Hiccups! on Life's Highway through Frampton
Somebody soon sorted this out in Church Lane
I found this 'abandoned' tractor at Magiston on the road to
Sydling St Nicholas
Dorchester Road & Southover Lane
It all looks peaceful enough until someone needs to park and offload
There's inevitably a line of traffic waiting while this ditch clearing effort goes on by Samways Bridge on the road to Southover.
For another drain clearance click on the photograph
no traffic was delayed during this exercise in 2006 but there was much head scratching and consultation as the branch was definitely winning while I watched.  Pushing, pulling and heavy 'artillery' eventually won the day
Frampton does seem to have its fair share of visitations from the Water Authorities for one reason or another.  These photographs were taken in April 2008 after a water main from Frampton to Southover burst and had to be replaced.  Offloading the polythene pipe was interesting enough but drilling under the Frome and putting in a new pipeline was even better.
The small blue pipe had been sort of  'enhancing' Sandways Bridge for quite some time so that Southover could have a temporary water supply.
Water Authorities 2008
To replace the main pipeline involved some heavy and expensive machinery.  The drilling rig was impressive and with a large lorry in front and a small digger at the rear it was quite a line up.
I particularly liked the advertisment on the lorry door.  It says exactly what they are about without a word needed.
Many thanks to Peter Cox for alerting me to the drilling rig
If you look carefully at the top right corner of the centre photo bottom row you can see the angle of the pipe to get it under the river bed.  The man in the field opposite is watching a machine which tells him where the end of the drill has got to.  Then the digger makes another hole for the drill to break out into
A detachment were testing water quality and the sediment on the river bed, that's the equipment the ducks are circling, pushed well down into the gravels.  Unfortunately, when it came to removing the material for testing there was some difficulty as a largish flint had become wedged in the pipe.  There was much pushing, shaking and tapping on the pipe before they managed to clear the blockage and complete their task
Environment Agency 2004
These photos were taken in Church Lane in  April 2008 after telephone wires came down as a post broke.  Normally they would use the big drill on the lorry but they were worried that it might bog down in the field as the gateway is at the top and the post needed to go right at the bottom.  They had brought a small digger to make the hole for the post instead.  It struggled a bit because of the thick hedge and also because of the flints but they eventually drilled the hole deep enough.  They took a great deal of care to get the right depth
2006
1997 Longlands  barn fire
photos supplied by
Rene Green
web page
by DS
August 2010 Dorset County Council and Southern Electric Contracting
decide that Sheridan Close (& Browne's Place) needs to modernise!
First of all, of course, there's the problem of the 'old' light.  It needed the wires disconnecting and then to be dug out. Except that the electrical work is carried out LIVE which was a little disconcerting though the 'man on the job' seemed totally unperturbed.
the post is strapped to the lifting gear and much digging commences, all by hand to lessen the chance of knocking out other vital services.  Not only is there a large amount of flint to remove but also the concrete with which the post was originally secured. Occasional gentle tweaking of the post via the straps, interspered with more digging, eventually succeeds in loosening and removing it from the hole it has been in for a good few years.  A problem with these concrete posts is that they are liable to fractured when pulled so great care is taken as otherwise it could be very difficult to remove a small length of remaining post
so out it rises to be placed on the lorry which gives cause to another problem.  It has to be carefully threaded through a maze of telephone wires but the man with his hand on the lifting gear also seems totally unperturbed.  He also delivers the 'coup de grace' to a long serving asset to the community by knocking its head off so that it fits safely in the bed of the lorry!
further digging commences, with a variety of tools, to deepen and widen the original hole.  Fortunately the new post, though longer than the old one, is much lighter so they can manhandle it into position which avoids the problem of the telephone wires. The hole has to be a metre deep. Fast setting cement goes in first and the post is checked for vertical corrections.
British Telecom 2008
then comes yet another tricky bit, that of connecting the power to the new pole.  There's plenty of twiddling of bare wires, protecting it all with various coverings and finally sealing it all off .  The finished connection is laid in the bottom of the hole and filling in commences.  That includes yet more cement as well as some of the flints etc removed in the first place
the remainder of the rubble is swept up and collected in a bag to go on the lorry.  A small amount of soft tarmac is produced and the surface of the hole is levelled out and tamped down. Meanwhile (on the left) one of them heads off to the next pole and the final photo shows them starting to dig that one out
Time taken to do all this? They arrived at 8.00 am.  They didn't stop working at all and finished this pole roughly two and a half hours later.  They went straight on to the next one.  I provided them with a cup of coffee as they started the second post which they drank while they went on working.  The second pole was more modern than the first so didn't take quite as much effort to remove being lighter and less likely to fracture while being pulled out of its hole.  Unfortunately the ground itself proved even harder to dig out for the new post than at the first post.  The third pole they replaced was again a concrete one as above but they seemed to get on with it quite swiftly.  Now we await the other crew to replace the heads with more economical lights and which also will lessen light pollution.
updated: January 3, 2011
the other crew turned out to be a man and a van! who arrived later in the afternoon and fitted the three heads in very little time.  Again the telephone wires had to be avoided but once in place he soon threaded a wire into the post, connected the head and descended to earth.
once more the several connections were made while live, double checked, everything noted and copies left in the cavity.  Safely closed off, the next, apparently very important to get it exactly 2.1 metres from the ground, was affixing the post number and instructions on reporting any faults. A final ride to the top to check that end and he was off to fix the other posts
all the posts will be left to settle for a while.  Eventually another crew will refill the holes on a permanent basis