The most important lineman in the world..

[ironglow]

  ..And he doesn't PLAY for the Cowboys, the Dolphins or Green Bay...  He WORKS for you !

   Go ahead Lloyd, take a bow !

[phalanx]

Dangerous job no doubt. Slip up and your dead or crippled. Working on a Drilling Rig is about as bad. How about 6 hours of working 150ft or more underwater on a power or communications cable, or a structure? And changing out your air bottle sent to you down from the surface.  I knew a guy who did that for years, and he developed some kind of a nerve problem.

[Lloyd Smale]

been there and done that MANY times. That said theres many jobs even more dangerous. But even when its not dangerous being a lineman when its complete crap like it is outside today is no fun. I can even tell you whats wrong there. Look right about his head and youll see a small twisted wire on the main wire. thats the wire that ties the conductor to the insulator and when it gets real cold the wires get really tight and those tie wires can break. Other then the weather its an easy fix. Not even really dangerous because if hes fixing it on hooks its either dead or theyd have to kill it or work it hot from a bucket. Cant work anything on a pole hot unless its no higher the 240 vt.  So its an outage and a grounded line.

[ironglow]

  ..And folks think they would miss a football lineman, if he wasn't on the job when they need him !

      Try needing this guy on a day like today...  There are so many tough jobs out there, and hard working folks not
  getting the credit due for their day to day work !

[Mule 11]

My nephew is a lineman and he is north of 300#’s he is not skinny yet packs a lot of muscle. He is a big athletic young man and has a 1 year old daughter.

[Lloyd Smale]

football lineman. Guy makes more in an hour playing half a (censored word) game then i made in a year. Why people watch that bs is beyond me. Son in law just left. Hes a diesel mechanic at a repair shop that does wrecker work too and on weekends they rotate on call. He got the lucky draw in this storm and is just getting home after afteroon shift yesterday. Said he pulled 6 semi's  out of the ditch and towed 3 of them back to the shop. Now he has to head home and plow his road out and most likely will get called out again before hes done. God its good to be retired!! I blew hte snow and came in and had a little bourbon neat to warm up and im done for the day.

  ..And folks think they would miss a football lineman, if he wasn't on the job when they need him !

      Try needing this guy on a day like today...  There are so many tough jobs out there, and hard working folks not
  getting the credit due for their day to day work !

[ironglow]

My nephew is a lineman and he is north of 300#’s he is not skinny yet packs a lot of muscle. He is a big athletic young man and has a 1 year old daughter.

   Well..imagine that!  I have a nephew who is working that job somewhere in California now, putting lines through mountainous areas, some so mountainous, they actually work from a helicopter.
   Jay is a big dude also..back when he was 19, he was golden gloves super heavyweight national champion in the tyro    division.

  He is 6'8" about 290#..and no fat, below see him below beside a young cousin on his Mom's side who is about 5'8" tall..
   see also chopper with pole..not one he works with, but from the web..

[Lloyd Smale]

we had pictures of the old way at work. We had a 69000 volt line through about the nastiest swamp up here. It was done around 1930 and it was done with men and horses. We still cant figure how they dug some of the holes for the poles. Someone once said they pounded in 3 foot diameter steel pipes down 6 feet and they had a bunch of hand pumps pumping the water out of the pipe faster then it could come back and them poured dry concrete into the holes and let the water come in and it set up. The guy said it would take a full day with a 6 man crew to drive one pipe. I cant verify that though. They guy wasnt a lineman but claimed he was there and watched. Couple of those poles are actually in water about 50 feet around them and 4 foot deap. I dont have a clue how they did those. Im sure those would have been done in the winter but even they it would sure not freeze down to the dept need to set a 50 foot pole which would be at least 7 feet. THe drug them to the holes with hourse and used cradles and pike poles and man and hp to lift them. Then when they were set every bit of the wire and insulators and strining of the wire was done without hydralic motors power take up reals to pull a whole reel of wire in and bucket trucks didnt even exist then and even if they did theres only access to about  20 poles by 2 track roads. This is one of the nastiest places on earth. Theres elephant grass 6 feet tall that doesnt all any breeze in the summer and the bugs are insane. Its so rough that my partner and i were the first ones to drive the whole lenght of it the year we got our argo 8x8. 14 creek and river crossings and mud with absoultely no bottom. Those must have been some tough sobs back then because even i would have walked away from that job the first day. The real head scratcher with that line is why they built it a mile from the highway instead of right along side of it. Its federal land so maybe they didnt give them a choice. All i know is when the phone rang and the dispatcher said SENEY SWAMP your heart sank down into your groin. You knew you were in for at least 24 hours of hell. Ive seen one pole replaced there and it was done by helicopter and a big compressor that jetted it in. What we did with that line is clear trees a 150 foot on each side of it so tress couldnt come down on it. But that whole line is in need of replacement and they put it off because they know what it will cost. Now a differnt utility has power to that area from the other side and theyve talked about just giving the the area and shutting down that line. There will be some happy lineman that day.

[Lloyd Smale]

heres a video on setting a pole with a pole ginny. keep in mind thats a 35 foot cedar pole. Now picture a 50 foot pole twice the diameter and soaked with creasote. We still had a couple old pole ginnys up in the attic at work. I never used one THANKFULLY. https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=setting+poles+by+hand+with+a+jinny&view=detail&mid=313591DC7BA4133C7142313591DC7BA4133C7142&FORM=VIRE

[Dee]

My knowledge of electricity doesn't go much farther than a light bulb. Did have a distant uncle get a safety chain on a 7,200 volt line.
Went in his hip, and blew out his thigh. He lived, but had lots of problems.

[ironglow]

  Strange how electricity sometimes travels, and does unexpected things.  I expect that due to his work, Lloyd understands that better than I do.
    I took fire and hazmat training several years and was on that team until I retired.

    That training highlighted how crazy things can happen with both.  For instance, one can get find death quickly
   by being careless while washing and vacuuming their car..  A good ground can do much...either good and bad.

[Lloyd Smale]

it will always seek that easiest path to ground. If you bump it with your hip and your hand is on something grounded its going through your body to your hand. The spot it enters isnt a huge consern. The spot it exits will be worse. But its mostly the fried flesh inside of you from the entry to the exit. It will rot get infected ect and has to be cut out or you will have problems. if it went in his hip and came out his thigh on the same leg hes a lucky one. Usually it travels from one side to another and survival rate is low. It does not do unexpected things. Its actually real predictable. Probably 95 percent of lineman that get burned get burned from taking shortcuts or not wearing proper gear. Like ive said stupid lineman dont retire.

[DDZ]

Just in south western Pa. There were at least 40,000 without power. After one day they had restored all but 13,000. I don't know how those guys did it with the wind howling like it was, and biter cold. I give those guys a lot of credit. A lot of those guys had Friday and Saturday planned off for Christmas, but they had to work in horrible conditions.

[Mule 11]

Just in south western Pa. There were at least 40,000 without power. After one day they had restored all but 13,000. I don't know how those guys did it with the wind howling like it was, and biter cold. I give those guys a lot of credit. A lot of those guys had Friday and Saturday planned off for Christmas, but they had to work in horrible conditions.

And many are out there right now.

[ironglow]

  Thanks for the info Lloyd..