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69
Company time to carry this out without inconvenience to the public and
their customers, I should say it could be conveniently accomplished
within six months.
A third precaution which has been already provided to some extent
at any rate by the Company, is to provide at all street boxes simple means
of making a disconnection in the mains. As all the mains of this
Company are laid as all mains should be, without free ends, in case of any
sudden local irruption of water the portion of main affected could be
readily cut off without affecting customers on either side.
Had this been done at once in the case of the first accident, when the
Company were notified that something was wrong, the explosion would
have been prevented and a serious waste of energy saved to the Company.
I have seen at the office of the Company a very efficient arrangement
for providing the requisite facilities for cutting off rapidly.
A fourth precaution which should certainly be. taken is to avoid in
future any depression in the level of the conduit between street boxes,
so that any water should accumulate in these boxes and not at intermediate
points.
A fifth precaution in view of the second accident is that the Company
should at once remove all pilot wires from the interior of their conduits.
The sample shows clearly how liable to injury these wires must be.
These wires have been, I am informed, already disconnected, but even
in this condition might become sources of danger in the vicinity of bare
conductors.
The Company now consider them unnecessary, at any rate so far as
their present system extends, and any that are required in future can be
laid outside the conduits.
With the precautions detailed above, I do not think it will be
necessary for the Board of Trade to reconsider their approval of the
system of laying bare mains in conduits for low pressure supply, which
has undoubted advantages, at any rate until a longer experience has been
acquired of the durability of insulated cables under the conditions of a
constant supply of electrical energy.