Thanks for the replies.
I just remembered something. An area near there was upgraded with a rather high voltage running down the streets. 35kV if I remember the newspaper article correctly. (the poles and transformers do have unusually large insulators). Later I noticed that this distribution network was fed _directly_ from another set of ancient-looking metal towers (different design) that appear to use the same insulators as the ones I asked about, except for a rectangular box (not a transformer) in series. Looked like a capacitor bank (does it make any sense to have capacitors in series with a distribution system?) These towers may run from the same substation as the ones I asked about.