Transmission conductor left on the original drums.

Line work produces three distinct kinds of conductor. There is the tail of a new drum that was never fully paid out, the conductor stripped from the old line and coiled or re-reeled, and the spare drums delivered for the job that stayed sealed and banded. Each one carries a different history.

Sealed drums are the easiest to describe: original banding, legible stencil, factory length still marked on the flange. Pulled conductor is harder, because it has been tensioned, sagged, spliced and weathered, and its remaining length has to be established by measurement rather than assumed from a tag.

Conductor is paid out under tension through bullwheel pullers, and the drum takes that load through its spindle and flanges. A drum that was dragged, dropped or stored on its side shows it: bent flanges, crushed lagging, a spindle hole no longer round. Those drums are still reviewed, but they are harder to move and harder to trust.

Lagging is the first thing to check, because it holds the outer layers and keeps weather off the conductor. A drum with missing lagging and a slack outer wrap has usually stood outside, and the first few layers may be scuffed or sun-bleached. That does not condemn the drum, but it changes what a buyer expects underneath.

• Lagging intact and nailed, with the original stencil readable on the flange.
• Layers tight, with no birdcaging and no flattened or scuffed strands.
• Drum stored upright on firm ground, not sunk into mud or standing water.
• Repair sleeves marked and located, since they limit usable length.

Codes such as Rail, Drake, Cardinal and Bittern are shorthand for a defined stranding and diameter, and a line crew needs the same code for fittings, compression splices and deadends. The stencil should give the code, the strand pattern, the length and the standard the conductor was made to. The ACSR and AAAC file sets out how the core is read.

Where the stencil has faded, the flange often carries a stamped number that reads under a torch and photographs well close in. The cut end settles the rest. A buyer counts strands, measures the diameter and checks the core with a magnet before describing the drum in any terms.

A buyer walks the drums, reads each stencil, checks layer tension and takes a short sample where a cut end is already exposed. Footage comes from the factory marking, a counter, or weight against a known construction. Release paperwork and the isolation record are matched to the material, and unopened drums travel with their factory test sheet.

Terms are written against that description rather than the drum count, and the description names what is included: the drums, any loose conductor, and the hardware still banded to the flanges. Anything staying behind is named too, so nothing is loaded that the owner did not intend to release.

Nothing is cut to make a drum easier to handle. A drum that still carries its factory length is worth more intact than as loose conductor.