Friday, August 29, 2008

Telephone posts.

I joined the the telegraph arm of the old P&T Department in 1957 as Engineering Supervisor. The Telegraph Engineering branch was responsible for running the Telephone, Telegraph services including providing communication infrastructure to Railways. I worked in the area of maintaining lines and cables for considerable number of years. Those days Lineman was the basic cadre on the lines side and source for the recruitment was mazdoors who would have worked earlier on muster roll on daily wages in construction or maintenance of lines or cables. The primary criteria for selection was the skill of the mazdoor to climb the telegraph post using his own limbs without aid of any other prop. To get an idea how the posts used to look can be seen in this photograph.

The whole purpose of this blog is to bring out my awe when I saw a post in use in the successor organisation. A photo of the new post introduced can be seen in this photograph.

You can see the projections welded to the main post to help the lineman to climb the post. Should we proclaim this as an improvement or a retrograde step?
1. Too much of effort and time is avoided in reaching the top of the post.
2. Less risk in climbing and less accidents.
3. No need to supply ladder.
One major defect lineman: loses the art of using his limbs to climb.
These are the effects of advance in technology and the inputs from labour side.

1 comment:

Harit said...

Only one in the field for a long time can appreciate the magnitude of subtle changes. :-) I would say this has been a "step" in the right direction. :-)