I was at the Fire Island Pines yesterday.
While wandering around one of the trails that follows the utility poles between Cherry Grove and The Pines (two towns on this thin little sandbar between the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island) I noticed a T-shaped iron lever attached to the base of the pole. A rod ran up from the lever and then linked to whatever the rats' nest was up on top of that pole.
It looked like a switch to me - seemed like it would probably cut out a section of the power line so that lines-men could do repairs if needed. I wasn't about to move it anyway....besides, I think it was also padlocked.
I've never seen anything like that. You wouldn't have such a thing in New York City....for obvious reasons. Or would this be a sort of circuit breaker?
Also, I noticed on another pole, The Phone Co. had a big tin cabinet attached to it, with an electric meter. As I trudged by, I heard the thing rattle to life, run for half a minute and then go back to sleep.
I took a closer look (couldn't open the box, of course), but I noticed a black tube going to a little metal rack holding about five valve nozzles like the ones on a car or bike tire. More hoses then dissapeared into the sand. I guess this is a compressor for keeping the salt water from leaking into the telephone cables.
Pretty ingenious.
