Re: Mythbusters Is Wrong Once Again (Important Info.)
The transmission lines carried 66 KVAC.
I was 19 years old, with the immortality of youth. I was making a ton of money.
Then, one night in a hurricane, a transmission line came down on the Jersey Meadows. I was the master lineman's helper, ferrying parts and tools up and down the tower.
Some jackhole in the power control room in Penn Station, across the Hudson River, threw the wrong switch and incinerated my lineman while I was halfway back up the pole to bring him some nuts and bolts.
I came down and took a look around me with new eyes. I realized that the oldest guy on the gang was 26 years old, and that all the foremen were crippled. I finally understood why I was getting paid so well; I wouldn't be doing it for so long.
I resigned on the spot, and applied to IBM for inside work the next day. Within a week I was going to the IBM Ed Center in Lower New York, learning to fix electric typewriters, and with the distinction of being the first man hired for the job who didn't have a college degree.
Well, I got drafted soon after, never got the degree, and left IBM six month after returning from my enlistment in the Marines, and my 13 months in 'Nam. I was no longer the man they had hired, and they were no longer the company I had joined.
There are established procedures for working HV lines.
They are cut at the switches on either end of the problem section, and grounded directly to the rails every several hundred feet. The induction alone from energized wires running alongside above adjacent tracks is enough to generate a fatal current. Then, and only then, is it permitted to touch the actual catenary structure. Workers are forbidden to step on rails, under penalty of immediate dismissal. Third rails are not covered in railway yards.
The most fun job was 'saltsicle patrol'. We would enter the railway tunnels between NYC, NJ, and Long Island, carrying a long fiberglass pole with hook on the end, walking the full tunnel length on the catwalk above the tracks. We did this because water seepage would create tiny stalactites of salt reaching down from the tunnel ceiling. Left to themselves, they would eventually grow long enough to ground out the catenary, which was mounted less than a foot below the tunnel ceiling. Our job was to hook the saltsicles and break them off before they grew too long, every few months.
While you're doing this the power remains on, and the trains continue to run the tunnel. You are alone. Your only source of light is a headlamp. If you screw up and accidentally ground out the catenary to the roof, the ensuing flash will blind you for several minutes.
The catwalk is less than two feet wide. The only handrail is against the wall, and there is nothing to prevent your falling onto the tracks. You carry two flares with you, so that if you fall, you have something to ignite and throw as far as you can in both directions down the tunnel, to alert oncoming trains.
The trains hit the tunnel mouth accelerating through roughly 60MPH and emerge maxed out going about 110-120. This is taking place about 1-2ft alongside you as you crouch on the catwalk, clinging to the handrail. The only warning of an approaching train consists of the train horn as they hit the tunnel mouth, and the rapidly increasing rush of air as the train compresses it in front of the electric locomotive(s).
This experience lends a unique perspective to the plight of a bullet within a barrel. Dangerous as hell, but what a rush!
You learn a lot about thinking before you act. One mistake, and you're out of chances.
Greg
