Another photo of Freds from the Puget Sound

By Michael Spadafora; posted June 4, 2006

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l picture showing M-3725, M-2785 gutter and M-4325 top skirt by Fred Locke. Last year I found a historic artical in an old trade journal describing Puget Sound Power and Light's troubles with the Electron line . So many Fred Locke M-4325s had failed that they had to replace every one with a new insulator . They were pron to cracking in service causing pole fires . The orignal locke insulators were mounted on wood pins which also had a habbit of burning . These were replaced with metal pins . The wood block pole top in the prevous picture has a nail hole in the wood indecating it once had a wood pin. By 1918 nearly 3,000 M-4325 insulators by locke had failed in service!!! The M-2785 gutters in the sub station photos were also were replaced when the interurban lines were upgraded to 55kv from 28 kv around 1918. Here is a picture of the gutter in service in 1904 [id=223957957]

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