ANDY AND BILL GO TO EUROPE

Bill Snell and Andy Gibson are great pals. In fact, they live within two blocks of each other on the same street in Rochester, New York! In early May, 1988, Bill wrote me to share his exciting news -- he and Andy were scheduled to fly to Europe later that month and needed pointers on the capture of some insulators. I told them what I had learned from my own experiences and wished them good luck. They promised to keep a diary and take lots of pictures. So this month's column has been in the making for quite some time. All CD and U-numbers used here can be found in GLASS INSULATORS FROM OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA (Albers/ Woodward) and WORLDWIDE PORCELAIN INSULATORS (Albers/Tod).  ...Let's hear the first half of the story, in Bill's own words:

"On May 21 I landed in London and met Andrew. Hardly any pin type insulators anywhere.

We left London on May23 on a train bound for Newhaven. At Newhaven we boarded a ferry, and when it arrived at Dieppe, France, in the wee hours of the morning, we transferred to a train to Paris. I happened to wake up at the crack of dawn and caught sight of the sun rising over the beautiful French countryside and glittering on all the green glass sombreros along the railway. Truly a memorable sight.

Paris was much like London: very little open line construction, hence, few insulators.

We left Paris in a rental car and spent the next few days driving around eastern France. We saw several styles of insulators: CD 640s and 642s in a wide variety of green shades and a few 532, 535, 560, 611 or some other wide skirt style, and various t-bar and noser styles. We also saw some porcelain: U-2057, 1423, along with spools, sombreros, and multipart power pieces in both porcelain and glass. We noticed most of the unused insulators are on the sides of houses and buildings, not on poles.

Near Strasbourg. though, the insulators seemed very German. This area of France has been under French and German governments for centuries so the culture tends to blend a bit. We saw some U-2285s and 1692s around the city, with a few CD 640s here and there.

In Nancy we noticed in an alley some strange porcelain nosers with a top groove that were only a foot or so over my head. We tried giving a few a little twist, but of course they were firmly cemented to their pins. No souvenirs for these American tourists.

Nancy, France -- on the side of a building
only 7-10 feet off the ground

At the other end of the alley were some CD 560 Isorexes in dark green, also cemented securely. We quickly found out this alley was the driveway to a parking lot, so, wanting to avoid jail, we settled for photos, Also in Nancy we saw some CD 666.2 nosers along with an exact replica in white porcelain, and some taller glass ones, maybe CD 667 or something even taller.

One afternoon we stopped in a small town names Chateau Salins for dinner and passed an abandoned depot with torn-up tracks. Since the place simply demanded further investigation, we stopped at the supermarket, bought food, and had our picnic dinner at the depot, then went exploring. We found no whole insulators, but the search yielded a number of interesting pieces. In glass we found identifiable pieces of CD 642, 532, and also a big chunk of near-clear glass that must have been part of a large high-voltage piece. We also noticed some U-2057 pieces in white, and a strange crown piece in green porcelain. Two large shards proved most interesting: One is the rear skirt of a CD 642 embossed 35/1 and under this in large bold letters was embossed EST. Then Andy found a front piece lettered Isorex in normal fashion, and under that in the large bold embossing was SNCF. He explained that this is an abbreviation for Societe Nationale de Chemin du fer Francais, loosely translated as French National Railway Society. EST is the French word for east and most likely indicates the branch of the SNCF network.

(Pencil drawings)

The next day we drove out of France into Germany to visit Andy's relatives in Neckarsulm, Albert and Ursula Heyd. Their daughter, Susanne, and her husband of three weeks, Peter Lang, are our age (22) and speak English well, which helped a lot since Andy had only studied German for two years and I knew very little. They are all really wonderful people and we became friends immediately. 

The next day Peter and Susanne noticed that we were gawking at some clear CD 600s. Naturally they were curious as to what we were talking about. It is never very easy trying to explain about insulators when there's no language barrier to contend with -- with one, it is nearly impossible!!

A few days later we were given a tour of Gemmingen, a nearby town where Andy's great-grandfather lived before moving to America. On a few old houses in town we spotted a few U-1631s.

After dinner that evening at Ursula and Bert's home, Peter handed us a bag and said, "Guess what?" We were completely surprised to find a pair of U-1692s with an incuse PB2 on the ear! The conversation turned to insulator collecting, with all the usual questions: "How many do you have? Where do you keep them all? Do a lot of Americans collect these things? People pay money for them? How much? Are you serious?!?"

