British Railway Telegraph Insulators
I must tell you about a fantastic book I have just received called
Searching for Railway Telegraph Insulators! It was published in 1982 by author
W. Keith Neal who lives on the island of Guernsey, one of the British owned
Channel Islands not far from the coast of France. Unfortunately, the book has
had little exposure in the United States, but that picture will change when the
many railroad buffs and insulator collectors over here get wind of it. It's full
of information about British railways, the insulators they used, and the various
patents concerned. The pictures alone will take your breath away, and his style
of writing will warm your heart! I've quoted Mr. Neal here and there throughout
this article, but you'll just have to have the book in hand yourself to fully
appreciate it. That's all I'm going to say, because I know Dora Harned has a
review of the book in this issue of Crown Jewels, and if you'll look in the
"Classified Ads" section, you'll see how to obtain a copy for
yourself.
It's always exciting when you actually get to hold in your hand an
insulator that heretofore you've only seen pictured in a book such as Keith
Neal's, or in an 1895 Buller Jobson & Co. catalogue. One tends to assume
that because of the scarcity of some of these oldies, it's highly unlikely that
one will ever see the real thing. At the moment I have on loan four British
railway insulators that belong (sigh) to Mr. N. R. Woodward of Houston. They
were sent to him by his friend, David Benny, a railway historian living in
Derby, England, who was also good enough to supply a bit of history of the
railway lines that used and stamped their initials on these particular
insulators. Actually, only two of these insulator designs could be considered
rare: U-1364 and U-1397 (as shown in Worldwide Porcelain Insulators by Albers
and Tod), while the remaining two are both U-1542's and are quite common, but
their markings make the difference. What makes all four so interesting is that
they are marked with the initials of independently owned railway lines which
ceased to exist as such after 1923! You don't see too many of these around. Most
of the railway insulators we commonly see today bear the initials of one of the
four larger regional railway companies formed in 1923 that absorbed these
smaller companies.
Here I go again, printing this chart that I've used twice
before, but it's sort of a family tree of British railways, and without it it's
hard to get the picture as we refer to various ones. As I read Keith Neal's
book, I realized that there are many, many smaller railway lines that were in
existence before 1923, but the principal ones are included on the chart. I've
also included a map of England so you may find some of the cities that these
lines went through.
NSR - North Staffordshire Railway and Neale's Patent
Insulator
Quoting from information supplied by David Benny: "This railway
line was one of the lesser constituents of the London Midland and Scottish
Railway (LMS) when formed in 1923. It was based on the part of the country we
call the Potteries, i.e., around Stoke-on-Trent to the northwest of Derby. Their
two main lines crossed at Stoke, and ran from Derby to Crewe, and from
Manchester to Stafford. In fact, the end parts of these routes were over other
companies' lines, like the Midland Railway at Derby. A tight little line"!
From reading Keith Neal's book I learned that the NSR tried out more different
forms of insulators than any other line in Britain, including a very curious
design called a "screw top", Langdons of various sizes, insulators
patented by J. C. Fuller, Sir T. C. Bright, Varley, Neale, etc.
It is Neale's
Patent insulator that we are concerned with here -- the U-1397. Quoting from
Searching for Railway Telegraph Insulators, Keith Neal writes: It seems that the
head of Signals and Telegraphs on this line was a Mr. Neale (different from the
author), and he designed a line insulator which became known as Neale's pattern.
It was somewhat like a Cordeaux insulator, but taller and thinner." The
caption under the photograph of the insulator in his book tells us "the
insulator was designed for this line (NSR) exclusively. It was first used with a
cemented in spindle and later changed to a screw thread. Earliest examples date
from about 1880 and this pattern was still observed in use up to 1965."
Shown below is our example of Neale's Patent insulator made of white porcelain.
On one side of the crown are the incuse letters NSR, and on the other side it
says BULLERS LTD LONDON, which was the manufacturer. Shown also is the Cordeaux,
so you may see how these two designs differ.
LNWR - London and North Western
Railway And the Cordeaux Insulator
This line was also a constituent of the
larger regional company, London Midland and Scottish Railway, formed in 1923.
