Reinforced Concrete Power Poles

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 180, 2 August 1938, Page 7

Reinforced Concrete Power Poles

RESULT OF P.W.D. RESEARCH Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night. After exhaustive investigation and test the Public Works Department has evolved a type of reinforced concrete power pole which is expected to supersede the timber hardwood pole nowbeing imported from Australia. This was indicated by the Minister of Public Works (Hon. R. Semple) when he met the members of the Banks Peninsula Power Board to-day. The Minister said that the supply of hardwood poles from Australia had been so depleted that Australia wa3 said to be two years behind its orders. In fact Australia was nearing the end of its own supplies. This shortage had badly tied up the work of reticulation in New Zealand, particularly on two major jobs—the line to the West Coast from Canterbury and the DuncdinInvercargill line. The Government had been faced with the problem of building its own poles and of securing a type which would be light enough for transport over difficult areas and still solid enough to bear the load of wires with other incidental stresses such as occurred in bad weather.

The Public Works Department had now succeeded in getting a design which the Minister thought would do the job at a cost not muck different from that of the hardwood pole. Mr. Semple assured the board that these State-manufactured poles would be made available to power boards as well as for departmental undertakings.