Ok, Here are a few more pics.

Pipeline 102. The land lay.

The basic operation here is that your gonna lay a pipeline across some dry, passable terrain. You dig a ditch that the pipe is gonna go into. Then the joints are laid out along side the ditch. Welders come along, put the pipe together. Another crew comes along and lowers it into the ditch. Now the line goes in not completely installed. Some areas must be left out, such as road crossing, crossing other pipelines, changes in direction and such. Then a third crew comes along, this is a tie in crew (my favorite to work). The TIC does the finishing work of the pipeline and when they are complete, you have a whole pipeline. These are pics from West Texas (Midland/Odessa) of a 20" natural gas line I worked on the tie in crew.


Here we go, the pipe has been lowered into the ditch and must be now tied in. The tie in sections are put in using side booms (tractors). Then welders then get down into the ditch where its been dug out (bellhole) and line up the pipe and the make the weld.

Here is the Point of Intersection (change of direction) bend being lowered into the ditch.



Sometimes we lower in as much as 6-8 joints at a time.



Pipe ditch with pipe waiting on the bank



Side booms in action



My truck hard at work, man I sure do miss my stacks, Gonna have to put another set on one day.



Lining up to make a weld



And their off!!!



My brothers of the Blue Light



Once the weld is complete, I visually inspect it, Its xray, and if accepted coated and buried.



Q: Why did the pipeline cross the Road?
A: Cause an engineer miscalculated....

Moving a 2 joint section across 52nd St in Odessa Tx



More to follow later on, the next lesson will more than likely be.... OFFSHORE

Hope yall enjoy,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Pipeline Guru,

Blake

 

MORNING YE`ALL
BLAKE- MY UNCLE WORKED FOR SEAMLESS TUBING MILL- THEY HAD ONE IN SOUTH LYONS MI. & I REMEMBER IN LATE 40`S OR EARLY 50`S THEY PUT UP A PLANT IN TEXAS. HE WAS DOWN THERE FOR A YEAR HELPING GETTING THINGS GOING>
NOT SURE IF THAT WAS THE CO.NAME OR PRODUCT- DO REMEMBER THAT THE SONG (YELLOW ROSE OF TEXAS ) WAS A BIG HIT ON ALL THE JUKEBOXES OF THE TIME.

CLAUDE

 

poppin' in quick...

Blake- better than History channel- thanks- so interesting. see the one pic with the welders working and the dude with the braided hair watching? that is chaiwaka......now you know.

always wondered how they welded the underside, thought they were laying in the ditch. not fun.

NOTICE, CHAIKWA, THAT IT IS ALL STICK WELDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!and to think you laughed at me- Ha! back at ya.....mig boy


got to go make a wheel chock for the hubby's motorcycle. bend, bend, bend..

outta here,

heidi who took a nap

 

There's only one way to get it done.... Lay down and get after it. Welders... sheese, always laying down on the job...




Course you gotta be careful about where you go laying down, all kinds of creepy critters were out there...






Good friend of mine, Alan Hickey, he was the Tie In Crew Foreman

yes ma'am, the best way at IMHO, cant get much fancy machinery out here..




Claude,

You dont remember where that plant was in Texas, the had one in the Midland/Odessa area I think. Course that is quite a while back. Im may just be showing my youth here, I'm only an '81 year model.

 

Ha!ha! -blake -you Wern`t Even A Twinkle In Your Dad`s Eye Yet !
Not Sure Of Which Town They Both Sound Familiar- We`r Talking 60+ Years Ago-
Your Dad Probably Seen A Lot Of That Pipe !

We Have Pipe Line All Over Up Here- As I Said Large Underground Gas Storage East Of Us And Couple Miles From That A Pump Station .
They Were Doing A Lot Of Geological Studies Up Here Last Year -setting Off Underground Explosions And Then Filing The Information To Study -suspect They Will Be Drilling In A Couple Years>

 

Well? Were you scared?

All that cool equipment, welding, (even tho it's stick), and there are sheep TOO??? I'm on my way!

It's neat country, but no hills. That's the only thing I miss about New England.

He don't need no stinkin' shots... I don't catch stuff easy!

Try and keep up, will you! 11:59PM Monday nite turns into 12 midnite Tuesday morning!

Stick welding is just the old "We've always done it that way" syndrome! Someday, pipeliners will catch up with the rest of the trade!

Well, as of right now, we're just getting into Buffalo NY. Making good time so far. Stopped and met Tim, great guy! Might have to make a habit of stopping in his neck of the woods when I go out there from now on.

Here's your history; On this day in 1792 - Kentucky became the 15th state of the U.S.

1796 - Tennessee became the 16th state of the U.S.

1861 - The first skirmish of the U.S. Civil War took place at the Fairfax Court House, Virginia.

