Glass Insulators on the N&W

Wed May 5 08:55:18 EDT 2021

Abe

The attached is a list of glass insulators found on the N&W and VGN.  
The list is by no means a complete list of all insulators used by the 
N&W and VGN.  It is a list of insulators found by local collectors. Any 
additions will be appreciated. The list is posted from a spread sheet. 
Hope it is readable in the post.

Jim Blackstock

Road 	CD 	MFG. 	Style 	Color 	Notes 	Where found
VGN 	107 	Armstrong 	9 	

	Roanoke area
N&W 	145 	B	44 	

	Common at various locations
N&W 	145 	Brookfield 	none 	
	Crown Embossed 	Common at various locations
N&W 	152 	Brookfield 	48 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	162 	Brookfield 	36 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	162 	Brookfield 	36 	
	Small dome	Roanoke area
N&W 	145 	Hemingray 	21 	

	Common at various locations
N&W 	147 	Hemingray 	none 	G 	
	Blue Ridge
N&W 	152 	Hemingray 	40 	

	Common at various locations
N&W 	152 	Hemingray 	40 	G 	[080] w/iron wire 	Crystal Hill Durham Line
N&W 	154 	Hemingray 	42 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	154 	Hemingray 	42 	

	Common at various locations
N&W 	155 	Hemingray 	45 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	155 	Hemingray 	45 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	162 	Hemingray 	19 	

	Common at various locations
N&W 	164 	Hemingray 	20 	

	Boones Mill area
N&W 	214 	Hemingray 	43 	

	Boones Mill area
N&W 	281 	Hemingray 	281 	G 	
	Roanoke shops
N&W 	145 	HGCO 	none 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	154 	Lynchburg 	44 	

N&W 	
	Lynchburg 	

	Shenandoah Div
N&W 	145 	Star 	none 	

	Boones Mill area
N&W 	154 	Whitall Tatum 	1 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	154 	Whitall Tatum 	1 	P 	

N&W 	155 	Whitall Tatum 	1 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	162 	Whitall Tatum 	4 	

	Common at various locations
VGN 	216 	Armstrong 	
	RBA 	
	Two found on pole at Roanoke Yard Office
VGN 	251 	Lynchburg 	1 	

	used on the power feeds on the catenary. After removed used at other 
points. One found at Abilene in 1976.

On 5/4/2021 10:24 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> Monday here was spent with an old friend who is a world-class expert 
> on glass insulators.  We shall call him Matteo.  He has walked much of 
> the N&W main lines over the years, examining the insulators and 
> studying and photographing the pole line (as well as the pole line of 
> other railroads all over the country.)
> I asked him for his thoughts on the N&W's use of insulators, and 
> following are his observations.
> He said that N&W was one of his least-favorite places to study 
> insulators, for the singular reason that there was a big move around 
> 1921-1922 to finish the change-out of all earlier insulators with the 
> new "double petticoat" insulators.  (The double petticoats offered two 
> drip-paths for shedding water under the skirt.)  Therefore, for a 
> hundred years now, the old glass styles have been absent from N&W 
> poles, and insulator-gazing has been same-old-same-old on the N&W.
> Matteo categorizes N&W insulator history into three periods:
> 1.  The earliest days of the telegraph line, beginning when the 
> Lynchburg & Abingdon Telegraph Co. constructed the first line.  It is 
> not known what the V&T may have used for insulators.  But in the 
> 1850s, there were no standards (Western Union did not come into 
> existence until 1857) and early telegraph lines generally used 
> whatever could be found. Glass-making technology was primitive and the 
> first internally threaded insulators were not produced until 1865.
> 2.  The introduction of the threaded insulator in 1865 caused a 
> revolution in pole line technology.  The threaded insulator ended the 
> constant problem of insulators (and the wires they supported) 
> willy-nilly popping off the u-threaded insulator posts in storms.  The 
> N&W installed the new threaded types CD126 and CD 127 (both called 
> *blob-tops*) and also the style CD133 of 1866-1867 (which are termed 
> *signals*.) These insulators had internal threads, but none  had the 
> inner petticoat to provide a water-shedding path near the wooden pin.
> 3.  The advance which brought the glass insulator into its final form 
> was the installation of a petticoat, up in the under-cavity of an 
> insulator, in the 1880s.  The petticoat was a water-shedding ring of 
> glass which materially improved the insulating qualities of the 
> insulator.  The N&W went in for a wholesale change-out of its 
> insulators with those of the new Beehive design.  In 1921, the entire 
> Clinch Valley pole line was re-insulated with Beehives made by the 
> Lynchburg Glass Company. With this program of replacing the old glass 
> with petticoat glass, the early insulators (CD 126, CD127, CD133) 
> almost completely vanished from N&W poles.
> The Brookfield Glass Company, which had provided the majority of 
> telegraph insulators to the railroads and telegraph companies since 
> 1864, closed its doors in 1921.  Thereafter the glass insulator market 
> was almost entirely controlled by the Hemingray Glass Co. of Muncie, 
> Ind., and by the Whitall-Tatum Glass Co (later owned by Kerr-McGee) of 
> Millville, New Jersey. Replacement insulators on the N&W were  either 
> Hemingray Model 42 or the Whitall Tatum (later  owned by Kerr-McGhee) 
> models CD154 and 155... both of which are ugly and unloved, and can be 
> found on the Free Tables at most insulator shows.
> The last glass insulators made in this country were made in 1975 by 
> the Kerr McGee Glass Co at Millville, NJ, and were of the CD155 
> style.  (Several years ago I prepared an 18 page, 6 meg PDF 
> illustrated paper on this topic, if anyone wants it.)
> Finally, Matteo had a general observation which I thought was quite 
> sage.  By observation, he had determined that the earlier pole line 
> was almost always on the south side of N&W right-of-way.  But with the 
> introduction of the Beehive petticoat insulator and the advent of 440 
> volt power on its own pole line, N&W constructed a NEW high quality 
> pole line, generally on the north side of the right-of-way.  The old 
> south-side pole line seems to have been retained for communications 
> use, whereas the new north-side line carried new 440 volt AC 
> three-phase power and the signal circuits.
> If you are interested in insulators, I am certainly no authority and 
> will send you to ICON (Insulator Collectors on the Net) at  
>  https://www.insulators.info/icon/
> -- abram burnett
> Error 404 - No Turnips Found Here
>
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