Port Road Cantenary pole "CUT" down

Hopefully I will get an answer here. I looked out my backyard from my townhome in Perryville MD last week and I was rattled by awe and disbelief! The remnant cantenary pole (minus wire of course) that stood behind my town home was cut down to a shortened pole. WHY is my question. Was it in danger of falling? Was it rotted? Stacked trains made it under with no problem... I don't get it. It has been there from when I moved in at 2007. It was PRR History. Something my railfan friends saw and talked about the minute they walked out on my deck. Is this a plan to replace it? Or is there some other reason? I mean with today's company's bitching about costs and such they actually had money to spend to take this piece of history down! Sad if you ask me! Luckily I took pics of it! My 2 pennies!

UPDATE: A week later and it seems to have been this one and only pole that was cut. Hopefully someone from here on NS surely will know the story. Thanks.

Not the only one - they're cut down through Port Deposit also. I saw them doing this work last week (two large trucks with cranes) and they may still be active this week. they seem to have cut most down to the cross bar, but I actually saw them remove some whole poles. It seems to depend if they have wires on them, or not. Not sure why they feel the need to go to so much effort to cut them in half.

Really? There not needed so there removing them. Just like the ded tree you might have in your back yard, you cut it down. It's not needed. Just because it's part of the PRR history. doesn't mean a thing to a Southern based company.

Len.

I wouldn't let a tree in my back yard die.....if one did due to outside influences, I'd take the whole thing out, not cut it in half.

I've often heard the story that the reason that the catenary poles stayed up as long as they did is that they were too expensive / not worth the time to remove.

Maybe something has changed. Scrap steel prices, perhaps?