when i was a young power lineman one of my most remembered night at 11p.m. was as a lineman lots of snow maybe 2 feet or more ,below zero and some wind we had a electrical outrage because of a tree , knock wires down ,right after a major snow storm ,one of many and the transformer fuse out ,secondary lines down on ground. road was snowed shut so we hike thru a smaller woods across country we knew the area with some climbing tools ,8 foot fiber stick and a couple fuses ,handline and chainsaw . ,primary line was still hot and up ,tried a fuse on transformer twice and the transformer was burned out .so we hiked back to truck got the new 10 KVA transformer off truck ,more tools and put the 350 lb. 10 kva transformer on a aluminum scoop shovel pulled thru the woods a 1/4 mile about ,had to go back and get a rope block and tackle too . i climb up the 40 foot pole got the smaller old transformer off by hand work it was smaller transformer probably only weighed 200 lbs. , got the secondary wires back up , got the block and tackle set on pole ,climbed down help the other lineman pull the transformer up climbed back up set transformer on the bolts , hooked up all the wires . the farmer had electric again carried everything back to truck but left old transformer tel he got plowed out a few days later. we finished about 6 a.m. with his lights back on . was a cold miserable night that many power lineman know all about thru their years as a lineman , this was 40 - 45 years ago when we had no bucket trucks then we climbed every pole . i worked with some dang tuff old white linemen and was sure fun in the bar after a hard day of work too !
