Big Poles Archives - Page 2 of 2 - The Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society

30 Dec 2020

Finally, Finials from Auld Reekie

posted in: Adornments, Big Poles, dropwires, Engineers, Gorgeousness, Markings, Photos, Telegraph Poles, Vintage |

Neil Bell sent us these photos of a fabulous phlogistonically finialed pole that he can see from his living room window. This has allowed me a few firsts: (i) The use of the term “Auld Reekie” – an affectionate term for the fair city of Edinburgh; (ii) the use of the term “phlogistonically” which at first sight would appear to be an adverb – i.e. turning an adjective into a verb with the suffix “ly”. But then the word phlogiston would be a noun, so here I’ve invented a whole new type of word which I will hereonin call an adnoun. Not only that but phlogiston is itself a made up substance in use before they discovered oxygen; and finally (iii) an extremely elegant and aging finial amid the rooftops of Connaught Place (EH4). You don’t get all this on the Cloud Appreciation website.

Anyway, I wanted to know how old this pole was – I see it has six notches for long-removed crossarms – these arranged four facing, and a further pair at 90 degrees. Neil couldn’t find any information in the vicinity of the doby mark other than those seen here – which I will now identify for his and posterity’s benefit. 61 is the pole number (plastic tags and also an iron 61 lower down) – a DP judging by all the subscriber dropwires radiating from near the crown. It was inspected in Feb 2017 by D.E.K. on a 6 yr periodic; but then again on 3rd October 2019 by the engineer with the evocative ID # 612026689. This visit we know from the new annotation method of hammering in a small white plastic tag at the foot of the pole. This particular pole tester thought it was still Monday and their appalling error of chronology is recorded forever not only at the base of the pole but also now on this website.

If anyone can tell us what the little gate hook is for in picture #5 then we’re all ears.

6 Oct 2020

Mazy Metal Poles.

posted in: Appreciating, Big Poles, Electricity Poles, Metal Poles, Oddities, Photos |

For sure I have to earn my six figure salary* here at Telegraph Pole Towers. I put in a full shift every day sifting through endless internet cat videos and films about Class 37 locos. That is until Mrs TPAS reminds me that I’m meant to be looking at telegraph pole stuff. Then there’s the correspondence. Often involving extended exchanges such as that which followed recently with Mazzy from S. Gloucestershire.

Being one of those people who notice things, Mazzy was thrilled to find her streets at Winterbourne Down had a run of metal poles adorned with finials – these, to the uninitiated are the pickelhaube ornamental spikes at the topmost pointy end. Encouraged by our polite request not to send in such crap photos she came back with those you see below which are more befitting our reader’s discerning eyes. It turns out that Mazzy keeps an unhealthy number of photos of telegraph and other poles.

The latter pole – the one that looks like a hollow flag – is my favourite. This is a particularly rare find which I believe are used to carry wires past and over obstacles. They may also help in taking out a degree or two of bend in the wires. Bent electric has lower retail value than that which arrives in a straight line apparently. I didn’t know that until recently.

Anyway, I got to thinking what an exotic name is Mazzy. Two Z’s indeed. Subtract one of those and you have Mazy – which is how, in days of yore, my football skills were described. Not that I was dribbling around defenders to slam in the winner from 25 yards – more like mazy runs by way of avoiding a stinging slap on the thigh from a cold and muddy ball. Scoring winners was what other players did.

Back to Mazzy. She’s a bit shy about her own writing prowess. She suggests that the intersection between telegraph pole enthusiasts and short fiction fans is fairly modest. I disagree. She’s won awards and things. The most I ever won was a British Sausage Time watch in a raffle in the Evening Leader 30 years ago. She can be found at unfurling.net. And if that doesn’t encourage her to update it more often I don’t know what will ;-

* In the interest of transparency, the 6 figure salary to which I refer is £000,000. After deductions.

13 May 2020

All new conspiracy theory

posted in: Big Poles, Conspiracy Theory, Country poles, Electricity Poles, Markings, Things on poles |

Sally Crook spotted something rather intriguing on her lockdown, once-a-day, within-a-mile-of-home perambulation. In a field by the railway crossing in Brockhampton Lane, Cheltenham she noticed firstly the magnificence of these telegraph poles. Sorry, Sally, but the more, ahem, traditional browsers of this site won't allow me to call them telegraph poles. For although they fit the criteria 100% i.e. tall, wooden, sticky-uppy, got wires coming out of the top etc. (T.W.S.U.W.C.O.T), they are in fact power distribution poles. There is probably an even more industry-specific name for this type of TWSUWCOT. Anyway, I digress from the brand new conspiracy theory I am about to let you in on.

"Look closely," she said, "and you'll see little sort of playing card placards stuck to the timbers approx 8ft above the ground." On the left leg, a red triangle (could be mistaken for a diamond by someone who didn't ever see a set of playing cards) and the other leg carried a black ace of clubs.

Right, well what is a red triangle? Let's break this down. Red is a warning colour. No ifs or buts there. And a triangle, in the form of a tetractys is a way of displaying four rows of numbers which add up to 10. It's true this, I found it on Wikipedia. And I sent them a £2 donation not long ago so, you know... Anyway, October is the 10th month. The Hunt for Red October was a 1990 film with Sean Connery that was exactly 135 minutes long. 135 is CXXXV in Roman. You see, it's all starting to add up. So the other pole leg has an ace of clubs on it. Well ace is someone who is a sharpshooter or good at something. But that's a red-herring, designed to throw you off the scent. On the 17th page of a google search I find ACE cleaning products. And why would you need cleaning products? That's right, blood stains. Club is a place where you go to get fleeced, have a dance or be sick in the toilet. But it is also a weapon. A silent weapon. The kind that an assassin might use. Precisely ! You heard it here first.

