In April my friend Michael Spadafora and I hiked a portion of the Niagara, Lockport & Ontario Power Co.'s early 60,000-volt transmission line. On a cloudy rainy day in a New York marsh we found the top pin to the special M-4700 Ohio Brass stacking insulator poking out of the ground with only 12" visible. The original line insulators were M-3890 installed in 1906-1907. In about 1915 the line was insulated with the Ohio Brass stacking insulators made of two M-4395s (the top insulator in the photos) after lightning caused too many operating issues. This particular stretch of line used the M-4700 16" dia insulator on the bottom of the stack due to the locale experiencing highly electrical storms. During line disassembly circa 1927 the entire insulator was dropped from the A-frame pole and speared into the marsh. The insulator slowly sank and the porcelain survived years of freeze and thaw cycles with only one clean break on the top skirt. It took about 2 hours to pull it out of the mud during a cloudy, rainy day. The marshy ground was a solid mesh of roots that had to be cut, some root by root toward 1'+ deep. The hole left behind was over 4' deep and the insulator weighs probably 100+ lbs. Hauling it to the car was a ridiculous task as well!

The insulator bolted onto a double crossarm straddling an A-frame pole with a heavy cast mounting bracket. The lower insulator's head is a cast iron cap with horns for mounting suspension insulators used at line strain positions.

Upper insulator is an Ohio Brass M-4395 and lower insulator is an M-4700. Very few M-4700 are known and this is the only one with original gas pipe pin and upper insulator mounting pin still in existence!