Chapter 9

A friend asked me for my details of a certain period which made up Chapter 1. Then others said "Wait a minute! Start from the beginning!" My beginning actually starts in Chapter 2. Chapter 9 will take off (and fill in) from my lifetime period detailed in Chapter 1 on the 345,000 volt steel tower electric transmission line (345 kV) line being built from Winterset, IA to Omaha, NE. If you haven't read Chapter 1 yet, this will be a good time to go back and read it to able to enjoy Chapter 9.

I will give a short description of how the high voltage conductors are strung on the insulators. A typical "pull" has 2 miles of wire on the wire reels. The wires are wound through a "tensioner" truck that keeps the wires above the ground and keeps any roads or OH circuits clear. On the other end is the "puller" truck that pulls the wires in on the insulators. Usually a "pull a day" is what a Contractor strives for. The wires are connected to the puller's wire cable with a triangular shaped "alligator" that keeps the wires from spinning by having a weighted "tail" hanging down from the middle of the "alligator". This "tail" is put together like a bicycle chain so it is flexible and can slide through the dollies that are mounted on the bottom of the insulators, then flip back down after going through the dolly. There is an Operator on each truck that controls the speed and tension of the wires. Usually the Wire Stringing Foreman follows the "alligator" as it moves through the 2-mile "pull" reporting any problems or asking for more or less speed from the "tugger". If there's a problem or an emergency he calls on the radio to "HOLD THE PULL!!!" and both Operators will instantly lock up their "puller" and "tensioner" bull wheel brakes.

On the 1st few pulls I ran the puller while various other Tramps ran the tensioner. It took some time to learn these and a lot longer for 2 people to learn each other and be able to run these effectively. Especially being 2 miles apart with only radio communications. The GF (General Foreman) Walt Bow was a patient and fair man and he took time going between each end of the pull watching and giving us directions. Once I had put the tugger in the fastest gear and he could hear the tugger straining to get that pull in. He hopped up on the Operator's platform beside me and said to watch the hydraulic oil's temperature gauge and be ready to "hold the pull" if the gauge went into the red zone. If I had to go slower then we would have to stop the pull and start over. It didn't get into the red zone but I never went that fast again. The Wire Pulling Foreman had a hard time with his Helper going through gates and getting them closed behind them as he tried to keep up with the "alligator". The right-of-way area was not very vehicle friendly.

The Contractor (Power Const.) was from Kansas and they had 2 Operators that were good together on these machines. They had finished up on another job in Texas and got cleared out of the Hall to be Operators on this job. They knew they were good and "favored" by the Contractor. They worked together well but if they didn't like the Foreman they could make him look very bad. They went through several Foreman. One day the GF Walt asked me if I would take over the wire stringing as the last Foreman had drug up. I said "Let me talk with the Operators Tugger Ray and Tensioner Virgil first.

I caught them still in the showup yard and called them aside. I told them that Walt wanted me to take over stringing wire. They both said "Yes Billy, we want to work hard for you!!!" I told them that I knew they had ran off several Foremen both here and in Kansas and other jobs before. I told them that if they tried messing with me that I would also drag up and that the next Tramp in line for the job was Tuck Rhodes. They had history with Tuck and there was a lot of bad blood between them. Then they seriously said that they would do their best for me and not play their games. So I took the Foreman job and it went smooth.

The GF Walt guaranteed us being paid 16 hours for every day we completed a 2-Mile pull of conductors. When we finished we could go home. One day we had smooth sailing and completed a pull in 6 hours. One time we made 2 pulls in the day and I turned everyone in for 32 hours of pay that day. The next day Walt said I was driving the Bookie crazy and that I needed to change the timesheet back to just 16 hours. Plus we were pushing up on the Dolly Hanging Crew in front of us and they were short on dollies to hang. The Clipping Crew behind us would remove the dollies, "clip in" (make permanent the conductors by installing a "shoe" to the bottom of the insulators) then send those dollies on ahead. Also, the wire had to be clipped within 24 hours after getting it properly sagged as leaving the conductors in the dollies too long would make the aluminum conductors flatten out. The Clipping Crew was getting too far behind also. So we did some upkeep work and went to the house early. I was really loving all of this overtime!

This job ran pretty smoothly until the cold weather started coming in. GF Walt left for another big job. The new GF decided to change up the Crews as several Tramps had also drug up to follow their favorite GF Walt to the next job. The new GF Brad had decided to let others learn how to run the wire so he moved me back to run the Crew installing the spacers in between the conductors. These spacers kept the wires from slapping together and causing damage. As I had never done any clipping I stepped down and gave the Foreman job to an experienced Tramp and I stayed on the crew to ride those fun buggies on the wires installing the spacers in the mid-spans.