Old phone lines...

[cdnbeehive]

Just wondering what kind of experiences any of you have had hunting old cross-country phone lines.

I came across some old maps showing one in west-end Ottawa that turned up NOTHING. It was in a rocky area and there weren't even piles to be found at potential pole sites!

Thinking it was a fluke, I decided to try another one, this time it was the old Montreal-Toronto long distance line that ran along some roads, then took cross-country shortcuts. I found poles from the old line along one road last fall and confirmed it was part of this route. In many spots there were double poles with crossarms and empty pins. I could tell looking at them up-close that there were 4 crossarms on these poles. The evidence lies not in the notches on the pole, but the diagonal marks where the braces were attached. I was hoping thse double poles once held tramps, but there was not a shard to be found ANYWHERE!! On sections of the line where the poles were removed there was no evidence it had ever existed.

Was this just Bell's policy everywhere? Talk about frustrating!

After this dismal hunt I went to a nearby flea market and found a pile of aqua ponies and left them there... I had managed to pull a couple of electric fence insulators while walking the phone line, but I felt like I had a crummy hunt. Determined to get some glass, I stopped by an active line and made a dash for the nearest double pole before it started p*ssing rain. One the ground there must have been 20 Dominions and a few CanPac shards... a few feet away I stuck my pitchfork in the ground and hit more glass... this time 4 CanPac 143's and a Hemi Blue SDP 145. Nothin spectacular, but I hope I'm getting due for a purple CanPac considering the hundreds of common ones I've found over the past 3 years!!!

[TedW]

I'd think that when the lines were dismantled, the old poles and arms would have been hot commodities for local farmers. The insulators probably went with them, hence the large quantities of tolls and ponies some end up having. Other times when digging in the Ottawa area, I've found some major and some small farm dumps absolutely loaded with tolls and ponies. Unfortunately, one dump which I never completed digging yielded shards of hundreds of insulators, but only a complete 102 and 115 came out intact.

[Lee S.]

I spoke with a retired Bell lineman a few years ago and he told me that they would remove the poles and throw the insulators into the pole holes before filling the holes with dirt...

[daverosy]

I met an old farmer who used the wood and put the glass in barrels "out back".
I ended up with a huge pile of lavender <> 121's and a heap of <> milky ponies.
Nice guy. Gave him a few bills for what he regarded as "junk".
Maybe check some of the local farms etc.?
Every farmer knows the next one over...

Cheers.

[cdnbeehive]

I turned up this baby in a local dump yesterday...

It's not complete, and I will attempt to dig the rest of it, but what I have has no remaining embossing...

Can anyone provide a positive ID based on the colour? Locke? K? No Name?

Chris

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[cdnbeehive]

And in the same dump...

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[cdnbeehive]

Awesome finds Chris!

Thanks! You can imagine how weird it must feel to unearth such unusual CD's for the wild!

[Alex]

On sections of the line where the poles were removed there was no evidence it had ever existed.

Was this just Bell's policy everywhere? Talk about frustrating!

Whatever the whim was of the supervisor.

Here in London, the hale street bridge they are just in the beginning stages of building, the poles have been ripped out and unceremoniously dumped into the trash pile. You may go hunting along that line one day, but you won't find anything.
Any Londoners looking for some commons, I know theres a bunch of cd154s still intact on these arms, along with maybe something good. Pedestrian access is relatively speaking, easy, as the orange fencing has been lying on its side most evenings and doesn't even really block access from the sides.

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Alex.