Topic: Tuai to Gisborne 110 thousand volt power line.

[piersdad]

Tuai to Gisborne 110 thousand volt power line.

In the 1950s there was a shortage of available power to the Gisborne area.
My dad was a transmission line engineer at the time and had been involved in several other projects  in the survey and construction of similar projects.
I was just about finishing school and ready for an apprenticeship when he was asked to start  in 2 years time a power pylon line from Tuai to Gisborne.
I was still at high school and dad  asked an aviation company if they could fly over the proposed route with a camera on the tip of each wing.
Well the pictures came back and as they were in pairs they gave dad a stereoscopic view of the land with all the hills and valleys.
I remember he would peer into the viewer all day making notes and referring to the maps he had and muttering  things about 60 footer there to his assistant and “we will have to put a 75 footer  to cross that  river “

The outcome was  that with in a very short week or two he was able to order all the steel from Italy so that the construction would be able to start then.
He ordered a spare 13 towers just in case and turned out he only used a few parts from a couple of theses spares towers.

The next job was to start the survey and place positive positions for each and every tower.
The pictures and the contour maps only gave a  very approximate position and the survey in earnest had to be made on the ground.
As this survey was being made a road had to be constructed and the land owners negotiated with for use of the land and compensation.

One farm in particular had no road access at all and the farmer was very hesitant about having a large number of power pylons dotted along the
10 miles of his farm and dad with his expertise in dealing with such lovely people mention that in the process of building the line he had to make a lovely access road the length of the farm. As well as a generous compensation.
A bit of haggling and the promise of a shingle layer  on the road and some culverts and the deal was done.
Well eventually the road was built and the steel arrived from Italy and the construction camps were built at each end of the line and one near the middle.
The men were divided into gangs of 4 one gang would go to a tower site and deliver the steel for the pre designed size of the tower to be built then a second gang would come along and after locating the survey peg would dig by hand 4   4 foot deep holes 4 feet square and with a leveling devise place the 4 tower legs and their steel bases in the hole and back fill just a little.
The men were paid a small wage and a big bonus for every tower hole and leg base they did.
Well they had the incentive and they worked hard at it so that by the time a few towers had been built the gang digging the holes were finishing a tower base every day, and this was by hand with shovels and pick axes.
The next gang had to erect the tower on the base and this too was done in a highly efficient way. 4 legs were attached to the first part and the cross braces put in so that a 15 to 20 foot frame was erected for the start of the tower.
A ‘gin’ pole with lots of blocks and pulleys was assembled in the centre of this base and soon a primitive but effective  hand worked crane was available.
This was then used to lift up almost an entire side of the next stage of the tower and soon the second tier of the tower was ready.
The final part was the last 30 to 50 foot top corners of the tower and these were also lifted into place by the makeshift pole in the centre of the tower used as a crane.

The final part was to assemble the cross braces right up to the top of the tower and attach the cross arms.
3 men were mostly on the construction and lifting of the parts and one was sorting out the steel and pre assembling the parts to be lifted into place.
After a short time this gang also was building a tower every day.
All that remained was for a gang of men to visit each tower and back fill the holes and check that each and every part of the tower was soundly built
A cost per tower to construct of 12 man days
The men were well paid for their work and would be getting many times the average wage of the time. 
The next job was to string the lines on the towers and this too was done on a individual gang contract and a typical day would see several towers strung with their power wires.
Around this time my apprentice ship involves me in the final construction of the line and the last part of the job was to return to all the towers and finally lock the wires with a layer of armored wire where they attached to the towers insulators.
By this time my dad was on another project and the engineer in charge was finishing off the project for him.
When the last tower was to be done the gang foreman asked me if I wanted to place the last armor wire in place and a very eager apprentice scaled up the last tower and hung like a monkey on the insulators and placed the last part of the Tuai Gisborne power line in place.
Dad started the line I finished it.

I remember dad showing me an estimate for the quarter for the cost of construction and it was 500.000 pounds and the actual cost was just 2000 pounds over  due to a un expected rise in copper prices.
An incredibly accurate estimate when it compared to the Meremere power station that was estimated at 6 million pounds and cost 30 million pounds a few years later.
So
 Lewis Francis Edgecumbe
 A mainly self taught engineer with the only official certificate of ‘matriculation’ 
 High school leaving certificate in those days
I am proud of you dad.

Some years later he became the transmission line engineer for the Auckland district and was able to use his diplomatic ability to get around land owners and put in place several more projects.
I came across a list of the top 40 odd engineers in the department and every one of them had at least one or 2 degrees after their name. 15 down on the list was my dads name with qualifications = school leaving certificate – matriculation.

a typical tower in second stage of building using the 'gin' pole in the centre to lift its steel  using the lower structure to do this

just found this part of a report on the power structure and the future of power supplies

110kV transmission capacity between Gisborne and Tuai around 2030

this means my dads project will last from 1953 to 2030   77 years