1941 - The German Army completed the capture of Crete as the Allied evacuation ended.

1942 - The U.S. began sending Lend-Lease materials to the Soviet Union.

1943 - During World War II, Germans shot down a civilian flight from Lisbon to London.

1944 - The French resistance was warned by a coded message from the British that the D-Day invasion was imminent.

That's all for now... this typing stuff is hard in a bouncing truck!

chaikwa.

 

Daddy broke out pipelining as a welder in the early 70's when he returned from his two years service in Vietnam. He has forgotten more about pipelining than I can hope to learn.

I sure hope they do go to drilling. I am a big supporter of domestic drilling and oil production. We need to responsibly utilize our own sources of oil so that we can cut off all ties to our foreign oil "addiction". In fact the line that I am currently working on is a Carbon Dioxide line. The technology is that CO2 is transported to oil fields that were determined depleted, and the CO2 pumped into the oil "pools". This allows the oil that was previously irretrievable to be extracted. This method could unlock BILLIONS of barrels of oil that was previously unreachable, for fractions of what it cost to drill new wells. The CO2 is collected from waste sources and when pumped into the pools remains locked in the subsoil. This is an effectual way of using CO2 with no enviromental impact. In fact the project is called the "Green" Pipeline Project.

http://www.denbury.com/greenpipelineproject.htm

 

Time for the 5:00 Five hundred.. Got to get home to tend to the wooly ones. Its been alot busier since I took over Chaikwa's herd. Catch ya'll on the flip side.

Cincy-out

 

Mornin. Feel like I've been run over or something.

Son, you never answered my question about the title change... I feel you on the 5 500... We have a road going to base housing right out the front gate, it's a 3 mile straight shot, and we call it the Laurel Bay 500... hit your brakes on that one, see what happens... "It's a pileup on turn 4!"

 

wow, some guys here- madhat's truck is the 'gal at the dance' with DTR members taking their um, ride.
now eric is taking the herd for a ride. calling Madhat Daddy though- at what 28? scarrrrryyyyyyy!

I have come in from cutting trees (huge oak and maple) and made son come down to the Courthouse to get a paper signed by the other judge for some trouble he was responsible for in 2007. having trouble getting a job because of the background check. Found out that: 1. I had to play judge tonight cause the litigants did not want the current judge for a civil case following the criminal case decision. I was only there to explain the form to the other judge. In my lumberjack clothes. not planning on anything but five minutes of the Court's time.
2. people need to be hit in the head.
3. my son is thrilled because the problem was located, he was assigned a bad charge he never committed, Court error. he got the form signed; the Court is on the phone trying to get the bad stuff vacated. wow, glad I raised a good kid- he got his arm almost cut off and refused worker's compensation. got erroneous charges from an official Court and could sue $$$$ but won't. wow. Glad he handled the matter for himself. I was busy with the other kind of people.....

having a labatt's summer blonde right now. sorry, it is a beer. and I am enjoying it very much. marinated grilled turkey breast with dinosaur BBQ sauce too.

safe trip chaiwka, glad you met with Tim. Tim may not think so, but ...

hey Claude, I will be up there in August- let Don know so we can go fishing.

heidi who appearantly works for free.....

 

Evening DTR, slow monday and a wet one too. Had a couple good soakers roll through today. Nice, sunny, and hot now. I think the humidity is about 500%!

Working on a little project right now. Found an old Tonka dump truck I had as a kid that was passed down from my dad. It's a little single axle pick-up dump truck, all steel and has a hydraulic dump bed. Looked it up online and found it was made in 1959. Decided to take it apart last night and sand it down, clean up a little surface rust, and prime it. Went to Tractor supply after work and bought some blue and white paint to match the original colors. Got it painted right now and drying. I know it hurts the value of it but I don't plan on selling it every and would like to hand it down to my kids whenever I have any. Also have a Tonka roll back tow truck from 1963 thats going to get the same done to it but in red and white, also gotta find a front axle for it since its been missing for years. I'll post a few pics when the dump is all back together.


Looks like I have the devils post count right now.

 

Y'all have a good evening I'm off of work and heading to the campground.

 

Evening Blake

 

Hey pappy.. You can change my user name to anything you want as long as it aint "Chaikwa's personal sheep" 38 more days and you'll be home. Bet it seems like you've been gone forever.

Whats really weird about the whole thing is he's younger than I am.. Kinda sounds like some kinda weird deliverance thing.. Run I hear banjo music

Evenin DTR. Morning pappy

Had breakfast for dinner tonight. Bacon and french toast

 

ok trying to figure out whats up !
NIGHTSHIFT HASN`T SHOWN UP YET !

KAFFEE& DONUTS ON PICKINC TABLE