Yes, it was common along the places where the RR line parallelled a highway or country road...We just replaced a lot of insulators. Usually, there was no interruption of service unless the wire was cut by the bullet that shattered the insulator, this was more common on the No8 copper wires than the big No 6 and No 8 iron telegraph wires.
True story...Fall of 1965...
One particularly bitchy one I got into was on the west side of Tenessee
Pass above Pando...I was at the time the "assistant" lineman to a Mr. Belker, the Section Lineman HQ'd at Glenwood Spgs, and, as an Engineering trainee, I had been sent there by the Supt. of communications to learn linework "by doing". Belker had taken
a couple weeks off for some reason, and I had his territory and line truck/motor car to myself to keep things fixed up over his district
which stretched from Salida to Rifle on the D&RGW while he was away.
Mostly this involved nothing but testing for troubles knocking out wraps in the telephone pairs, and replacing blown fuses due to lightning strikes and stuff like that. But I had
more to learn!
One day the No. 1 Morse wire Salida-Grand Jct failed "open" and tests
from the various available manned office switchboards indicated the open was west of Malta and east of Minturn. No. 1 wire was on the No 6
or right hand pole pin position on the top 10 pin crossarm, and also was the "time signal" and the only "in service" Morse wire over that district. The Boss wanted it returned to service ASAP. I was dispatched toward Tenessee Pass to investigate.
The weather was crappy, fog and intermittent heavy rain. I Unlocked the closed depot building'at Pando, made a test at the switchboard, and found the wire open east of there.
Drove to Tenn Pass and tested at an available test box there, wire was open west. Went back west towards Pando.
Drove back down along the road and located a pullout where the road was close to the RR line...Being a little suspicious of this spot, and also
knowing there was no place along there where a rock slide would have
damaged the line plus the fact that the wire was a huge No,6 iron wire
not easily broken down anyway, I decided to have a look.
I parked the truck, got out my belt, rope block/tackle & Chicago grips, climbing hooks, splicing sleeves, Nicopress tool, and some No. 6 wire, and set out to walk the line each way from that spot to see what I could find.
Sure enough, I soon spotted the wire down, glass insulator shot away on a crossarm. Damn! The wire was down on both sides of the pole where it was shot in two, and the ends clearly indicated it had been cut by a high powered rifle bullet.
The wire was still "hot" with 160 volts of battery on it from both the Grand Jct and Salida ends. It was raining and everything was wet, the bushes were wet, my boots and pants and jacket were wet, and when I grabbed the wire with wet gloves, I got zapped pretty well....too well
to work with it to get it together because I couldn't hold onto it.
My portable telephone and KOB Morse set was way back at the truck, So with no way to call in and get someone to open the wire and take the battery off it at the ends, I elected to climb a pole on either side of the break and temporarily ground the thing to get the juice off the broken ends so I could splice it. This I did, and jumpered the No. 1 wire to the ground wires at the top of the poles to solidly ground it in each direction.
Repairing the break then required splicing a piece of wire on on one end of the break and then hauling both ends up on the pole crossarm with the blocks and handline. Then I could splice it, and install a new insulatorand put on the tie wire.
I finally got the thing together and it took all the strength I had to squeeze that Nicopress tool on that big No. 6 splicing sleeve....But I finally "got 'er done".
Drove back to Pando to test again, and the wire worked fine.
That was the one and only time in my rather brief carrer as a working lineman that I had to splice one of those big No.6 iron wires. Many times I later spliced the No. 8 iron and copper wires,
but those big No. 6 wires were tough. I had a lot more respect for the work linemen have to do after that.
