Not sure how things are done in the "World", but here the local phone company is laying Fiber Optics phone cable. They have always been near the road, on the roadbank. This time they are laying it in the road. They bore under the culverts. Supposed to be 12ft below the bottom of the culvert but I'm doubting that. Anytime they cross a road they also bore. Pedestals are still set on the roadbank. So, what I end up with is a vibra shank knife mark in the road, just outside the track. At each culvert I also have a 2ft wide 4ft long backhoe hole. 2 per culvert. At each pedestal they backhoe from the ped out to the knife mark. The crew working in my Township has been very cooperative. The Foreman calls or texts me daily telling where he's working. They set a white flag at each culvert or obstacle they will bore under. Whichever side of the road the flag is on tells me which side the cable will be ran on. They set pink flags where the pedestals are going to be along the route. A double pink flag indicates where they are going to stop. So he tells me where he's headed a couple days in advance and I roll all my gravel to the opposite side of the road. They go behind the knife with a small dozer using a 6way blade and a hydraulic lifted rigid harrow on the back. That operator does a very good job of busting the chunks of roadbed and tromping the knife mark closed. Our weather is very dry here now. This is a positive in regards to messing up the roadbed getting their equipment in/out. They can park off the road without damaging ditches or roadbanks. This is a negative in what the vibra shank does to my roadbed.......
This project is partially Federal Tax Funded. This is the program to get all of us country hicks on high speed internet. It's been ongoing for a few years now. Our local phone company is small. They received $15M in Federal assistance. No way they could afford to do this without that assistance. So as a receiver of this assistance I thank the rest of you tax payers.... Being a "Federal" job there are several people on the payroll that never get their hands dirty. Making sure we aren't destroying the environment. One such person is the Archeologist.... She is serious about her job. Follows the knife all day. Inspects every hole dug by the backhoes. The Foreman said "heaven forbid if I knife up a racoon bone".
I have three sites in my Township where limestone rock ledges are exposed. One is a fairly large creek crossing. They've been trying to bore under the creek site for a couple weeks now. They keep bringing in a larger machine. Seems there's a ledge of very hard stone in the middle of the ledge. They first tried to bore down thru it at the East side. Couldn't penetrate the ledge, the bit would just skip along. So they went to the other side of the creek and got under it. But then they couldn't turn up and come back to the surface at the other side of the creek. So they brought in a bigger machine. After a day and a half and only boring 40ft his bit got stuck. They lost it. Estimated cost $15K. Now we're on hold in regards to that site while they decide what to do. A second site is a ledge exposed in the road as it goes down the hill. Since now they only have the small bore machine onsite they decided to "saw" thru this ledge. Here's a pic of the saw. I've got a short video. I'll see if I can post it. You can't even see this machine move. Pretty slow progress.
Saw that kind of mess in St Charles and Calaway Counties in MO, find Dolomitic Limestone routinely, Eats EVERY device brought in save blasters drills as is hard as it gets next to Granite.
I'm amazed they aren't preripping the line, it's standard procedure in Australia. In hard country 2 D10s or 2 375 Komatsu would be used, one pushing the other. Where the depth couldn't be achieved excavators with rock breakers were used. In easy country a D7 would be used which was also the plough tractor. All lines had to be ripped to 1.5 metres, cable laid at 1.2 metres .
Yeah, two days ago when I asked about it they had no plan. West of this creek there's a steep hill that has exposed ledges halfway to the top. I'm not a fan of the rock saw in my roadbed either. Won't that cut always be vulnerable to water seeping down the hill in it???
I've not saw that done here. All I've saw are vibra shanks. I'm guessing this one is running 36" deep.
Those Fiber people irk me.... I live in the country, about 15 miles out of town. I live on a dead end road and I am the LAST house. Imagine my surprise one day when I see over a period of 2-3 weeks, various equipment collect at the front of the road. Long story short, I correctly suspect they're bringing fiber optic down my road and I'm RIGHT... I'm stoked!! My internet reception out here is pathetic. I'll be smoking with fiber. They bring it halfway down my 1-mile road.....turn to the right go into a 4 house subdivision. (there are 5 houses between there and me, I'm the 5th house of these others) I stop one day and ask when they're doing phase II down the road. WHA? We didn't know anyone lived down there, we thought that pavement was someone's driveway. (yeah, right) Long story short, they are bringing fiber to the subdivision and ignoring the rest of the road. This is so obtuse, they are burying fiber IN FRONT of a house to get it to the development and they won't give HER access. They are essentially shunning virtually EVERYONE on the road but for this development. I can understand (but don't like) them not bringing it down to us because we're double the distance. What THEY don't realize is they are bringing it to a 40 acre subdivision (only 5 houses, no actually it's only FOUR houses) Where I am will ultimately be developed and it's 250 acres so a lot more density... They ignore us and what really rubs me wrong, the very gal they buried cable through/under her FRONT YARD, they will NOT allow access. Almost wants me to drive my backhoe down there and dig it up on them lol.
That's your phone company doing that. Not the contractor. The contractor just lays cable where they are told. I've had 3 incidents where the phone company "forgot" houses. One of which was a new build. Once the mistake was made the contract was amended and cable added on those roads. I'm talking adding 1/2 mile of cable for one house.
Here's a video.
