My neighbor is burning RR ties....

[Booshcat]

Isn't burning used flashlight batteries, to protest burning creosote a little bit
oxymoronic?
Kinda like burning 9000 gallons of AV fuel to fly around the country to preach about saving the earth.

 

[Scootermsp]

Shocks

I vote for old gas charged automobile shocks, stand the F by!!!!

 

[PasoRoblesJimmy]

Isn't burning used flashlight batteries, to protest burning creosote a little bit oxymoronic?
Kinda like burning 9000 gallons of AV fuel to fly around the country to preach about saving the earth.

Nope!!!!! Flashlight batteries tossed into fires don't burn, they explode.

A can of chili beans buried in the coals will explode quite violently as well. A shower of hot beans will burn bare skin just as effectively as a shower of hot tar.

 

[svk]

TTT

 

[svk]

Gives us wood burners who do things correctly a bad name.

I see a trend here.

 

[Whitespider]

This old thread is even funnier than the other one.
Although there is one single voice of reason on page one..

RR ties and poles are not bad, as long as they are only poached in creosote.

A bunch of parrots repeating silliness they've be told... "toxic"... "poison"... "carcinogen"... "cancer"... the sky is fallin'... the sky is fallin'... the sky is fallin'... the sky is fallin'... the sky is fallin'...
Polly wanna' cracker??

 

[tla100]

There have not been "Telephone" poles around for YEARS. They are ELECTRIC POLES!!!!!!

Get it right people!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Whitespider]

They are ELECTRIC POLES Get it right people!

Those poles ain't electric... they're wooden.
I always hear them called power line poles... or just power poles.
And by-the-way, out here in near nowhere land, we still have a few telephone poles.
*

 

[stihly dan]

There have not been "Telephone" poles around for YEARS. They are ELECTRIC POLES!!!!!!

Get it right people!!!!!!!!!!!

MOst are power poles around here, the others are cable poles. Which in a sense is telephone, since most phones other than cell come from the cable and internet. Which is the same.

 

[Chris-PA]

Around here the taller, newer ones are the power poles. The ancient short ones right next to the power poles are for telephone and cable - they're the ones the power company cut off 20 years ago when they put in new poles, but the phone and cable companies never bothered to move their lines.

 

[tla100]

Heh, around here there are very few left. Almost all cable/phone is underground, towns do pull overhead, but on power poles. In high school I worked for a pole inspection company during the summers. One of the toughest jobs I have ever had. We only worked on power poles. Dig a hole all the way around, 18" deep and probably 8-10" out. Dig holes all morning to get ahead of the head honcho pole inspector, he would scrape and look for damage and rot, drill a 3/8 or so hole all the way to center of pole. Put tool to check if core is rotten. Pound a wooden plug in. Document and tag it with round aluminum stamped circle. Next guy would treat pole with a brush out of a 5 gallon bucket full of CuRap 20 and then wrap in brown paper/plastic wrap. Then the crap job of backfilling, which I got stuck with being the youngest. My blisters had blisters, cracks and sore hands. I was one tough SOB after years of that.

We did run out of the blue CuRap 20 a couple times and went to old oily creasote. I will say, that crapped burned when it got on you, for a few days. For some reason I got stuck treating poles with the nasty stuff.

 

[Whitespider]

We still have old telegraph poles (complete with glass insulators) standing several places in Iowa... some still being used to carry rural "end-of-line" phone and electricity.

Although these are not being used anymore, they run along the Chicago Central And Pacific Railroad.

 

[tla100]

I see them on way to Sewer City along the rail lines, but not in use.

 

[GrizzlyAdams86]

Those crossbars with the insulators can fetch big $$$ with the artsy-fartsy crowd. Still have a couple 5 gal buckets full of insulators me and a friend split after a farmer let us take them off his fences when he quit raising cows about 15 yrs ago.

 

[Whitespider]

Still have a couple 5 gal buckets full of insulators...

Some of those insulators can be worth mega-mega-bucks... I mean like thousands of bucks.
I don't know the fine details, but I do know the colored (glass, not porcelain) insulators are most likely to be of high value, but it depends on markings, embossing, and other such (the aqua/light blue are not colored, that's natural).
I've collected a few colored and unique lookin' examples over the years (they may not be worth sour owl squat... shrug).
As a kid we used them for target practice... while they were still on the poles‼

Supposedly (according to unverified internet sources), this root beer colored, thread-less, screw-top sold at auction for $35,000.00... that's mega-mega-MEGA-bucks‼

 

[GrizzlyAdams86]

Most of the ones in the buckets I have are Hemingray. Also have some Pyrex ones too. I do have a few porcelain ones, but only about 3 or 4. Would have to say almost all are the garden variety ones too, but who knows, may have a rare one or 2 in there.