. Gave up in disgust)

The overhead wires were cadmium copper for most of the 20th century when bare wires were used. No reference to copper covered iron wire in any of the GPO 'Vocabulary of Engineering Stores' or engineering instructions that I have which go back over 100 years.

When I was a GPO apprentice, we put up one of the last bare 'copper' routes in the Chester Telephone Area and that was in the late 1950's.

However bare copper pole routes existed into the 1990's - Diabaig exchange in the far north west Highlands of Scotland was still connected to the rest of the UK network by a 5 pair 10 mile long pole route from Torridon exchange until March 1995 when Diabaig went 'digital'. The pole route was replace by three microwave links.

The route was built by the Royal Engineers in the 1870's to extend the newly nationalised GPO telegraph network to Diabaig. The route climbs from sea level to over 1600t over a mountain range. Note how the base of one pole is higher than the top of the previous pole, the route was that steep. There was no road to Diabaig until the 1960's! Note also the single spindle on top of the poles which carried the original single telegraph wire (earth return).

There was until the early 2000's, a 'ring type' distribution pole in Hereford with all the bare copper wires on insulators to subscribers houses still in use.

Ian J

[lesmw0sec]

I always like to see the early movies which show the multitude of wires and insulators which abounded at the time!

[Keith956]

I can remember our telephone wires used to 'sing' when it was windy in the 1960's. Was this because they were bare wire?

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by lesmw0sec

I always like to see the early movies which show the multitude of wires and insulators which abounded at the time!

Can still be found!

[AC/HL]

There must be a wayleave issue to require the repurposing of an old pole and putting up a new one to cross a minor road/track.

[Graham G3ZVT]

I saw this in Gibraltar, along with lots of other anachronisms in 2012.

[mickash]

There should be a date carved into the pole which will give an idea how long it has been there.

[cmjones01]

This specimen is on the street outside our house in Warsaw. It's very unusual in this city because almost all services (electricity, phones, cable TV, gas, water, sewage and, yes, hot water and heating) are underground. This particular area was developed as a "garden village" in the 1920s and I think these poles are a legacy of that, though this one being concrete is probably more modern.

What I like is the collection of redundant ceramic insulators at the top, now just used as anchors for modern 4-core drop wires (including the one to our house) juxtaposed with the ultra-modern fibre-optic junction box half way up delivering hundreds of megabits per second straight to people's homes. I wonder what the people who installed those insulators would think?

Chris

[Test Desk]

I was apprenticed to the GPO in 1967 and left in 1993. In all that time, they were called "poles" or "telegraph poles" , never "telephone poles". I suppose it's historic, as obviously the telegraph came first and the name stuck.

[Dave Moll]

Yes, even the ones carrying overhead power lines tended to be referred to as telegraph poles, whether or not they also had telephone wires.

[AC/HL]

My Brother was BT apprentice trained. He chose the outdoor route afterwards in what he referred to as "Holes and Poles".

[Wellington]

Originally Posted by Test Desk

…they were called "poles" or "telegraph poles" , never "telephone poles".

I wondered about that when I made the original post. I plumped for 'telephone pole' as that seemed the most apt. I associate the term 'telegraph pole' with those that carry lots of wires. I think I'll revert to 'telegraph pole', to acknowledge that (as Test Desk says) the telegraph came first.

I may take a walk up there again, this weekend, and try and find a year on it.

[Pellseinydd]

Originally Posted by Wellington

I wondered about that when I made the original post. I plumped for 'telephone pole' as that seemed the most apt. I associate the term 'telegraph pole' with those that carry lots of wires. I think I'll revert to 'telegraph pole', to acknowledge that (as Test Desk says) the telegraph came first.

I may take a walk up there again, this weekend, and try and find a year on it.

The pole details were marked 10ft (3 metres in later metric days) from the base of the pole thus usually end up approx. 6ft from ground level. Consists of height of pole in feet/metres, the 'girth' of the pole - eXtra Light, Light, Medium and Stout. And the year in two numerals. These only appeared from around 1900 or a couple of years earlier. The pole route to Diabaig mentioned above didn't have details as it was far too early. Most poles are 'L' (Light) or more common is 'M' Medium. There are very few 'S' (Stout poles left as they tended to be the 'heafty' poles on multi-armed trunk routes with heavy copper ( 200lbs per mile or heavier ). Odd ones survived but most have long gone. This is one that still survives that originally had ten arms on it forming part of the main trunk route across North Wales beside what was the A55 trunk road. Note hw the present day cable is hallway down the pole at the height that the modern day poles which have the cable at the top. There was until several years ago an 80+ ft Stout pole beside the canal in the middle of Chester on the former trunk route that ran along the canal. Apprentices were made to climb it to test their nerve! If you put your arms around it at chest height there was still over a foot between your two hands! Quite the opposite to XL poles which were often les than 20 ft above ground with no arms just a maximum of two pars of bare copper on 'screw in' spindles - used on light rural routes to farms etc. How things have changed?

[Wellington]

Thanks for all the posts, chaps - interesting stuff.

I took another walk on Sunday and suddenly started noticing old telegraph poles all over the place! Halfway through the walk I suddenly thought to myself "I'm really enjoying this"! It helped that it was beautiful, spring morning.

I got some better photos of the pole under consideration, and took a few others of other poles. Indeed, the cops rolled past at one point, and I feared someone might have dobbed me in for suspicious activity. (Do people get into trouble for photographing infrastructure in the UK? I can see how it might be worrisome).

I attach said photos. The inscription on the pole appears to be "GPO 24M 64". So that would be "General Post Office; 24' Medium; 1964" yes? There was also a red 'D' plaque attached, which I understand means the pole is due for replacement.

My exchange is MRMHE, in case it's of interest. Do records exist which account for the history of exchanges?

[high_vacuum_house]

Good evening,

The red D plaque means the pole has been inspected and found to be (D)ecayed and therefore earmarked for replacement at some stage.

Love looking at old telephone poles and other vintage electrical utilities. Some interesting looking insulators on the poles at the Rugby radio station low power transmitter aerial feeders. Looked like big pepper pots. Most have all gone now as the aerial fields are making way for a housing development.

Spent about 10 minuets last year on a walk inspecting the rating plate on an ancient CA Parsons substation transformer. Think the person watching me out of an office window must have thought I had completey lost it !!

Christopher Capener

[emeritus]

While recently looking for a pole that I remembered seeing on a flying butress in a bridge over the Shropshire Union Canal (no longer used, but now a listed structure), I came across a web site for telegraph pole enthusiasts :

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&so...ptIG5Z5rCfMBqu

It was their "Pole of the month" for February 2017.

In the 1990's there used to be an electricity pylon enthusiasts web site that featured a regular "pylon of the month" photo, but that site is long gone.

[Tim]

GPO 24M 64". So that would be "General Post Office; 24' Medium; 1964" yes?

Correct.