Thread: Telegraph Poles

Rick Rines post regarding concrete pergola columns prompted me to post this.
In WA there are thousands of disused telegraph poles along the country railway lines, I'm talking about the type with a cast iron base with a tapered wrought iron pole inserted in the top of them. Like this.telegraph pole 001.jpg
They've been in use for over 100 years but are now redundant due to wireless technology. The cast iron base of the type that I'm talking about is seven feet long and has base with four bolt holes where it can be bolted down to a plinth or pedestal, the tapered pole is secured in the socket on the top by a tapered threaded collar.
When I was building my house in 2007 I thought these would make ideal verandah posts either sitting up on a 1 foot pedestal or with 1 foot of the pole at the top to give me 8 foot of headroom.
After exhaustive approaches to various railways departments I came to the conclusion that they guard them with their life and me getting my hands on a dozen or 20 was never going to happen, so the house was built and normal square tube was used for the posts.
A couple of years ago I came across five that had been pulled and were lying on the scrap heap at a siding and after contacting the relevant department I received permission to salvage them. Originally the base was bolted to a steel plate about 2 foot square and this anchored them down the hole and they were buried about 1/3 their depth in the ground, but in some cases they were stood on the ground and rock rubble was heaped around them.
Anyhow this is how one of them ended up.decatur 003.jpgdecatur 004.jpg
I am still of the opinion they would make excellent verandah posts.
Geoff.