Part of our History

Relics from the past, insulators, like the one pictured below, were used for railroad phone and telegraph wires.  Back in 1865, an American carpenter, Louis Cauvet, invented and patented the threaded pinhole design we may still find in insulators lying along old railroad track beds throughout our country.

They were designed as a method for threading the inside pinhole of the insulator, which then could be screwed down on a threaded wood or metal pin.  Unlike earlier, slide-on insulators, these screw-on insulators stayed in place when the poles were battered by strong winds.

Millions of them were made and used for about 100 years.  They are now, of course, obsolete for the most part, replaced by fibre optics or wireless communications.

Most people, these days, wouldn't even know what these objects are unless they were explained to them.  If you're walking along old railroad tracks in the country, you might be lucky enough to find one still, maybe lying in the railroad-bed weeds. Maybe, even on some still-standing post.  More likely, you'll see one at a garage sale or flea market, mixed in with a box of other strange objects.
 
Most older Canadians have had a glass insulator in a window or on a bookcase in their house at some point in their life.  I still do.  No longer made in Canada, they now are an interesting piece of Canadian history.