When Hobbies Collide...

Fantastic stuff, E!

Earle42 - would enjoy the company but I'm not really that good at finding insulators!

This is a pole I missed. It stood for years on a small triangle of railroad-owned land outside my local train station. Access was impossible. I hoped one day it might blow down and that I might be able to rescue some of the insulators! But one day I drove past and it had been removed!
I suppose the railroad authorities were concerned about it getting rotten and being blown down across the tracks...

I agree...bummer for sure...

I know in the States the poles have come down b/c of liability. Judges awarding millions over spilled hot coffee has become so rampant that what used to be common sense (you climb and fall -its your own fault for doing it!) is no more. This has had the unfortunate result of the removal of almost all insulators and poles. So much history thrown in the dump...its sad. It used to be quite a site seeing all that glittering glass in the air along RR tracks. Now they just look bare and empty to me.

I don't know if this is why the poles are being removed in the UK or not. I suspect so. I would think out in the wilder areas there likely are still things to be found though. A friend of mine had the great idea of finding places the pole line went up over hills above train tunnels. He found some really nice stuff still up in these hard to reach areas b/c almost everyone who ever was searching for insulators in those areas were just not energetic enough to venture.
He was doing this for years and literally ran out of tunnels to search! Now he ventures out into the remotest areas he can and searches.

I went for a walk yesterday, partly along the trackbed of a disused railway. The only insulators I found were smashed fragments:

The only intact insulator I saw was this one - high up on a signal cabin on a miniature tourist railroad:

Sad pieces of smashed history


If you find a red Bullers one this way, or some other hard to finn piece, go ahead and make what the hobby has sometimes called a "kitsulator" out of it with some porcelain glue.

I have to admit I am past the stage of adding a lot of insulators to my collection anymore b/c the history, research and writing aspect has become so much fun for me. I have a bunch of more common pieces that are hiding historical info about their manufacture, companies, machines invented/used to make them and this takes up my hobby time concerning insulators.

Enter the new major collision of the two hobbies:

Some background:
The hidden info I mentioned on insulators comes in the way of different marks (number or letter) on the insulator indicating one of the following:
1. Date Code: a cryptic company code indicating the date a piece was made.

2. Mold Number (MN): a small number/letter telling the number of the mold the insulator was made in for aiding broken mold repairs.

3. Shop Number (SN): A shop (group of workers) had their own SN engraved into their molds so each insulators made by that shop would be traceable to which shop made it. The large, prominently placed SNs (dome top or sides) made for easy tallying/payment to each shop for each insulator they made.

Recently a new interest in these marks has grown since people want to know/collect a "complete set" of their favorite style of insulator by these markings. But there is no list to tell them what is out there for their specialty area.

Here is the collision:

All of the above markings are collectively known "Mold Marks (MM)." Currently I am heading a project for the National Insulator Association designed to solicit online insulator collectors to contribute/build a database of all known MMs in all categories.

In my write-up explaining the project to the insulator hobby I mentioned insulator collectors would now have a guide enabling the collecting of insulators in a way coin collectors have always enjoyed to make a set: Getting a complete set of MMs (Mint Marks or Mold Marks depending on the hobby) for each item collected.

So what better name for the project than "Project Red Book?"

So now the insulator hobby's "Project Red Book," is in the design/coding stage!

Excellent!

When Oregon marked its centennial in 1959, a number of cities participated in a "Good For" token program - Klamath Falls was one.

You can complete an Oregon "Collision" if you add one of the tokens to your collection!