According to David Benny, "this railway (LNWR) called itself the Premier
Line on the basis that the London and Birmingham and the Liverpool and
Manchester railways, two of the first passenger lines, were part of it. It
thought itself very superior and did not deign to put its name or initials on
its locomotives. It was a big railway with a main line from London to Carlisle
(and from there one could easily reach Glasgow on the Caledonian Railway) and
many other smaller but important lines -- perhaps headed for the boats running to
Ireland or wherever their lines could get. LNWR had coal wharves in Derby but
only got there by running their locomotives over the Midland Railway."
Keith Neal tells us that the LNWR also used several different insulators along
its line, including an extremely rare terminal insulator called a Fletcher,
several variations of the Varley pattern, and undoubtedly countless others; but
in 1878 changed over strictly to the Cordeaux pattern P.O. type and have never
subsequently changed. It was in that year that the Society of Telegraph
Engineers, after listening to the results of exhaustive tests done by a Mr. John
Gavey on all the insulators in use at that time, pronounced the #6 (as the
Cordeaux was referred to) as the one giving "results all out of proportion
to the rest and so it won the day! Ever since then it has been adopted as
standard by every railway in Britain and the Post Office." Neal says,
"the #6 is ugly and plain but functional and its present counterpart for
use as a terminal, the 'pothead', equally so." For article on 'potheads'
see Dec. '82 Crown Jewels.
The Cordeaux with its rubber washer up inside the
pinhole, and screwed bolt (rather than cemented), made it extremely easy to
replace broken insulators when necessary. Shown below are two white porcelain
examples of the Cordeaux -- our U-1542. The insulator on the left is marked GWR for
Great Western Railway, which may stand for the pre-1923 line, or possibly it is
marked for the larger regional railway company of the same name existing after
1923. It is difficult to tell, because there is no marking for manufacturer or
date. The insulator on the right is marked LNW on one side of the crown and its
manufacturer, BULLERS LTD LONDON on the other side. The date of manufacture was
somewhere between 1892 and 1923.
G.C.R. - Great Central Railway and Varley's
Patent Insulator
David Benny writes, "The Great Central Railway was our
last main line railway and came too late to do any good. (Realize he is still
referring to pre 1923. - M.A.) The line has now mostly been closed as it did not
run where there was enough business. It was earlier than the Manchester,
Sheffield and Lincolnshire lines running in the north of England but it got
grand ideas and built the 'London Extension', changing its name to suit. The
chairman of G.C.R. had ideas about running a tunnel through to France and it did
finally connect with the Metropolitan Railway (part of the London-underground
system) as a stage in that ambition. Needless to say, it never came anywhere
near happening. G.C.R. eventually became part of the larger regional company
called the London and North Eastern Railway." (1923)
According to Keith
Neal, "There were three patterns or sizes of Varley's Patent insulators
that were popular and were widely used on all British railways between 1865 and
the present century. Varleys were made of tough brown stoneware. The largest and
commonest was the NO. 8, so called because its size and wire slot were made to
carry the 8 gauge galvanized wire of the period. It was usually made in two
pieces, with the inner shed of white porcelain cemented into the outer shed, and
the whole thing cemented onto its 5/8" diameter spindle. There were many
variations: Some had brown earthenware inner sheds and finally, towards the end
of the century, they were being made as a one piece insulator.
"Another
pattern was the NO. 11 which carried an 11 gauge wire and was used for short
lines. This was never, to my knowledge, a two piece insulator.
"Finally,
there was the ubiquitous 'Z' type, also a Varley which had a flared out skirt,
and as the smallest of all the insulators, was used for block lines and short
run-offs to signal boxes, etc. This was never made to a two piece design. Its
popularity probably outlived them all as it ended up as a porcelain screwed
spindle insulator finished with a high brown glaze and used into the 20th
century on the Great Northern Railway." The meaning of the 'Z' has never
been determined!
The photo below shows a Varley's Patent NO. 8 found on the
G.C.R line. It is of brown stoneware with a white porcelain inner shed that has
been cemented in place. This is our U-1364. Just below the wire groove are the
incuse letters G.C.R. and on the opposite side in the same location it reads
BULLERS LTD LONDON.
These insulators are just a handful of all the beautiful
designs that were used on the British railway lines. Keith Neal's book has many
photos of these, and I am convinced that he has, as he says, "The one
really comprehensive collection of almost every known pattern and variety used
over a long period on British railways."
He has been collecting insulators
for sixty years! Order the book -- I guarantee you won't be able to put it down!
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