Title: High Line

Author: Wendy Pond

In: Sport 1: Spring 1988

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, October 1988, Wellington

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Prose Literature

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Sport 1: Spring 1988

High Line

page 51

High Line

This story was written after conversations with the linesman, Mr Eric Schollum of Waiheke Island. It describes the reticulation of the Rotorua district in the late 1950s. Many of the linesmen were Ngapuhi. They were working for Len Lysagt, a private contractor employing men who were prepared to move around the country to fulfil difficult contracts; Len Lysagt was a man who kept his word. Eric Schollum remarked that although these men were some of the most physically fit and strong in the country, they were also men of fine sensibility. He himself spoke with tones of comradeship and kindliness, thoughtful observation, and dryness.

     *

If you've got a good hole it makes putting up a pole very easy, because it virtually puts itself up, in a sense. But if you lift it up and it sticks, and all of a sudden lets go and then toonk! straight down, imagine what would happen. All the timber jacks and the pikes you know, it can be very hazardous. So you can put up a lot of power poles in a day, very easy, comparatively speaking anyhow, and very safely, if you've got everybody working together as a team.

Linesman standing against the sky, silhouetted on the top crossarm, taking out his tobacco tin, filling his pipe, lighting it, flicking the match away. Just standing there on the crossarm, casually walking to the other end, bending to hook his safety belt around, sitting down and carrying on with the binding in. A soft curse, pulling out a match and relighting his pipe.

The central phase on the high tension crossarm alternates from pole to pole. Go out on the road and have a look.

page 52

The Power Board engineers duly arrive and the old boss wanders up and down. Passes a casual eye over this ravine and doesn't say very much. Asks me what I think and I say, 'I don't see any vast amount of worries there.' So we carry on inspecting the other end of the line and that's no problem. Mind, the only access we have from the main road is over this blasted ravine. Still, there's no problem really.

But the engineers seem to think otherwise. They're talking about bulldozing a track down the side of the ravine, which seems a bit sort of silly to us because, after all, we only want to put up a line, not go into the Public Works Act.

Anyhow, the boss gives the engineers his price and says, is it okay to get the preliminary work done? They assure him, yes, the job is his. It's only a formality to go before the Board and meanwhile the job can be got underway.

Morning sun chips the glass strain shells. Jumpers arch between the phase wires. Skirts on the Dominion Dropouts deflect the rain from the lines.

Just before we undo the sling, we put up two red flags, one in each hand, and the chap on the home side does the same: 'It's arrived/ Okay/No trouble at all.'

We've got these crossarms out of the way, so we give him a one- flag signal and he shoots across two poles, just to see how thing are going — the old wire rope's getting a bit stretched. Sends his poles across, doesn't worry about putting a restraining line on these ones and they come whistling across, doing 360 decrees. You've got two thirty-foot hardwood poles whizzing around and hitting the wire they're actually coming across on. One end hits the side of the bank in thirty seconds flat and there's a cloud of dust and a terrific bang and we swear one of them's going to get broken. But it doesn't. They somehow survive it and come to a ploughing stop.

The chap on the other end of course, has got a grandstand view of everything that's happening, cause he's looking slightly down on our scene of operation. It's quite an awe-inspiring sight to see heavy gear being transported on a wire rope which is probably only an inch and half in diameter, transformer looking as though it's levitating across the ravine. You can't see the wire unless the light reflects on it.

So okay, they've finally come to a stop. We put up our two red flags, and we just roll the poles out of the way, up against the other page 53material, to stop them going over the cliff. We're going to have to retension this wire, so we put up our two red flags again and shake them violently. Chap on the other side does exactly the same.

Crossarms tschoong! Braces tschoong! Poles tschoong! Poles, heavy poles tschoong! tschoong! tschoong! It's a fairly substantial line to go in. Insulators tschoong! Bolts, washers, jointing sleeves tschoong! Billies, teacups tschoong! A bit of shelter over this side in the way of a tent, everything we need to build this line. And our digging gear of course. We did dig an awful lot of holes.

Lichen grows on the leeward face where the pole stays dank in the day's shadow.

Right, we've got to get these heavy poles up the next bit of hill. We'll dig a trench, say eight foot long by three foot deep, and lay a deadman. The men are bringing up a log and drilling a hole through the centre for an eye rod, and we'll cut a groove in the ground to lay the wire along. Then it's just a matter of pulling and pulling and pulling, until we get the pole up to the deadman and undo the old blackwall hitch round the block and tackle. We'll offset the next lift about thirty feet, so another gang of men can be working simultaneously.

The lichen holds water which, over a period of time, erodes that side of the pole.

