David Dahle's photos

The route I took heading to my insulator club's swap meet at Nisswa took me down a county road that happened to carry a long 7200V line out of the rural sub near Dayton Hollow. I now see why the main transformer was so big! Anyway, this was a real surprise to find! One, Westinghouse transformers are rare on Otter Tail, two, this was a 7200V unit, third, there was a second one not far away!

Looks like they buried part of the old 41.6kV line that fed this long since shelled-out sub. Surprising they've never bothered to replace the badly faded sign on the sub either.

The old transformer pole at Raymond still stands, along with its crossarm-mounted bank (I'd bet the three cans are GE units).

Looks like Xcel decided to add some better regulators to the 23.9kV circuit... wonder why there instead of inside the main fence?

Part of a weird structure added to reroute a line coming into the area. The lines going left all end in a downguy pole.

At least the 4160V system in Ihlen and 2400V delta system in Jasper (likely Home Electric Co. and not NSP) are still intact!

Sorry for the lack of uploads, but this whole pandemic thing has upended everything and made overnight travel just about impossible. This was from only the third trip I made all summer, and it was mainly to check on one antique shop here that had been a good source of insulators over the years after it moved to a new, smaller building... found only one insulator worth taking home and after cleaning I found some hidden damage... Anyhow, it was interesting to see this new switch arrangement, and which was a relocation of the switch from a poorly accessible location in the back (the old switch has been shelled out and bypassed).

NWPS' line angling towards the bridge over the Missouri River to interconnect with West Central Electric Coop's 69kV system.

A house I noticed on my way back home from a day trip in June. Can't imagine why they would only build and fit out the basement.

A friend invited me to his 'milestone' birthday party which was held at his hometown (Huron) so I decided to grab my camera and head up - hadn't seen him or his wife since the pandemic began, so I was more than happy to go. First up was to check on a couple things at the Wessington Springs muni; they've put another leg of the system underground so there wasn't much new for me to photograph, but I did get a closer look at the former lighting plant - it's more a storage building for the city these days.

One change was they apparently completed an LED retrofit of the street light system, but that seems overkill to use suspension discs to terminate the messenger for the street light wires.

On my way over to Woonsocket, I decided to check out Lane to see if there was a substation serving the town (only 59 people), and realized that I'd finally found the west end of the third circuit from the substation in Woonsocket; the sub there had two 4160V circuits and the third I'd assumed was 13.2kV (turned out to be 12.5kV). On my way back to the state highway, I glimpsed a pair of empty sidepins for a long-ago phone circuit - the pole doesn't look it, but it was gray and VERY old for a NWPS pole!

I got grumbly when I saw this pole... it turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg once I went into town for a closer look.

A taste of what was in evidence EVERYWHERE within Woonsocket; that was one of a literal handful of remaining side-bushing cans still in the air (and this pole replaced one that carried a 4-bolt Westinghouse transformer. I'm thinking if and when the 'all clear' gets sounded on the pandemic, NWPS will dispatch a crew to do the final changeover.

This section of the 34.5kV system still has a few JD blue insulators.

Other than the odd appearance of the 69kV here, there's nothing to suggest that a major substation once sat here: www.ipernity.com/doc/ndlinegeek/18856373

The present line into the railyards swinging around the remains of the last 2400V circuit in Huron. I was surprised to see the railroad folks were wiling to swap over from 2400V to 13.2kV so quickly.

An odd pole spotted as I began the homeward bound leg of my trip yesterday... I may have been more than full (my friend's dad taught him well in the finer points of barbecuing), but not too full to get a picture of this!