Old City Light and Power, Indiana Michigan Power Utility Pole

A shot of an old City Light and Power, Indiana Michigan Power utility pole just west of Forest Park in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The two glass insulators are CD 218 Hemingray-660s. The transformer is an old cast iron Westinghouse.

Fort Wayne was one of those few cities where many decades ago had a choice of two electric utilities, Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) and City Light and Power (CL&P). On March 1, 1975 that would all change when CL&P was leased to I&M for 35 years.
At first I&M slowly started to upgrade the power grid doing away with the old CL&P lines while upgrading their own lines. Than about 15 years ago I&M got more aggressive about the upgrading and that progressed even faster as the lease was getting nearer. I&M would eventually become the exclusive electric service provider for Fort Wayne after the lease was up in February 28, 2010.

After all the upgrades to the power grid two neighborhoods in Fort Wayne never got the new upgrades. Sections of the Northside Neighborhood and small sections of Spy Run Neighborhood never got the upgrades.
On the old poles the I&M lines were up on the top crossarms while the CL&P lines would be on the bottom crossarms. Sometimes down an alley the I&M poles would be on one side with the CL&P poles on the other side.

CL&P used four different glass insulators on their lines. CD 168 Hemingray D-510s, CD 218 Hemingray-660s, CD 230 Hemingray D-512s, and CD 272 Whitall Tatum 511As.

This pole got upgraded last summer along with all the other poles in the alley. I believe it is all now just a single phase circuit line. Hard to believe compare to all these lines.

To read more info about City Light and Power please go to this link. www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081224...