The main problem is to get some of the bosses across. Normally you have a Clerk of Works with you, supplied by the local Power Board, just to make sure you put all the poles in the correct depth, the wire's strung up to the correct tension, all the wires tied in securely to the insulators in the approved manner. . . So we have a free hand because of course, we'll never get a Clerk across on this flying fox.

You get feelings about poles. A pole can look perfectly sound, but if water gets in at the base it can rot right at ground level, or six inches down.

Hole's been dug and checked over carefully. Pole here has to hold on an uphill slope. Right. Now the first thing we've got to do, is get the pole off the around. We'll all get one side of the high tension page 54arm and lift her up onto the edge of the arm, so the crossarms are pointing vertical. Now we'll get the little three-foot jack, put a chain round the pole, hook it onto the spear of the timber jack, and we'll take her up six feet.

Right, we've done that and everyone is holding onto the pole to stop it going sideways, Very critical this part of the operation. You can never sleep while a pole's going up.

Big timber jack's in position, just taking the weight. Everyone knows exactly what they're going to do. No one leaning on their pikes now. Chap operating the jack is feeling a little more secure, or as much as he can under the circumstances, being underneath the pole. She's going up nicely. I guess she'd be up round about twenty-five degrees.

In strong gales in certain valleys, the wires get a sway on and the poles rock in sympathetic motion. When the wind drops the poles remain leaned over.

Bill arriving with his feet running, relying on the last bit of uphill to deaden him. Ron splayed sideways. Bit of a wind funnelling up the gap. Cyril with his feet out spinning like a top, playing the larrikin. Damn fool, could force his strop off the hook. Kim gaily stepping off into space. Flicking his rope over the wire to brake his landing. Eric filling his pipe on the way across. Tschoong!

She's all set to ram. We'll leave the pikes in place, give one of the lighter men a heaving line, and he can go up on top and put those wires up. I'd sooner delay things till we've got a bit more dirt in the hole myself, but you get used to that. Pole's pretty secure with those pikes around it. So okay, we'll leave it to a couple of chaps while the rest of us go on to the next hole.

Eight gangs of men brought in from other parts of the country. There'd be three or four chaps on the line at one time. And everybody by now thinks nothing of it, just hooks themselves on tschoong! tschoong! tschoong! The sensation of speed is quite interesting; I can always fill my pipe but I can never light it.

Lines loping across the countryside, hammocking from ridge to ridge.

page 55

Linesman lowers himself over the crossarm, fastens his safety belt round the pole, and just lies suspended with his feet hooked under one of the braces, to give himself a little bit of stability. Now he's got both hands free and he reaches down like a trapeze artist to grab hold of the line and physically lift it up and out over the end of the crossarm at the same time. His elbows buckle a little bit as he handles the vibration of the wire, trying to go back the way it came and flick in towards him, and he ignores that, and resists that, takes a deep breath and right, this is it: he's straight out with his feet from the centre of the pole, anything at all to thrust himself out, and just like a weightlifter, he gets this line out over the side of the crossarms and then u—p over the point of balance. The sheer relief when he actually gets it out over the crossarms and drops it on the top.

So we dug our holes in due course for these poles, marched our line across, pulled up wire, strained the wire in, and put our transformers up. At strategic points where there was a lot of wind action, we would put H poles to separate the wires, so the wind wouldn't swing them together and clash them. The job went very well really. There were no major hold-ups. The ground was hard as buggery of course for digging.

High tension lines, low tension lines, warping the loom of the sky.

Linesman relaxed up there. Completed the part that could be troublesome. Just taping up a connector to tidy up the job. Turning on the ladder to pull the tape tight. Sun glancing off the wires.

Hanging there in his safety belt, feet either side of the ladder, belt under his armpits, hands round the wires.

Speed. Climbing the ladder, throwing a half hitch round his feet, yanking him off the line. Can't be too nice about it. Swing him round. Don't panic. Get the safety belt round the pole. Hook his leg over. Take his weight on the strop. High tension fries the insides. Low tension you've got to be lying on the lines for a considerable time.

Chest constricting. Trying to call out. No breath. . . Here's old Dave! Doing a different job now, eh? Pulling a wire up the side of the old pole. . . Now there's two of them. Ah, they've reversed positions. Dave's gone below, trying to lift the wire up to old Cyril. Strange how these page 56chaps work at times. Line trilling. . . Dave's back on the crossarm, he's leaning out over the crossarm, he's stacked out, he's got the wire in his hands. . . He'll never make it.

High summer lasers searing the blue void.

And then of course you always had the chap too, little bit of a showoff I feel sure at times, I'd never do it myself really, although I have done it: just occasionally, stand up on one end of the double crossarm, take out his tobacco tin and casually fill his pipe there, light it there, and flick the match away, just like that, and casually walk to the other end of the crossarm and hook his safety belt around and sit down and carry on with the binding in. And he might give a little bit of a curse and pull out a match and relight his pipe.