“It consists of two flangled beams of iron or steel, preferably rolled steel joist of 'H' or of channel sections, placed one beside the other with their flanges inward and preferably at a slight angle one with the other and held together with means of tie bolts, the space between them being filled with cement concrete.” - James Stobie, describing the Stobie pole, 1924
Nationality: (South) Australian
Year of Production: 1924-current
Number built: Unknown, but many.
Weight: 8.5 tons for 12 metre pole. Other sizes vary.
Length: Unknown
Width: Unknown
Height: 6 to 26 metres, reportedly able to be built to 36 metres.
Background: Yes. I know where a few of these are. No, I am not into measuring power poles. Length and width will remain unknown unless ETSA or the like is interested enough to tell me.
Anyway, back in the days of 1924 of South Australia, there was a shortage of termite resistant wood, which is a bad thing for a wooden power pole that may get munched on by, well, termites.
Now, not being munched on by termites is a good thing, but having a pole that can't really be knocked over by a car or be set on fire is better, since it avoids the fuss of cutting off power, putting pole back in, internet users mocking car driver for being an idiot that cut off their power so they couldn't play Planet of Peacebuild or whatever, even though it hadn't been invented yet.
A man called James Stobie decided to get around that problem by using the most common materals he had access to build power poles out of, which were iron and concrete. Stobie and his mate, John Brookman were so confident, they set up a company to patent and sell manufacturing rights, and thus, the humble Stobie pole was born.
In 1924, South Terrace in Adelaide started receiving them, and they soon began to appear throughout South Australia, being cheap and easy to build, a standard appearance and long life expectancy, estimated at over 80 years.
Minor side effects of their construction such as being immune to termites, unless they eat steel and concrete, and being very very slightly fire and car proof.
By car proof, I mean a small amount of damage.
Very very small.
Why should I be afraid of it? And what does it do?
“The Stobie split the car in two and it's basically up where the gear stick should be.” - Vlado, on a black Ferrari Mondena that collided with a Stobie pole in 2008. (Link to article in sources)
Right, I'll add a slight correction to that quote above. The Ferrari wasn't split in two. It was merely 'converted' from a front-engined model to a mid-engined model. Mid-engined as in the engine being right next to you in the passenger seat. Thanks to the Stobie, who's favourite food is speeding drivers. Although it didn't get it's meal on that occasion, both people in the car survived.
The Stobie was undamaged. Maybe they had to scrape the paint of the car off it or something, but that's it. Not too shabby for a power pole.
You should be afraid of it if you're a speeding idiot, these things are set into the ground, and will happily attempt to shift the position of your engine, and if you're in the way, then that's too bad. Especially if you drive a rear-engined model sports car.
Sure, if you had a tank or something, then maybe you'd damage one, but anyway.
These poles are quite simply ridiculously strong, especially the older ones, reported to be stronger then all-steel poles, but I don't smash power poles up, so I don't know, and are mainly in use in the state of South Australia, although a town in New South Wales uses them as well, reportedly, so if you're ever lost in Australia and you see one of these, you know where you are.
Although they're not the most beautiful of sights (there are Stobie pole beautification projects though), they're sturdy, an icon of South Australia, damned intimidating when feeding on cars, and have remained in production for over 80 years. Oh, and are used to carry street lights.
Not too bad for something that was built through lack of timber.
Sources:
Stobie Pole: Wikipedia
Stobie Poles: SAMemory
Most amazing Ferrari crash ever: Daily Telegraph
Stobie, James Cyril: Biographical Entry
Own personal knowledge
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