Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1941-05-29
Phone Crews Extend
Underground Cable
Across Nation
$40, 900, 900 System
May Be Completed
By Years End
BY E. E. MAKIESKY.

BY E. E. MAKIESKY.
tThe Stars Special News service.)
OMAHA, May 29.-Across broad
prairies, over rocky hills and down
into the valleys, man and his ma
chimes are threading the earth with
wires.
Like railroad crews of an earlier
day, they seek to span the CONT
nent with a metal streak connect
ing the East and West Coasts.
When they finish, the Nation will
have it's first transcontinental I'M
foreground toll cable, safe from the
Whims OF nature.
Work has started at Omaha and
"cable trains" are moving West to
construct 1000 miles of twin under
ground telephone lines which will
connect existing cable systems in
the East with those along the Pacific
Coast and double the present trans
continental lines.
Estimated cost of the project is
100000.
BY the end of the year construc-
ton crews expect to reach Laramie,
Wyo Later crews will start near
Sacramento, Calf, and work to-
ward Wendover. Utah, where the
Eastern and Western crews will
have a rendezvous for the finishing
splice to set into operation the
country cable.
History to Be Repeated.
History will be repeating itself
when that event occurs, for 1t was
at Wendover that the first open
wire telephone line to span the
United States was completed in 1915.
This new streak of copper being
buried in the earth will follow close
ly the route of pony express riders.
railroads and airlines, passing
Cheyenne and Salt Lake City.
AS the project now stands, per-
mission has been received from the
Federal Communications Commits
sion for an underground link be-
tween Omaha and Salt Lake City,
via Cheyenne and Denver. and ap-
plications for the remainder of the
project will be submitted as the tn
stallation work progresses.
Engineered by che American Tele-
phone & Telegraph Co., the project
envisages a cable system that will
contain coast-to-coast wires for long
distance telephone use. radio net
work broadcaSting channels, teletype
and telegraph, and wires for trans
mission of pictures.
Defense Role Recognized.
Besides eliminating weather haZ-
ards to which open wire lines are
exposed the transcontinental cable
is expected by engineers to insure
contact during emergencies between
the vital centers of industry, rail-
roads, seaports and troop concen-
tration points on both coasts.
The project already has progressed
from Omaha to several miles north
west of Lincoln. Nebr. A second
cable train is proceeding from York
toward Grand Island, Nebr.. and a
third is working west in Eastern
wyoming.
The cable system dramatizes the
progress in telephone engineering
since construction of the first toll
line between Boston and Providence
As miles-in 1880, four years after
invention of the telephone.
A network Of open wire lines
spread rapidly and an extensive
cable network was laid over the
eastern part of the United States
after the development of adequate
repeaters for stepping up the power.
Ten years ago the cable had reached
such westerly terminals as Omaha,
Kansas City, Oklahoma City and
Dallas.
Recently the demand for addi-
tional circuits to handle expected
growth in toll business revived engi-
neerS' dreams of a cross-country
cable as a safeguard against inter-
ruptions from ice and wind, tornado
fire and other natural forces.
PIow Buries Cable.
The cables themselves. buried by
a specially designed pillow drawn by
tractors, are made up of ordinary
paper 19-gauge copper
wires. The cable pillow, drawn by two
or more tractors, threads the cable
into the ground by cutting a mar
row slit in the earth to a depth ad-
| Unstable down to SO inches. Gables
ordinarily are buried 80 inches as
the pillow moves forward at speed
of about miles an hour.
One of the unusual problems en-
countered in laying the buried ca
bic is due to conditions caused by
the corrosive nature of the soil in
certain sections. This has necessi-
tated special protective covering
over the cable known as "thermo-
plastic" composed of rubber. as
phalt and inert filler. The cover is
applied outside the steel tape that is
wrapped around the cable.
The steel tape itself was added
as protection against gophers that
abound in the region
Many incidental problems have
arisen in laying the cable, such as
putting submarine cables under
| streams.
The number of wires in the twin