Anyway, Sally just asked if we or any of our readership might know what the signs all mean. I've thrown my four-penn'orth in. What do you think dear reader? Go careful out there.

Rob Fuller wrote in to correct us on the a/m story: "You will notice the overhead line carries two 3-phase circuits, so when work is being carried out on one of the circuits, the other circuit will usually remain live. The distinctive symbols are there as an extra identification system where the linesman climbing the pole will be issued with a wristlet corresponding to that particular symbol designation, and also you might notice that there is a metal bracket near the triangle/club symbols with an arrangement of pegs, which are both different on each side. These brackets allow a green flag to be fitted to that particular bracket, 'keyed' by the arrangement of holes in the flag, and pegs on the bracket, which will only fit the correct side of the pole on the 'dead' circuit, and this unique flag will be issued with safety documents by the engineer responsible for setting the linesmen to work.
As you can probably tell, this system has been in use for a long time, and is still in use to this very day."

A likely story...

11 Sep 2019

The birth of the Telegraph Pole Preservation Society?

posted in: Appreciating, Big Poles, Country poles, Found Poles, Gorgeousness, Vintage |

In all my years*¹ of being Prime Member, #0001, of this very society I have never been sent a photo of a pole with twelve crossarms before, let alone see one in the wild. Until today I thought they were the preserve of BT archives and wonderful books about telegraph poles.

Ray Thorp, ex BT employee of 42 years *²sent us these amazing pictures of an “A” pole on the Coventry Canal. He says it is the last remnant of a trunk route between Coventry and Atherstone. He also suggests that there are several Canal enthusiasts who would like to see it preserved. He doesn't think his erstwhile employers*³ would be interested and asks who might be the best people to contact with regards the preservation of this wonderful specimen.

Well, if Deep Mind's Alpha Go project and it's 1,202 CPU processors can beat Chinese expert player Fan Hui at the notoriously difficult board game Buckaroo then we 1,000 members*⁴ can surely combine our own not inconsiderable neural networks to come up with someone or somehow or someway to save this canalside beauty.

Come on TPAS let's be the T.P.P.S.

*¹ Now officially measured in decades
*²There is some ambiguity as to whether Ray's been an ex employee some 42 years or whether he worked for them for 42 years and does no longer.
*³ 42 years hence, or perhaps not (see *²)
*⁴ Give or take a number between 1 and 1,000.

3 Apr 2019

Most dropwires of the month competition…

posted in: Adornments, Big Poles, dropwires, Honorary Technical Advisor, Telegraph Poles |

Is officially opened by esteemed society Honorary Technical Adviser Sir Keith S***** H.T.A. T.P.A.S.

“I noticed this pole in Norden near to my home in Rochdale. I think from experience it is probably an 11 metre medium pole, cannot be sure as unusually it has no cutting in, perhaps cutting in was abandoned. It used to be quite an art to etch a pole’s length and class clearly cleanly and quickly with a curved chisel.It drew my attention because of the unusually large number of cables connected to it, there are in fact forty! the most I have ever seen in my many years of pole observation.

I hope you will find this of interest. I had to fill my pensioner phone with boiling water so it would boil quickly and enable me to capture this image while the sky was blue.

Yours etc.”

Way too grainy a photo to be considered for pole of the month – but 40 drop wires? Bring on the challengers. I’ve even started a new post category for this.

26 Aug 2018

Towering Topsham Telegraph Pole

posted in: Big Poles, Submissions, Vintage |

There was a touch of synchronicity about a couple of emails which crossed my desk here at Telegraph Pole Towers this last week or so*¹. The first from Mike Shephard from Devon;

"Do you have this surviving "big stick" on record? The telephone exchange used to be in the main street of TOPSHAM near EXETER, from 1912 to 1949. First, as a manual exchange, then, later from the 1930s, as an auto DSR exchange in the Exeter numbering group. The automatic exchange moved to a new site in the town around 1949. It is still there.

The D.P. 1 stout pole has no date marking that can be seen. The local museum thinks it may date from WW1 era, because a relative of someone who is still alive was involved in the pole's installation. The pole was once even taller than today. The top part of the pole was cut off where 8-way arms once stood. Other 8-way arms were set below them at right-angles. The cut-out positions of the lower 8-way arms can still be seen intact.

Noteworthy are the terminal blocks, which are accessible at ladder height, without the need to scale the whole pole. Good thinking. The pole was last tested in 2013, and is marked "D" Defective. A giant of a bygone age, towering over the rooftops. And still standing proud after maybe a century ?"

Then, in the exact same geological era came this from Mike Trout, also of Devon;

"I have always understood that my Grandfather Walter Finlay Wilson installed a very tall telegraph pole in Trees Court, a tiny yard behind the then Telephone exchange in Topsham. Dia about 17" & over 60 ft tall. People have wondered ever since how it was got into the courtyard, as it is surrounded by 3 storey shop & houses and when. It has a red metal plate on it about 5ft up it with no 3, no 13 & IJK all punched out of it. Below that there is a small sign saying DP1 and small round metal disk with D on it. Can you give us any ideas about when it was installed?"

Surely these two emails are, mutually, self-answering and so I don't need to? But to answer Mike Shephard's first question, yes, we did have it on record already - agent Brunsden, John, #0469, shaken, not stirred, sent us this excited video with his interpretive comments:

"An unmarked 'D' stout pole...look at all those steps !!! I don't know how they managed to get it up in that location all those years ago, and I would not like to have to renew it! The video does not really do justice to the length and girth of this old pole!!"

*¹Loosest, most exaggerated, definition of "last week or so" - it was July actually.