MAINS IN PUBLIC ROADS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 30 July 1924, Page 5

MAINS IN PUBLIC ROADS

OBVIATING DISTURBANCE

The inconvenience caused by the continual opening of roads in order to gain access to various service mains is a frequent matter for strong comment by the man in the street. Dealing with the position of mains in public highways in a paper which ho read at the recent Public Works Exhibition, Mr Stephen Lacey, B.Se., distributing engineer to the Gas Light and Coke Company, expressed the opinion , states the London Daily Mail, that “there are two chief points of view to he considered. In the first place, it is obvious that mains should be laid in positions which will necessitate the least possible disturbance of the road either when the main is originally laid or subsequently; this from the standpoint of the road authority and road user alike. In the second place, attention must be paid by the undertaking owning the mains to the relative costs incurred by the adoption of alternative positions. It will, I think, generally be found that the two contrasted points of view lead to conclusions which are not in conflict with one another. In any distributing system, whether, water, gas, or electricity, there are in general, two classes of mains. There are trunk or feeder mains which are not connected direct to consumers houses, and there arc the smaller mains fed by the trunk mains from which the consumers are directly supplied. Dealing first with the service mains, it is generally agreed that one such main should be laid in either footway of roads in urban districts where the number of service connections are relatively numerous and where the volume of traffic necessitates the laying of a. high-class paving in the carriageways. The reason for this, of course, is that with a main in either footway the lengths of the services are reduce dto a minimum, the no wconnections and repairs to mains can bo made without disturbing the carriageway.”