ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion French pole vs. tractor

Here in Manitoba, MTS Allstream has gotten away from the climbing pegs. They don't put any on replacement poles and the old poles that had them don't anymore.

I am not sure if that's to keep unauthorized people from climbing the poles and getting hurt or a cost saving measure.

All the line-persons here have either a bucket truck if they are outside plant service or extension ladders if they are instillation / repair, so they do not need to climb the pole. I don't even know if they teach pole climbing anymore to the new staff.

One thing they are slow on is transferring over their cables to new poles if they are on a joint use pole with the hydro utility.
It's not unusual to see an old hydro pole cut off just above the telephone lines and be like that for months until the attachment hardware gets moved over to the adjacent new pole.

Creosoted? They don't do that around here anymore. They use Pressure Treated wooden poles (typically green, easy to see, also with a modern crossarm setup), or metal (usually galvanized steel) or concrete poles.

You could smell the fresh creosote from at least 6 ft. away!

On the steps, I was actually quite surprised to see them because they've fallen out of favor in recent years. Many poles no longer have them fitted and I thought BT had actually stopped using them on new poles.

I wonder if the removal from old poles is another "health & safety" issue courtesy of the H.S.E., maybe saying that the wood over a certain age can't be guaranteed to be sound enough?

Tell you what though, they've gone a long way up on this new pole. I can't imagine stepping up onto that top one for any reason.

You got to have a hook for your sandwich bag!
Meanwhile the French pole still leans! I expect they are waiting for October to get a couple of bottles of free cider!

On the subject of creosote, it is not "banned" in the EU or Britain, that's just MediaCrap. The directive states that creosote may [ and does ] continue to be used for new railway sleepers [ US: railroad-ties ] or new telegraph/phone poles. Restrictions applicable to use/re-use of old poles/sleepers are to avoid situations of frequent skin contact, contact by children or of food contact, such as picnic tables made from recycled & treated wood. The reason is that creosote contains a carcinogen which is now believed to be more active that previously thought.
On that basis we ought to ban barbeques, since the same carcinogen is found in food cooked over charcoal!

Some more from Alan: