ENGEN LONEHILL DOING THE RIGHT THING
Lonehill's ENGEN garage leads the way when it comes to doing the right thing. The big man himself, Martin Gouws (that's him standing on top of the tanker), explained that this is the first ENGEN station in Gauteng to install the latest in environmentally friendly forecourt underground systems.
You've all seen what a mess the bricks and surface area looks like around the pumps. Where there's an engine, there's a leak of some sort. And of course, the pump jockeys themselves are not always careful when filling your jalopy with juice either - always a spill. What happens to this pollutant - usually just gets washed into the stormwater systems and seeps into the local ground water network says Martin. But no longer will that happen at this garage!
Special undergound concrete slabs made of non-porous materials are being laid to trap all of the spillage and drippage etc. They're laid at a specific angle to facilitate run-off into two special tanks, which will allow separation of the different liquids and pollutants, which will then be removed by a special vehicle designed to efficiently detox the tanks on a regular basis.
Well done Martin, and ENGEN. Another first for Lonehill.
NEOTEL LAYS FIBRE CABLE LINK THROUGH LONEHILL
The communications companies are at it again! This time it's NEOTEL, who are busy laying a fibre optic link cable for their new shopping centre roof based aerial installation.
Great news, really, as it gives us all a number of choices and options, and should improve our communications infrastructure quite significantly.
Bit of a difference though in how they are doing it compared to the previous exercise! This lot is all manual labour, a simple backactor, and a few hole boring machines to create under-roadway cable runs. They're also doing it pretty quickly and should be done in a week or two.
Not all goes well though! It was bound to happen....the backactor crew managed to slice through an underground ESKOM cable, cutting off electricity to the shopping centre and a few surrounding complexes! The ESKOM cable repair should not take too long and all will be back to normal.
VODACOM LAYS FIBRE CABLE THROUGH LONEHILL
The last few weeks have seen Lonehill Boulevard being "hacked" by some strange machinery! This is called progress, and is preparation for the installation of higher speed communications than we have at present.
First, one of the "cutter / excavator" trucks (each one has its own name - yes, named after girls!) cuts the trench in the road, and vacuums out the rubble. Then another truck and trailer lays the Fibre Optic cable sheaths into the trench. These are all heat and pressure sealed on the joints as you can see in one of the pictures.
After this, the trench is filled with a cement like compound, and finally, the top is filled with tar again. Only once the entire route has been completed, is the fibre optic cable inserted into the sheaths. This is a very expensive process, but the job is done very quickly, and we don't have any overhead cables.