atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems Antique Telephones Anyone familiar with this Bell System tool?

Onee of the guys on the tool forum posted it, never seen one before.

Looks like an old sleeve roller they used on drop and open wire.

Ding, ding, ding! Tell Bill what he won!

Bill won a forced overtime night shift, in an ice storm, on a swaying pole, in Montauk, on New Years Eve, trying to get just enough slack to make a repair without running a new section of drop wire.

MONTAUK

Regardless of the temperature just 30 miles to the west, the temperature in Montauk is always at least 10, and often 20, degrees colder.

Their motto is "A drinking village with a fishing problem."

Ah Montauk. The next exit on the expressway is "Portugal".

I got a job at the Montauk Yacht Club and Inn on Star Island to repair the underwater cable that fed the jacks on the slips. They had installed the pilings upside down (fat side up) so when the water froze it pushed the pilings up and out of the ground and ripped out all the cabling. We were using Marine Telephone Jacks, They were Bronze (or maybe Brass) and the male screwed in to the female,

Of course we got to do the job in the dead of winter when (almost) no one was staying there. This was January of 1979 and as I recall the only place open in Montauk to get something to eat was a Pizza parlor.

It was colder then a well digger's boot out on the water.

Sam

Damn Sam, Me and 2 other guys installed those things back in the early / mid 70s when weinstalled the 409 xbar, UCS job.We had a 4'x 8' piece of plywood with styrofoam bales underneath.You know UCS would go to no expense to provide the installers with the best equipment. We quickly learned not to be floating under the dock when the big yachts came by.As I recall, the sea gull crap was the aluminum jacks worst enemy, think we had to replace a few before we left.

Arthur, being from western Nebraska and tying in tramps in 20 below weather with typical Nebraska winds, I could probably handle it. Wouldn't much care for it though, as I've aged I've gotten wimpy or smarter.

Bill, there were times that I felt like that Norman Rockwell lineman in the painting.

Once I had to lash the bucket to the strand with a length of nylon line, because the wind was making the pole sway so far away from me that I couldn't reach the splice.

I would leave the Southampton garage in the summer, wearing a T shirt, and by the time I got to Montauk, I needed to put on a flannel shirt, a hoody, and a field jacket. The bucket heater was going on practically every job, even in the middle of summer. It amazed me that people actually spent their hard-earned money to vacation there, rather than some nicer place, such as Death Valley, or Siberia.

I love all these stories!

Here in PA, we have an "icebox" location called Kane, PA. It's the area below Erie and just above US Route 80. There is a swath there that is a weather anomaly. This happened back in the early 80s when the government was giving away millions of tax dollars for "infrastructure improvements." I got a call, one evening, in January to go to a newly installed water tower just south of Kane PA. The report was that the telemetry had ceased and there was no water to the borough. I left Pittsburgh at 8 PM. The temp was 30 degrees and 2 inches of snow. Two hours later, I was at the location. It was -34 degrees, 4-1/2 feet of snow and the wind was blowing at 45 MPH.

Now, the elaborate Steel water tower, which rose up to 300' in the air was installed in the summer. There was a natural gas fed boiler in the base of the tower to keep the water at 33 degrees to prevent freezing. These towers are like ship bulkheads with portal hatches. In fact, the same closing and locking mechanisms are used. I got there, after hiring a plow to clear a path and found this tower totally silent, which is highly unusual. Almost all the time, there is some motor and pump noise going on because everyone is using water all the time.

So, I opened the hatch and, what to my wandering eyes should appear but the scene from Superman's "Cave of Solitude." Everything was frozen solid. The frost and ice on the steel walls was several inches thick. Every insulated pipe (These pipes are from 24" to 36" in diameter) had an inch or more of ice. I immediately checked the telephone protector and there was a wet circuit which means it was working, but the telemetry equipment was in a frozen state.

After a few minutes of checking, I determined the natural gas to the boiler was shut off. I went outside to the meter and, sure enough, the valve was in the closed position. I called the town manager. It was no surprise to him. He was the one who shut it off. He got the bill from the gas company for November and it was $33,000. That's for one month and that's only keeping the water in the 1 million gallon tank, 300 feet in the air, at 33 degrees.

So, I called the general contractor, gave him the bad news and stayed around until his crew arrived with about 20 "salamander" torpedo heaters and a lot of pipe, insulation and valves. The real concern was that, once things thawed, if the tank was breached, there would be a flood in the bottom of the structure.

With all the heaters going and ice and frost melting from 300' up, it looked like a rain forest in there.

By 3 PM the next day, they had replaced enough of the piping and valves to get water flowing to the community and, surprise, surprise, the telemetry was working perfectly.

The town manager was fired and the town came up with an alternate fuel source to keep the water from freezing.

Now, here's the irony. That 1 million gallon steel tank replaced a 75 year old, 1,000 gallon in ground reservoir that NEVER froze. So much for "Progress."

Rcaman