To Catch a Falling Star

My girlfriend Michelle and I had been collecting insulators for a couple of months when our next big adventure came along. We were anxious to discover other insulator hunting grounds, so we bought a County Map book from the Highway Department. It shows every town, dirt road and railroad track in the entire State of Texas. After close inspection, we made a list of possible locations to search. We settled on two that we would check out that weekend.

The first was a Santa Fe line south of Houston. We found a road that paralleled the track and discovered an old signal line with short poles and double crossarms. The poles were only about 15 feet tall and loaded with beehives. We found a light blue CD 145 Star at the base of one pole. I wasn’t brave enough to actually climb the poles, so I decided on some type of “insulator grabber”. I was thinking of something like a fishing pole with a slingshot on top. So, after a trip to Home Depot and Wal-Mart, we had the parts for our first prototype! It was constructed from two pieces of PVC pipe, rope and a “mouse pad”.

Back to the track, I immediately lassoed a CD 162 H.G. Co on the bottom crossarm. After a few turns the “grabber” was hopelessly wrapped around the insulator. Rats!! We cut the rope and left. The next day we returned with a new and improved model and hooked a beehive on the top crossarm. Same thing, the “grabber” got wedged between the insulator and pin. I pulled hard and the PVC pipe separated at the joint about two feet higher than I could reach. Michelle suggested we leave, but I didn’t want to leave my invention just dangling from the pole. So I thought that I could pull the car up to the pole, stand on the hood and reach the ill-fated machine. As soon as the front wheels left the roadway, we were bogged up to the fenders in mud. It’s starting to get dark and we are stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere, so panic is starting to set in. If we get out of this jam, I vowed to never go insulator hunting again. A few minutes later a guy in a big Cadillac showed up, pushed us out and we left behind two contraptions hanging from the poles!

It didn’t take long for me to regain my courage and break my promise so we were off on another adventure! We heard the Southern Pacific line running towards San Antonio was loaded with olive green CD 162 Stars, so we headed out towards the “Alamo City”. As soon as we started along the tracks, we noticed that the poles were gone and construction crews were laying the roadbed for a second track. Excitement is really increasing as we race to the nearest crossing and sure enough there’s a freshly cut pole on the ground with ten porcelain insulators on it. Nice haul, but no Stars! We drive along and I get out and look every half-mile or so and find nothing but Knoxs, Victors and U-239A’s!

Finally we made it into the town of East Bernard and find a pole with three Star signals on it. I was happy to head back but Michelle said, “Let’s keep going.” So, she drove along Highway 90 that paralleled the track and I walked the line pole to pole with a canvas bag. Each downed pole had at least five Stars on it. Michelle would meet me at each crossing and I would empty our treasures into the trunk. After several hours of searching, we found nearly a hundred Star signals in various shades of olive green, aqua, light blue, apple green and light green. We decided to head home and promised to return someday.

We came back three months later to the Southern Pacific line, only to find the right-of-way had been cleared and the double-track had been completed. No more Stars shined down on the tracks. As we watched Amtrak’s Sunset Limited thunder by, we felt kind of sad that the passengers would no longer see the green glass perched atop the poles amidst the cows and cactus on the Texas Plains. But, we considered ourselves fortunate to have caught some fallen Stars.