Maybe this really should be filed in "insulators out of service."

These are six crates of insulators removed from service from the UP (formerly GM&O) right-of-way tracks north of Dwight, Illinois.

My friend Chris and I worked our way north from Dwight on old US 66 this afternoon. About a mile north of Dwight, at the corner of Old Mazon Road and Old US 66 (GPS coordinates 41.119N, 88.395W), we saw a truck parked. I walked over and met Mr. Ben Bixler of Gillam Railroad Service from Clinton, Arkansas. Of course, I asked what had become of the insulators.

He said follow me, to a brick farmhouse just down Old Mazon Road. The farmer had given them permission to park their equipment and store their supplies behind his house. He had six full wire crates, about 3 x 3 x 3 feet each, full of insulators, with another one partially filled. He was selling them 4 for $3. He said he had shipped some back to Arkansas, but nobody seemed very interested in them. In fact, he said his boss was irritated at the cost of shipping them.

We picked over the top layer of the crates. There were lots of Hemi hives, some signals, some Brookfield and Hemi CD 152s, lots of 154s. I did not see one CREB. I bought twenty bucks worth. I hate to see this stuff go, even if it is just common glass. The old constantly-lit block signals seemed like a friend to me for all of the many years that I have driven up and down I-55. Now they are all gone, and the trackside lines that operated them are almost gone.

He said that they started at Springfield this summer and worked their way north, with the exception of about 30 miles that they skipped, he did not say why. He has a crew of four other guys. They are currently staying in Dwight, and work from sunup to sundown.

North of milepost 225 towards Gardner, the poles are down but the wire and insulators have not been harvested yet. But Mr. Bixler complained about people "swarming" (his word) all over their materials, pilfering from their trucks, and the like. He's much more likely to be kindly disposed towards people who ask first, rather than just ripping him off. Seeing how nice he was to us, I'd recommend giving him a call before lifting any of his materials.