If you have line of sight or can get it, look into beaming internet with Ubiquiti gear from whoever has it now. It really works well and is affordable.
Here's a couple pics. First is the dozer and harrow that they smooth behind the vibra shank with. Second is the rock saw machine.
Either that or it will drain the water away...
But, away from what?? The cut is just outside the track, straight down the hill. If water gets in, it can't get out, until it reaches the bottom of the hill. Then it pools in the cut until it fills to roadbed level. Beyond that, how do I get that cut to seal over? It's rock dust embedded in a rock ledge.
More like a Narrow French Drain at this point.
I have one other place that I am afraid this technique will be used. It will be 4 times this long. I'm hoping for the best, expecting the worst.
Have rock will travel, hope it gets little hits of moisture to solid back up first. Otherwise phone company cable may surface on its own!
If that cut acts like a french drain, isn't it going to freeze and thaw down in there and destroy that wire? There's no where for it to go.
See if you can get them to saw a tee at the bottom of hill that would drain into the ditch. When they brought the Keystone pipeline through here they had a creek crossing like you describe. Every time they would fail they would bring in the next bigger piece of equipment. They finally ended up with a couple of 40 ton hoes with hydraulic hammers. I doubt it will get cold enough to have frost deep enough to get to the fiber line, especially now with global warming and all.
So what's the theory behind putting it in the road, vs. making them put it in the ditch, where all the utilities have gone forever? Less likely to have someone dig it up putting in a driveway or fence? Won't it be a pain for them to run back and forth to the pedestals, if they have to add someone on? Sure, tear up the road whenever they have to work on anything.
Yeah, I'm anxious to see what's next...... Good one on the global warming!!!!
I originally was against putting it in the road. I logically realized it doesn't matter what I think. So, being an optimist, I began to look for the positives. Now I know where the cable is. It's buried deep enough under my culverts that I won't have to worry about it replacing them. If a land owner approaches me about shaving a roadbank or dozing brush to build a new fence they/I don't have to worry about the cable. I suspect, hope the cable is durable enough that I'll not see any repairs in my roadbeds. I guess time will tell. I've got two projects that drift with snow. Have waited for this cable move to work on them. Both of them currently have phone cable up on the bank that I need to doze off. So, again, being an optimist, I'm onboard with it. Even though right now it's not pretty.
I wasn't onsite when they laid the cable in the saw trench. I'll ask the crew Monday if maybe it's laid in conduit to protect it from rock damage in the future?
Another interesting point. They don't splice the cable in the roadbed when a spool ends. They only splice in a "box" that's buried next to the pedestals. Every pedestal has one. I'll try to remember to get a picture. So they haul the cable spools on trailers pulled by a pickup. The trailers have a gas engine that powers the spool. When they come to a bore site they unspool all of the cable, feed the end thru, respool on the other side and go again. If bores are reasonably close together they unspool cable and lay it out on the roadbank and then feed it thru each bore as they go. That's what they did on the video I posted. The first time I saw them unspool a cable I couldn't understand what was going on. I asked the crew foreman and he explained it to me. I didn't ask how many feet of cable is on each spool. In this pic they just finished unspooling one to go thru a bore. There was a LOT of cable laying on the ground......
The cable is marked by the foot, so you just look at the ends to know how much cable is in the pile or on the spool. Are they laying conduit with the fiber inside, or are they installing conduit and going to pull the fiber later?
Yep, I am aware of the cable markings. I just didn't want to go bother them while they work looking for the marking. The only place conduit is used is during bores. My video is a bit boring and rambles, but you can see them load/unload the knife with bare cable. The bore crew leaves the conduit ends exposed. They bore based on flags and ground markings showing them where to start and end. Each bore site is marked with a large white flag. The bore site registration # is written on the flag. Also the distance of the bore is written.
Could be worse in the middle of the road:
Be curious to see that trench after a Serious LONG duration heavy rain.
I spent the day cleaning up roads where cable was laid. It's snowing steadily now. Forecast 1-3". Hoping for less. The only cable left to lay is where they can't penetrate the rock ledge at the creek crossing. Then 1/2 mile of cable to lay. We're roaring ahead full steam into Winter. Unusual for us this early. I'm sure glad they almost got my township done. They've laid 17 miles. In the morning I'm going to the phone company office and talk to them about replacing lost gravel. I'll report the results.
I finally got an audience with the phone company. They expect to pay for damages. They are going to drive my roads and then get back to me. I think I've lost 50% of my rock. The manager that I talked to is a nice enough guy but has no logic or knowledge to road care. He said "well we will have to figure out how we are going to just spread gravel down half of the roadway". I kept my composure and said I think we would both be best served by determining a loss amount. Then either the phone company send us a check for the total. Or, better yet, send a check to the local quarry company and have them credit our account. Then we'll get the rock and put it on where it'll do us the most good. That decision will be above his pay grade but I planted the seed. I next went to the Quarry and asked them what the phone company would pay p/ton for gravel. $18.43 at the quarry. Haul rate to my township is currently $6.50 p/ton. So $24.93 p/ton delivered. I don't think 2 dump truck loads (17 ton) per mile would fix the roads. I think it will require 3 loads. 51 ton per mile. 17 x 51 = 867 ton. 867 x $24.93 = $21,614.31 total. There is going to be much gnashing of teeth over this. I'll report the results.