40,000 ft PHONE CABLE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31343, 13 April 1967, Page 14

40,000 ft PHONE CABLE

Post Office engineers yesterday began laying a 40,000 ft telephone cable between the Baisweil exchange and Lincoln.

The cable is the first stage in a new link which will connect Christchurch with Lincoln and Leeston. The cost of the project is £145,000, of which £120,000 will be spent in materials. One of the first functions of the cable will be to give telephone and telegraph service at Ladbrooks for the world ploughing competition next month.

Engineers will erect a temporary aerial cable from the ploughing site for about a mile and a half to a point where it can be connected to the cable.

The temporary cable will allow connexions to the Christchurch and Lincoln exchanges as required. The method used in laying the cable is known as plough-ing-in. Two tractors are be-

ing used to pull a huge plough through which the cable is fed to a depth of two feet.

The plough is mounted on the rear of one of the tractors on a linkage which maintains the cutting blade and cable guide in a vertical position irrespective of depth. The new cable will supplement a cable laid in 1959 and

an aerial pole line which has stood for many years. It will ultimately connect Lincoln, Leeston, Southbridge and future exchanges at Irwell and Springston to the Christchurch network. The cable is one of the biggest of its type to be laid by the ploughing-in method. It was manufactured at Hornby.

The diameter of the cable, including lead sheathing and armouring, is 2.7 in. The tractors are working in tandem and exerting a pull of more than 10 tons. Each foot of cable weighs 81b. The Divisional Engineer (Mr D. M. McFarlane) said yesterday that the second stage in the project would begin later this year.