Station Rd Replacements

On the 11th November, I was again a little early, and so photographed the column that I thought would be the first to be removed that day.

However, I was wrong. The first column to be removed today was a new one - it had only been put in on the 9th! The reason for this was that, apparently, an underground telephone cable had been damaged when the column was installed, and BT wanted the hole to be dug out, in order that the problem could be located. As you can imagine, the HIAB guys were really happy to oblige!

The hole was excavated, and the offending cable was located. No visible damage could be seen, but the BT repairman wanted the column to be completely removed from the hole, in order that he could have a closer look. Tempers were rising...

The repairman couldn't find a visible fault either, but he said that the cable did look as if it had been stretched, and wanted the hole to be extended to see if any damage could be seen further up. This again revealed no breaks, and so the only possible reason for local residents having a dead phone line was that the cable had been internally damaged when the ground was disturbed. What probably happened is that, when the new service was fitted, the electricity board mistook the telephone line for the main service cable and shook it to try to pull it out of the ground, before they realised that they'd picked the wrong cable. Anyway, the repairman put a joint in, with a longer piece of cable, and the phones started working again.

Once the repairman gave the all-clear, the hole for the column was re-dug, then the column was lowered back in, and the service cable was re-fitted.

However, just then, someone came out of a nearby house and said that their telephone wasn't working, so all work had to stop again, in case the column had to be lifted out again. While we waited for the BT repairman to come back, the person came out again and told us that the phone now seemed to be working, but even so, the column was left raised up, to save having to dig it out yet again! It was unlikely that any more than two columns would be changed today, as no work could continue until the BT man returned, so I decided to head off.

I returned after nightfall, and luckily, this column had been reinstated and was working. One column had been replaced - not the one pictured at the top of the page, but the one on the other side of the road, right by the telegraph pole. I bet that was a difficult one to change!

There is less than one metre between the column and the pole. As you can see, one of them isn't vertical - and it isn't the column!

No work took place on the 12th November, so the next few columns will probably be changed on the 15th.