FELLING OF POLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20241, 29 April 1929, Page 8

FELLING OF POLES.

QUEEN STKEET VETEBANS*

GRADUAL CLEARANCE MADB a

TELEPHONE WIRES UNDERGROUND}

Several more telephone poles have been removed from Queen Street during th(} I past few days. The process is j bat perhaps before another year is onlj ! the city's main thoroughfare, from Wei* j lesley Street to the waterfront, will b« : clear of them. The ordinary pedestrian i does not notice telephone poles as b« walks along beneath the verandahs, buti jf he could compare Queen Street as iB was a few years ago with its appearance! , to-day he would see almost a transfoima* j tion in this respect. '

Telephone reticulation has three forms, bare overhead wires, overhead cables anij much larger cables in underground tun. nels. All three have been useci in tha central area of Auckland. Away back in the 'eighties, and 'nineties tho Queen Street poles carried a maze of coppei} wires. The crossbars, indeed, as can ba seen in old photographs, took up nearly half the height of the posts. Then cams the cables, holding hundreds of wires apiece, and now, after years of patienlj work, everything is underground. In secondary and suburban streets, of course, overhead gear in plenty is to be seen, bub the underground system is slowly spreading outward as the telephony system grows. Lights and Tire-alarms. If the Telegraph Department' 3 owtf business were the only consideration the central and lower sections of Queen Street •would have been cleared of poles soma time ago. The blackened veterans that remain ar« there simply t$ hold up firealarm and istreet-lighting wires—an absurdly light load for "sticks" 12in. o? 15in. through. The fire-alarm system has always used conductors supplied and maintained by the Telegraph 1 Department, but for technical reasons it has not been possible to use ordinary telephone wires lor the purpose. Now that a new alarm apparatus is to be installed at the central fire sta. tion there will be no further need 0:F separate overhead wires; telephone circuits will do the work. So far as street lamps are concerned that is a matter between the City Council and the Power Board. Whether underground feeders are used or small steel posts are erected, it is certain that the present poles will not be required much longer.

Totara Not Truck-proof. Just how long the poles have been standing is uncertain, because those originally set up must have been replaced at intervals by taller and stouter ones as the load of wires grew. Tbey are all of beautifully straight-grained totara, such as would gladden the heart of any worker in wood. It is unfortunate that many of them have had to be sawn in half where they passed through verandahs, in order to avoid costly dismantling. Totara is now no longer used for tdegraph poles. It cannot stand a trans-» verse blow.- If struck by, say,, a runaway motor-truck a totara pole is apt to break cleanly in two like a carrot. A heavy ironbark pole would probably give the truck the worst of the encounter. Ironbark and New Zealand silver pjna are now the standard timbers, but silver pine is not used much in cities, for the reason that it is hard to obtain in perfectly shaped lengths. It is not difficult to imagine Queen Street of the more or less distant future as a splendid thoroughfare, flanked by buildings of uniform height, their base 3 shielded by hanging verandahs, and nos an overhead wire to be seen. In such a street there would be no overhead tramway gear, no verandah pests and no poles, except the standards supporting clusters of brilliant electric lamps, which would make a "white way" at night.