"HOLDING THE WIRES"

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 267, 31 July 1918, Page 6

"HOLDING THE WIRES"

BATTLE WITH THE BLIZZARD

LINEMEN'S ROUGH EXPERIENCES

Mr. E. A. Shrimpton, Chief Telegraph engineer, who has been in the soutli lor the punt llireo weeks battling with tho elements in the cause of telegraphic communication, lias arrived back in Wellington. lie had a particularly rough time in North Canterbury. One of the chief •iiHiCiiillies experienced by Mr. Shrimptun and tho seventy men he lins had under lnm in attempting to re-establish communication in snow-bound areas was the lack of accommodation for the men. When they were working northwards towards Kaikoura from Parnassus tho men Mad to go out nine miles from the latter place, and then, as there was no shelter of any kind, they had to walk tho wholo of tho nine miles back in the enow to get some rest. One evening the party lost touch with two of their men, and as it was high time the men should have arrived back or reported, the party began to tap the wires leading in tho men's direction (they were about thirteen miles from Waiau). An effort was made to get communication by induction, and to the surprise of the party they got an answor at once. The men reported that they had at nightfall located a roadman's hut. "Got any blankets?" "No; but the hufs half-full of firewood!" . . . What about food?" "There's some baking-powder and ilour and a leg of mutton." .'. . "So you're all right?" "Ye®- all right!" t It was a load off "the Chief Engineer's mind, for to be adrift in a trackless snow-covered country at night without suitable clothes ia iourtlng tragedy. At one stage every subscriber to tho telephone in Amberley, Waikare, Hawardon, and Waiau was disconnected from the switchboards, To show what the weight of enow borne by tolegrapli wires will do, Mr. Shrimpton said that several wires were let], with 30ft spans, to a terminal polo at Waiau-a stout ironbark pole, well-trussed and set m concrete, yet 6ueh was tho weight that the pole was. pulled clean out of the ground The Chief Telegraph Engineer corroborates (he report as to -tho failure of the reinforced concrete poles to stand a "blizzard' test. This means that the snowjreezes on the wires, and as it continues the crust of ice or frozen snow thickens and thickens until it becomes as big round as a man's body, tyid where there are many wires they (ill become frozen together in a solid mass, and as tho weight grew something had to go. Sometimes it was the wires, sometimes .the poles. As a matter of fact, it was Mr. rjkink who h<id alternated the concrete with the ironbark poles north of Iwingiora. Ho bad no faith in the former, and had decided, without instruction, to .provide ironbark poles as a stifi'oner in case the others did not hold. Havoc was wrought by the blizzard on tho reinforced concrete poles, but the Department lias no record of an ironbark pole breaking. Near Woiau, they saw one polo brokon, and Mr. Shrimpton, being curious to see if, it was an ironbark one, ku<l it dug away and inspected. It was branded "N.S.W.-M's.," which meant a pole from New South Wales of a miscellaneous assortment; As the ironpoles are all branded "N.S.W.— 1.15.,' it was at once seen that it was not ironbark bu't grey gum. At times tho Department use old stec-l railway rails m ■ pairs (bolted base to base) as poles. Fourteen miles from Waiau there were poles of this description, but} under the weight of snow, the steel posts were all bowing to one another, and in some oases they hiad converted themselves into pot-hooks, and in others had snapped olf. As tho rails tfferp used ones, it was heid that crystallisation existed in most ot them, which, of course, would lesson their strength. Strange to say, the heaviest falls of snow wero on the flats, not in 'the hills, and Mr. Shrimpton said that lie saw more dead sheep between Culverden and Rothoram than anywhere else. There wero always black patchos visible in the hills, but tho flats wore one oven sheet °f "''"to as far as the eye could reach, The party tried to use horses for the work at first, but found that 'the horses knocked up quickly. A thin crust of snow would become frozen, and as at each step the horses' feet would sink through tlie crust and into the soft snow •below, it was found that tho edge of He crust was acting like a razor on the hocks of tho horses, shaving the liair oil, and cutting tho skin until the blood came.

At Waiau Mr. Shrimpton met an old friend in Mr. Georgo Anderson, a resident of the place for fifty-one years, and lie assured tho engineer that never during that time had such a snowstorm been' experienced.

As to the vagaries of the storm, Mr. Shrimpfon mentioned that on the Christ-church-W est Coast line the working gangs got the lino clear to Darfield on the Canterbury side, and the West Coast men found no difficulty in getting allclear ns far as Sheffield. That meant thdt [hoi© were only SGven'or eight miles betwQim the two gangs, and it was in that land of pocket thr\t from two to threo feet;of snow fell. On Sunday week hix inches of snow fell in Dunedi'n and Christchurch, whilst Timaru was bathed in spring-like .sunshine, yet looking far out to sea, even whilst the sun shone, the passage of the snowstorm could be seen. Another vagary was that the chill blast experienced here on ■Monday was evidently not felt'in North Canterbury, for had it swept that country,, where the wires, were often suspended temporarily in a precarious makeshift manner, there would have been more trouble reported yesterday, which .was not the case.