A few days later we said goodbye to the Heyds (that wasn't easy) and headed north to Rothenburg. Walking around the city wall gave us a great view of several insulators mostly brown U-2285s. We poked our head out one window and saw a really strange porcelain tramp with a green glazed crown. The one closest to us was a bit wiggly, but even after ten minutes of wiggling and pushing it still wouldn't come oft the pin. We would have tried to saw through the pin, but the place was just too visible and the pin was more than an inch thick.

Porcelain tramp with green glazed crown.

In Namur, Belgium, we saw various colored CD 459s and their porcelain twins, U-220s, and more French glass: CD 535, 536, and 537s and 'cock's combs' of various sizes. A few houses down the street from our hostel an electrician was working on the service drop to a house, which was insulated with a 7-up green cock's comb, probably CD 656. Andy explained we were Americans who collect insulators and wondered if he had any old insulators he wanted to get rid of. He gruffly replied that he usually discarded insulators on the spot. We thanked him and as we walked away we noticed him smiling. Guess we gave him a laugh for the day.

We drove back into France and spotted a pile of old poles and caught a glimpse of aqua. We stopped to poke around. All we could find unbroken were small sombreros in greenish aqua and one CD 379.5 L'Electro Verre on a 2" pin. I started to hack through it, but a lady in a nearby house started getting curious and asking questions. After twenty minutes of sawing I was still only a quarter way through the pin, so we decided to leave it before any trouble started. At least I saved a sombrero and a few small red "Danger du Mort" signs.

On the way into Paris again, on a line of mostly 532s there were several aqua CD 145 beehives! They were the same medium aqua as most Brookfields. Could Brookfield have sent insulators to France?

On June 5, Bill left Paris to fly home to the States. He said, "Although it was the greatest vacation I've ever had, and it was thrilling to see all the different glass and porcelain styles in Europe, I am still rather disappointed that I didn't bring some home with me. I kind of regret not being more daring in a few of those situations, but since it was my first time over there, I just wanted to avoid going to jail! Andy will remain in France until the end of June, 50 I have high hopes of him coming home with something."

Let's see what happened as Andy continues the story:

"After Bill left, I stayed in Paris a few days, then headed down through Chartres, Tours, Azay-le-Rideau, then on to Chinon. Somewhere en route, in a medium sized town, I saw what I refer to as "elephant-men" -- 3 or 4 white porcelain insulators with ears like a U-2091, but also a piece that came up from the top and arched down in front, just like an elephant's trunk. I'd love to know more about those, but with cars behind and the road so narrow.... Also, stopped once to look at a "Danger de Mort" sign -- black, about 4" x 7" or so -- and had it break off in my hand. Unfortunately, it also broke in half a bit later, so I didn't bring it back.

In Chinon I stopped at the EDF (Electricite de France) office, and got directions to their service building. I got lost trying to find it, but got put back on track by some men from EDF who were working on the wires. Unfortunately, the man I spoke to at their depot wasn't very co-operative. What do we do with the old ones? We throw them out. Where? Here, there, everywhere. Do you have any here? We throw them out. Ah, well. From there I went to visit my friends the Pichots in St. Flour, and discovered that they had some insulators for me, mostly large power pieces -- multiparts and sombreros. One huge L'Electro Verre piece I would love to have, but it must have weighed 15-20 lbs. and was way too big to fit in a suitcase. I had a great time with them -- one of the things we did was go insulator hunting. Xavier and Stephane, the Pichot's sons, would tell me where to drive, and they led be straight to an insulator graveyard! An area a bit smaller than a football field, overgrown with weeds, insulators strewn all over, with one or two large heaps. Most were broken, but I found enough to make me happy. 

After finding a CD 663 with its skirt smashed, I found one in very good shape. I also found a couple glass strains, some L'Electro Verre capacitors that I left on account of the rusty metal and their weight, a number of EIV HC 64s, L'Electro Verre 25s, EIV and L'Electro Verr DC 3s and more similar shapes, a couple of spools, one multipiece that we sawed off its mounting bracket, and signs I finally stopped picking out new things when I realized the amount of glass and metal I already wanted, but it was painful to leave so much behind. We spent some time removing tie wires and what metal we could, then we took them all to Transprim (the company the Pichots run) and we sawed the metal pins off almost flush with the insulators with a power saw. Saved me the effort of lugging around all the excess metal, but it made me rather anxious working with such a heavy power tool around my fragile glass. Thankfully, though, none were harmed.

Zillions of insulators and signs in this field near St. Flour.

