The metallic sound of wrenches clattering on broken machinery is often accompanied by a streak of blue language.
Mechanics often use otherwise unspeakable profanity to lubricate their repair efforts. Al Wilson was dousing a broken folder unit with such prose on Thursday morning. The 38-year veteran of the Prince George Citizen press crew was up to his elbows in grease and steel as he strained to disconnect the offending pieces of a rare breakdown.
The paper was halfway through the printing process when the malfunction occurred, causing the Thursday print edition to be absent from doorsteps and mailboxes.
"It's the first time in all my years that something mechanical has stopped the paper," said Wilson. "We had a problem once before, about 10 years ago, where we missed an edition (specifically April 23, 2008) but that was an electrical component."
This time it was a bolt, only one bolt, that broke. However, that bolt was located inside the steel guts of the folder apparatus.
"You need four hands in there, but there's only room for one," said Wilson, talking over his shoulder as he craned his body into tight crannies within the metal box about the size of a SmartCar. "Nobody in town builds this kind of thing. It's a rare piece of machinery. There are only three or four of them in the province, and this is going to require taking the whole thing apart.
"I mean, we moved the entire press from one building to another and still got the next paper out on time, but now we can't get a paper out because of one bolt."
The bolt broke at about 10 p.m. The crew attempted in vain to make the repair with the tools at hand, but a couple of hours later it became clear to them that only a professional machinist had the necessary equipment.
"Just after midnight, I got a knock on my door and there was a pressman with a serious look on his face," said Colleen Sparrow, publisher of The Citizen and the only one with the authority to make the final decision. "We knew there was no way to fix it in time to publish on time. We just had to come up with a plan, notify the staff because a lot of routines were about to suddenly change, and let the public know why their paper wouldn't be there in the morning."
She also had to authorize changes in some staff members' schedules.
"Some extremely passionate pressmen had to go home and get some sleep, and we had to get underway with the repairs," she said.
By noon Thursday, the machinist was involved, the offending bolt replaced, the disconnected parts put back together and testing underway. Sparrow said a backup plan was also in place to print the Friday paper in St. Albert, north of Edmonton, and have it trucked to Prince George for regular delivery.
"I had so many callers this morning," she said. "It was really stressful, but there was still a silver lining in seeing how much the public cares. I had so many people tell me they just couldn't feel right about their day without the morning newspaper."
It helped that the mid-week delivery of 97/16, The Citizen's free citywide tabloid newspaper, was unaffected. It was already printed and out the door.
The next edition of Industry & Trades, The Citizen's quarterly publication about the region's heavy-duty sector, had also already come off the press and would be circulated as per normal.
In fact, the Thursday paper will be delivered in full, it will just be delayed 24 hours. Readers should receive the Thursday and Friday print editions together Friday morning.
