Use of Labor-saving Apparatus in Outside Plant Construction Work

I N the January issue of this Journal was discussed the adaptation of transportation equipment to telephone construction and maintenance work. Closely associated with the operation of such equipment is the problem of utilizing various labor-saving machinery which in many cases has been so designed as to form an integral part of the transportation unit. It is the purpose of this article to describe some of the more important developments along this line such, for example, as the application of different types of derricks, trailers for various kinds of work, earth boring machines, numerous applications of air compressors and compressed air tools, etc., and in some instances to contrast the latest types of equipment with former manual methods of carrying out similar operations. POLE DERRICKS There are erected in the Bell System each year in the neighborhood of 600,000 new poles. In addition, the maintenance of the existing plant of over 14,000,000 poles involves the moving, removing, resetting and straightening of large numbers of poles annually. This immense task emphasizes the importance of devising means for offsetting, in so far as is practicable, the old manual methods of handling these poles on the job and from point to point in the field as occasion demands. In 1914 there was developed and put into use a pole derrick of the tripod type which was mounted upon a 5-ton truck from which the derrick received the necessary power for operation. As the use of this derrick, which weighed something over a ton, was extended it became apparent that while the fundamentals of the design and operation were reasonably well adapted to the average construction job, the weight and bulk of the apparatus introduced a very real factor with regard to the available truck capacity.