Another day I held Stephane while he reached over a power station wall to get me a porcelain insulator similar to U-2034. Later on, he and Xavier took me back to a spot that I had been to 5 years ago -- the insulator dump I had visited on my first trip to France. At first sight, it appeared empty, but we stopped anyway. It had been bulldozed, and you could see pieces of insulators all over the place. Here and there, though, you could find a whole one. And then came my find. Five years ago I had stood there, found an insulator, picked it up, looked it over, and threw it back since it was broken. Now, five years later and a bit wiser, I found a porcelain gingerbread man with the back skirt badly broken. It was the very same one I had thrown back 5 years ago -- a brown porcelain gingerbread mama! As if that wasn't enough, we also found a glass Isorex / 25/7 gingerbread mama, identical to the porcelain one, with no inner skirt.

(There are 3 sizes in this gingerbread style. The mama (CD 641) is halfway between the smallest "boy" (CD 640) and the larger "man" (CD 642). However, the gingerbread mama that Andy found is slightly different in that it has no inner skit. It has been assigned CD#645. See the drawings and pictures that follow. MARILYN)

- - - - - - - - - -

(Left to Right) CD 645 - Isorex /25/7
U-2053 - No Name in white
U-2053 - No Name in brown!

Andy continues:

I also went to Sicily. In my journal, I wrote "clear glass here: some amazing crystal clear, some clear T-bars. Delightful mix of colors on poles: brown and white porcelain thrown together with aqua and/or clear suspension and pin types. Wonder cacophony." There were many poles without wires, but I never had the opportunity to take advantage of it. I was only there for three days, and I was too busy seeing Greek ruins and catching upon a friendship.

Walking back to St. Flour from the train station after coming back from Sicily, I saw two black gingerbread men. Serge Pichot said that he thought that the colored ones were from right after the war. I don't have any idea about the truth of that, but there aren't too many of the colored ones out there. The brown one I have and those two black ones were the only non-white gingerbread men, actually the only non- white porcelain, that I saw there.

That's about it for insulator experiences. I had a horrible time carrying the 56K (about 125 pounds) worth of suitcases, plus 40 or 50 more pounds of carry-on luggage, from my car where I left it in Paris, to the train station, from the train to a boat across the Channel, from the boat back to a train, and from the train to the plane in Gatwick, London. But I managed, and came back with about 30-35 insulators, 6 signs, and one fantastic experience.

Andy also found two French power insulators that have been assigned new CD numbers:

CD 386 - Isorex / 478, dark green glass

 
CD 396.2 (similar to 395.2 - larger) - 
VHT 22T(unembossed EIV), aqua

The pictures of the French signs taken by Andy did not show the wording very well:

(Far left) ATTENTION
LES CONDUCTEURS
EN AMONT DES SECTIONNEURS
RESTENT SOUS TENSION
DANGER DE MORT
translates: Warning, the wires above the disconnectors carry electrical current - danger of death

(other 3 signs, metal of various weights, wording all the same)
DEFENSE ABSOLUE 
DE TOUCHER AUX FILS 
MEME TOMBES A TERRE 
DANGER DE MORT 
translates: It is strictly forbidden to touch the wires even those fallen to the ground - danger of death

And finally a conglomeration of 4 signs, about 12" x 28" overall, including at top one of the round red ones described in the picture at the bottom of the previous page.

2nd Sign from top: White lettering on black plastic type material. Some of this is broken, but I am sure of the wording:
EN CAS D'ACCIDENT
PREVIR D'URGENCE
TELEPHONE: 33
translates: In case of accident immediately notify Telephone: 33

3rd sign from the top: White lettering on black plastic type material
ELECTRICITE DE FRANCE 
POSTE 
DE TRANSFORMATION HAUTE TENSION 
BARSOLIER 
DANGER DE MORT 
ACCESSIBLE SEULEMENT AU 
PERSON NEL AUTORISE 
translates: Electricity of France High Voltage Transformation Station Barsolier (a location name) Danger of death Authorized Personnel Only

4th sign from top: Black, heavy gauge metal
ELECTRICITE DE FRANCE
POSTE

POUR METTRE HORS TENSION 
DE TRANSFORMATEUR, OUVRIR:
a) L'interrupteur general B.T. de poste.
b) Les appareils a separation H.T. suivants: 388

AVANT TOUS TRAVAUX HORS TENSION 
NECESSITANT L'ASCENSIONS DE CE SUPPORT, 
SE CONFORMER AU CARNET DE PRESCRIPTIONS
ET AUX CONSIGNES EN VIGEUR
trans lates: Electricity of France Station
To Turn This Transformer Off, Open: 
a) The main switch B.T. of the station 
b) The following H.T. separating devices: 388

Before all work without power requiring the raising of this support, be sure to follow the manual and all instructions that are in effect.