[AusNOG] OT: Re: Pipe hiccup in Melbourne

[Mark Tees]

A very well illustrated point.

On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 5:04 PM, Karl Auer <kauer at biplane.com.au> wrote:
> On Tue, 2015-02-10 at 16:05 +1100, Mark Tees wrote:
>> If a sizeable tunnel was built on either side of roads where all the
>> common utilities go
>
> I lived for nearly a decade in Forn Parts (no Spoonerisms, please!) and
> lived beside a fairly important road into the city. Over winter, a bit
> of a pot-hole developed, maybe a foot or two long and maybe a couple of
> inches deep. Not really a pot-hole - more of a crack, or rift. One day
> City Works showed up to fix it. In Australia you'd expect a shovel-full
> of gravel to be chucked in, plus a quick spurt of liquid tar. It would
> last one or two days, then there'd be a pothole again for a couple of
> months. Rinse and repeat.
>
> Not here. Oh no. They re-routed traffic around the block, then dug up
> the road almost the whole way across it, and for two metres along it,
> over two metres deep. Then they started layering various soils, sands
> and gravels back into the excavation, building it all back up to the
> proper street level. Each layer was carefully compacted. Finally they
> layered tar on top of it all, and rolled it flat. You could barely tell
> there had ever been a hole. A week after I thought they were finished,
> they came back - and added about a centimetre of tar mixture to account
> for where the traffic had slightly compressed the new section. They did
> that again about six weeks later. Driving over it, you really had to
> know they had repaired the section, then if you concentrated you could
> sense the slightest difference in road noise, perhaps feel the slightest
> of slight bumps. But not after the third lot of tar mixture. Then it was
> absolutely imperceptible.
>
> Now, this was a pretty big operation, right? So it would take many
> weeks, right? And hugely inconvenience the commuters, right? Wrong! They
> worked on it only at night, from about 10pm through to 6am. They covered
> the hole up with massive steel plates during the day, and let the
> traffic flow again. And the whole thing (bar the two followups) was done
> in about a week.
>
> I'm sure it was very expensive indeed to fix the road like that. But I'm
> just as sure that that section of road will not need further attention
> for about a hundred years, so I'm guessing the investment was worth it.
>
> Regards, K.
>
> --
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
> http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
> http://twitter.com/kauer389
>
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-- 
Regards,

Mark L. Tees