Pat Scott, a friend of mine from St. Louis knows a couple contractors that cut down poles for railroads. They happened to be near me working on the BNSF Railway River Subdivision which runs from Lindenwood Yard near St. Louis, MO to Memphis, TN while closely paralleling the Mississippi River at times along the way. The route is former Burlington Northern. It was built by the St. Louis San Francisco Railroad, better known as the Frisco. The BN merged with SLSF in 1980.

Pat came down with his family on the 22nd and we set out to find the contractors to look and hunt for insulators. We met in Chaffee, MO at 10 A.M. We ran into a lot of common glass and plastic insulators, but we managed to take a few home. Glass is glass. Pole lines look great up beside the tracks, but even as much fun as they are standing, they are also fun to dismantle when their day comes to fall down. Here is what we ran across today.

Up near Sikeston we found poles laying on the ground piled up. They were almost 100% plastic, but I did snag this milepost sign in this photo by Pat. Frisco redid a lot of the line in 1980 and BN 1981 with new wire, poles, arms, and the plastic insulators.

The ironic thing is I was at the same crossing with a friend railfanning about 2 weeks earlier and got a picture of a BNSF Train with the poles standing in this photo and this one of the end of the train.

We headed on down the road and found poles with no crossarms. Further south around Matthews, MO we found poles with the crossarms on them. About 2 miles south of Matthews we found poles still standing. Pat and I got out of our cars and looked at some of the arms along the parallel road while taking a few and some clear, and non clear insulators. About 10 minutes later we looked up and noticed that the poles that had been standing were now gone-we had caught up with the contractors.

After walking the line, talking to them a while, they called it a day. Pat and I had talked about me putting up a display pole. After asking the going price for a pole I gladly paid them the $10 for a nice 15' 1" pole to put up in my grandpa's yard. I'll hang a couple arms on it and make it look nice. The pole already had 5 steps on it.

After giving one of the contractors a ride back to his truck we bid farewell to them and Pat and I went to pick up my pole. After loading that in with the crossarms, hardware, and insulators we tied it down and Pat went back to St. Louis around 1 P.M. after he took photos of a Whitall Tatum in the weeds and my truck full of the loot.

I also took a photo of the Whitall Tatum.

Pat working the cresent wrench as I gain yet another arm.

After I got back to my grandpa's house near Fisk, MO I took a photo of my truck with the today's finds in it.

My pole laying in the back yard after I put a couple arms on it for fitting.

The other Frisco arms I came home with along with a couple milepost signs. Pat has the other MP 176 Sign.

The arms on my new pole with a 6 insulators on it because I felt like it.

I ended up with 1 pole, 2 milepost signs, 8 crossarms, about 20 plastic insulators, and around 25 glass insulators, not bad for my first actual insulator hunt which lasted about 3 hours.