> Well, I don't know what you are looking at, the cable coming over to the off set is signal. It goes on, under ground and into the signal case and battery box on the other side if needed.

Yes. Sometime in the 1990s, the case for signal 11581 (or the case at the former WE of Brose) was almost wiped out by a flying cow which had been hit by a EB fast freight.

> The "Pole Line" to the left, way to far to see what it is could be many things. It is signal as to the drop to the left shows. The pole line could contain high voltage for running trickle chargers down the line.

One thing is for certain, it's a Santa Fe pole line, not SP. At the time of the pic, "high voltage" was 750v and up.

> Oh, way back in the 60s, you still had Western Union on the railroads pole lines.

I've always wondered how many circuits on a railroad's pole line were WUT. There are restrictions on what can each company can do with their conductors (wires) on joint pole lines, and these tended to work against the RRs and WUT using common pole lines. Single-owner pole lines aren't subject to these restrictions.

Between Oak and Elvas, there was a separate pole line with about 6-10 sets of crossarms full of wires. These were all WUT.

> If everything is on one pole line, you can see different set ups and ID what they are for.
Carriers or code lines were usually on the bottom so a MofW could reach it with a clip on affair so he could talk to the dispatcher on a lay up stick. (I had one I donated to the Medford Telegraph Club).

That lay up stick wouldn't work with the carrier multiplexing stuff unless the phone itself was also equipped with the same electronics. It also had to be used with bare wires.

> Open wire, was a whole different kettle of fish. Construction, maintaining it, etc. You should try to get up a pole, thru a stack of 6 cross arms AND they are 16 pin arms. Took a skinny guy good on his gaffs.

Looked through my AT&SF signal department standard plan books, and the Santa Fe used 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 pin arms.

10-pin arms come in two varieties: 5 equally spaced pins on each side of the pole or the pins paired up: two sets of pins closer to each other followed by one pin next to the pole. The paired arrangement repeated on the other end of the arm and had to do with readily identifying each pari of wired used for a phantom circuit. In later years, there was a lot of mixing and matching of these crossarms as the companies (RRs included) engaged in "deferred maintenance" and cost cutting.

More than 10 pins means that somebody's cheating or the crossarm was installed before (Calif PUC) GO 90 prohibited the practice (which it might not, depending on the voltage carried in the wire). The distance between the pole an the first pin on either side was also dictated by GO 90, and it was a question of leaving room for a lineman to climb the pole. The practices outlined in GO 90 vary from state to state, but Calif was one of the first to adopt them, about 100 years ago.

> I don't know how many of you knew that the SP was the largest, private phone company in the world, even thru Sprint. (That was a dumb sale but who was minding the store?)

I heard it was because BFB had to raise money to pay off the Ticor debacle. Besides, you can't keep a satellite up there at restricted speed.