OCR Text |
Show vative. Three medicines have been prescribed as standard: low residue coal tar creosote forced into the pole under pressure to a saturation of eight pounds to the cubic foot; greensalt; and a type of solution bearing the impressive im-pressive designation-pentachloro-phenol-petroleum, popularly known as "penta". The creosote treatment, used successfully for many years, turns the pole black, (linemen call creosoted poles "black jacks". The new penta treatment gives a cleaner pole. However, these treatments, undergoing constant improvements, make poles resistant resist-ant to almost all their normal ills ants, termites, woodpeckers, woodpeck-ers, fungi and so on and once treated the pole is ready to bear for years its share of the Bell system's lines. ground cables. Most new poles will be 35 or 40 feet in height since these are the commonest pole heights in the system. Some however, will be 16-foot "shorties" for jobs in flat, rolling country like Eastern Colorado where tall poles are unnecessary. un-necessary. Others as tall as 80 feet will serve at rivers, railroad and highway crossings. Some giants used in mountainous mountain-ous country will reach heights of 120 feet These big fellows may bear the antennas of microwave radio systems used where stringing string-ing wire would toe too expensive and storms would cause frequent service disruptions. About six tree families will be represented among the telephone pole recruits principally southern south-ern pine, lodgepole pine from the Rockies, ponderosa pine, Doug las fir, red pine and the cedars. More southern pine poles are purchased than any other type. What does a telephone pole cost? That, of course, varies wide ly, depending on size, class, length and other factors. A class 10, 16-foot 16-foot pole might cost only $2.40, while a class 1, 90-foot Douglas fir has been listed at $310, both F.O.B. point of supply. How does a tree get to be a telephone pole? As indicated earlier, the pole producers give a tree a real going over. It's cut down, branches lopped off then it's cut to the desired length and the bark peeled. Hauled to a "concentration yard", the pole-to be is machine cnaved and framed cut to exact length, bolt holes bored and planed to receive cross arms. But before any pole goes to work, it is treated with a preser- i marching across the seven states and part of Texas served by the Mountain States Co. in pole lines which measure more than 45,000 miles in total length. A majority will go to work . in so-called "open wire" country where telephone tele-phone poles now bear some 370,-000 370,-000 miles of open wire plus an additional 1,130,000 miles of wire in cables all told almost half of the Mountain States system's vast total of 3,237,202 miles of wire, the rest being in under- PHONE COMPANY CITES RIGID INSPECTION OF MATERIALS A tree that hopes to become a telephone pole must be a good solid specimen and exemplary in such matters as girth, straight-ness straight-ness and height. It must belong to the proper family and must be able to "take it" during the years it serves telephone sub-cribers. sub-cribers. Ralph H. Walters, local manager man-ager of the Mountain States Telephone Tele-phone and Telegraph Co., said only the best trees will make the grade this year. They'll lose their branches and bark, get "machine-shaved", submit to boring for bolt holes and planing for cross-arms, cross-arms, and get a preservative treatment that makes them unpalatable un-palatable to carpenter ants, termites ter-mites and woodpeckers and resistive re-sistive to the ravages of fungi and wood diseases. The transformation will take place under the watchful eyes of inspectors for the Western Electric Elec-tric Co., suppliers of the Mountain Moun-tain States Co. and the-Bell system. sys-tem. The inspectors check circumferences cir-cumferences and lengths, look for excessive knots and . decay, make laboratory analyses of borings, bor-ings, and make certain that Bell Laboratories preservative formulas form-ulas are followed precisely. Poles that come up to standard are then purchased by Western and launched upon important communications com-munications careers. They'll join nearly one and a half million telephone poles |