The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-16
PULLING DOWN THE WIRES.
500 MILES Of OLD TELEPHONE
LINES To GO.

The Wires Being Removed and the
Poles TO Be Taken Down-Tests of
the New Telephone system - Fly
bees New Station About Com
pIeted.
The work Of taking down the Old tele-
phone wires is rapidly nearing completion.
The wires have now been removed from
Bay street. between East Broad and West
Broad. and from Whitaker street, between
River and Gordon streets. The force Of
twenty lineinen that is employed. is now
at work removing the wires from the poles
on Drayton street. By the close of to-day
they Will have taken down all the wires on
that street as far south as Liberty. The
underground system extends as far south
as Huntington on this side instead of to
Gordon. as Is the case on Whitaker street
The business and some Of the residence
streets from which the wires are 10 be re-
moved viii present a greatly improved ap-
pearance after they are taken down.
Manager Polk of\the telephone exchange
is very happy upon the approaching COM
pletion OF the work. He now sees what has
been the consummation of his hopes, in
view. The underground system has been
a matter of great pride to him, and he has
looked forward to the time when it should
be in thorough working order, and the evil
dences that such thing as overhead wires
had ever existed in Savannah, should be
removed.
The linemen have been at work for sew
eral weeks, and have accomplished con-
siderable for that length of time. They
will begin taking down the poles some
time next week. There will be no other
streets left for the overhead wires to be
removed from after they are takn down
from Drayton street.
1t is not expected that the work of re-
moving the poles will require very long
There will be only about one-half of those
that have had their places supplied by the
underground system taken down. There
are some 200 poles that the company has
abandoned, but all of them cannot be re-
moved from the streets, as they will be
required by the city for its wires. The
wires for the fire and police alarm sys-
TENS are strung on the same poles, in
many instances, as those of the telephone
company.
It is estimated that there will be as
much as 800 miles of wire taken from the
streets. The foreman of the Iinemen has
not yet made calculation Of the length
of wire that has already or will have
been removed by the time the work is
completed, but he thinks there will be
about the quantity stated. This wire is
In too bad a condition to admit of its
1T, la ~
smoke that constantly sweeps over the
city have a very injurious effect on the
wires and cause them to rust. 1t is
found that the rustlng process has gone
to a great length with most of the wire.
None of it will be fit for further use. Some
of it has been eaten away until 1t is hard
" of the thickness of an ordinary needle.
The wire Is being stored in the COM
pany's warehouse on River street. 1t is
likely that 1t will be condemned after an
inspection by some officer of the company.
1t will then be thrown away, the process
of throwing away being to cart it off from
the city and dump it out to waste.
Savannah Is a sort of distributing point
for this section with the telephone com
pany. Supplies of all kinds are kept on
hand at the River street storehouse, where
the wire is being put. Manager Polk is
almost daily sending out orders of electri-
cal supplies to towns and cities of the
section in which the Southern Bell Tele
phone Company has branches.
Fully two-thirds of the subscribers,
Manager Polk says, will be served by the
underground system. These are nearly all
in the business section or close upon its
borders. He finds that the new system
is giving satisfaction. Its work is as good
as could be expected when the short
length of time it has been in operation is
considered. Mr.. Polk says there Is trou-
l. f- ,f.,or
frequent. When 1t arises no great diff
Guilty or delay is found in righting it.
kind of test of the efficiency of the
service is being made weekly. A man is
sent around to make calculation of the
average length of time necessary to Sc
| cure connections. 1t is his place to visit
fifty phones. Taking the receivers from
the hooks, he notes the time taken by
the operator to answer This time is then
iotted down, and from the list of fifty his
average is made up. Last Monday it
was found that the average time elapsing
between the inspector taking the receivers
from the hooks until he was answered by
the operator was 3.9S seconds. On the
Monday before it was found that the time
was 4OS seconds. A very perceptible de-
crease in the average is thus shown. Mr.
Polk says he will not be entirely salts
fed until the average is reduced to three
seconds. He thinks this reduction will be
reached as the operators become thor
oughly familiar with their work.
The building at Tybee for the new sig.
nal station for the telephone company is
almost completed. The tower affords a
fine view Of the entire surroundings 1t
is sixty-five feet in hight above mean
low water. 1t became necessary for the
company to erect a new tower when the
government wanted its land on the ISL
and. The company's building occupied a
site upon this government property. The
new tower is a much better one than the
old. 1t stands to the west of the old site.