A Visit to Northern Europe 

We have a guest editor this month! He is Frank Shiels of Fort Worth, Texas. If you still have your copy of Crown Jewels magazine, July 1980, you can go back and read the account of his-travels through Finland. From this trip he brought back the first insulators we'd seen with the trademark of TURKU POTTERIES in the town of TURKU. 

This past January I received another letter from Frank telling of his most recent trip. It was so interesting that I've asked his permission to share it with you. 

January 10, 1983

Dear Marilyn,

While I was in graduate school at TCU studying for my Masters in Business Administration, all I could think about was my trip to the Scottish Lowlands. There I could further my genealogical research on my family and hopefully find the town and grave sites of my ancestors. I had sold stereo equipment to students, did some house sitting, and chauffeured people to the airport. My last semester I had a part time job doing market research for a ceiling fan company. Somehow I managed to graduate with enough money to exist 3 months in Northern Europe. On the first part of my trip I found the cemetery where my ancestors were interred and met with older people in the area who could tell me about the families there during the last century. I spent 10 days sifting through old records until I was about to go cross eyed. I then got to spend a week with my only surviving Scottish relative who is now 80 years old. To experience the country life only 15 miles from where my ancestors came was a real thrill! 

After Scotland I left from London to visit friends in Belgium, Denmark and Finland. In Finland I was reunited with a family I hadn't seen in 7 years. When I was 17, I had stayed with them as an American Boy Scout attending the 14th World Boy Scout Jamboree. It was a heart warming reunion.

Later I toured down through West and East Germany, Belgium and then back to London. It was toward the end of my stay in Great Britain that I ended up finding some insulators. I found most of them in Wales. I left London and caught the 12 o'clock bus for Wales. I still had 3 more days where I could meet up with some American friends who had a small cabin in the mountains. I got to Llandrindad Wells and found out that I had no idea where I was. Even the local people could not figure out where this obscure farm house might be. With the help of a topographical map, the local telephone operator, postman and Church Youth Group (which took pity on me and drove me there) I finally met with my friends. After seeing the area of Central Wales, I left my friends and headed north to tour the famous slate mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog. 

There was only 1 (one) long distance bus a day going north and south and that only came within 3 miles of a youth hostel in the mountains called Ffestiniog (not to be confused with Blaenau Ffestiniog). When the bus dropped me off at Maentwrog I found 2 black composition "pothead" insulators along the road and quickly put them in my pack. ("Potheads" were described in my column, Dec. '82. - M.A.) The walk was a long one but I finally arrived at the Youth hostel. 

The next morning I was the only non-Cub Scout to eat breakfast. I became friendly with the group and not only got a lift to the slate mines but the grand tour as well! It was above the Llechwedd mine where I found the whiTe spool type insulator shown in photograph #1 (below). I had to work fast in breaking the old rusty bracket off of the wooden beam. By this time my pack was really getting heavy but alas, my work was not finished.

After riding the narrow gauge train round trip from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Porthmadog I noticed several insulators with the marking G.W.R. on them (Great Western Railway). These you can see at one or two of the stations along the way. Once I arrived back in Blaenau Ffestiniog I decided to walk back to the Youth hostel in Ffestiniog via the old G.W.R. tracks.

The tracks had a light orange rust on them which seemed to indicate that they were used, but not daily. Later I found out that the 3 mile stretch of rail is only used once each month to bring back nuclear waste from the plant at Llyn Trawsfynydd to the ocean port at Porthmadog by way of Ffestiniog and Blaenau Ffestiniog. I was afraid to know where the waste went once it got to the ocean!

Right outside Blaenau Ffestiniog there was only one pole full of insulators standing. I found a few pieces of insulators with G.W.R., G.P.O. and the word London marked on them. One interesting logo was the following: (Here Frank drew a sketch of the Taylor Tunnicliff trademark with the letters G.P.O. just above. - M.A.)

The sun was going down and I was hoping to make it to the old abandoned railway station where an elderly shepherd said I would find some insulators. Well, the man was right, there were hundreds of white ceramic insulators just like "E" in photo #2 (shown below) and almost all had G.W.R. stamped on them. The only bad part was that the Welsh hooligans had beaten me to them. Not a single one was intact. As I walked away from the depressing scene, my foot landed on something lumpy in the grass. I reached down and found the metal/glass insulator described in photo #1. Never had I seen such a thing. It was apparent that it wasn't old but strange looking just the same. (During a phone conversation Frank described the insulator as a sort of beehive shape with a metal clamp on the crown. The pin or thimble in the pinhole was like that of a suspension insulator. Unfortunately the photo is not very clear.- M.A.)

On my way back to the hostel I did find one mint white insulator with G.W.R. However, I had to leave it because I lacked a hacksaw. Maybe another collector will come along and find it someday. 
Sincerely, 
Frank

P.S. I wonder if all the railroads (before British Rail) had insulators with their own marking?

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Shown below are the two photos Frank sent me. These are the types of insulators he found on his trip, and the explanation following is his own.

Photo #1 - left to right. 

Photo #2 -- left to right (see following page).

To answer your questions, Frank, about the various railroad markings, I'm including the following information which was first printed in the February '82 issue of Crown Jewels. Maybe some others missed it, too. Thank you so much for writing -- keep in touch! 

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If you have seen porcelain insulators from England, you have probably seen some of them marked GPO. That's General Post Office; those are telephone insulators. However, in many cases, insulators made for the railways also had the users' initials placed on them. With the aid of the accompanying chart*, we will explain a little about British Railways and the earlier companies that made up the present nationalized system.

At the outset, railways were privately constructed and operated: and there were many of them. In 1923, following World War I, most of the railways operating throughout England, Scotland and Wales were grouped into four separate regional companies. This grouping was ordered by parliament to stabilize the impossibly fragmented industry. 

At the present time, most of the insulators we have seen are marked with initials matching the companies formed in 1923. We have also a sample marked BR(W), which would be a later one made after 1948. 

Large Image (145 Kb)

On the chart, we have listed some of the earlier companies, including the larger ones. As time passes, it is entirely possible that insulators will be found corresponding to some of these. Note that the Great Western Railway existed long before the 1923 grouping. It is, therefore, possible that GWR insulators could pre-date 1923! The letter W following the name indicates that line operated in Wales: S indicates Scotland.

When the railways were nationalized by act of parliament in 1948, six operating regions were designated, as shown. There have been some changes as regards individual rail routes: but basically that's the picture today. Unfortunately, there is very little open wire in service now. Communication and signal circuits are carried in heavily insulated cables laid in covered concrete troughs at trackside!

*Condensed from information courtesy of David Benny, railway historian living at Derby, England.