Despite the important role transmission line outages play in power system reliability analysis, it remains a challenge to estimate individual line outage rates accurately enough from limited data. Recent work using a Bayesian hierarchical model shows how to combine together line outage data by exploiting how the lines partially share some common features in order to obtain more accurate estimates of line outage rates. Lower variance estimates from fewer years of data can be obtained. In this paper, we explore what can be achieved with this new Bayesian hierarchical approach using real utility data. In particular, we assess the capability to detect increases in line outage rates over time, quantify the influence of bad weather on outage rates, and discuss the effect of outage rate uncertainty on a simple availability calculation.