Team Fishel Beats Granite and Clock on 14-Mile Fiber Bore in Maryland
Trenchless Technology profiles a Maryland HDD job that field crews will want to study closely: Team Fishel’s installation of the final 14 miles of fiber duct bank beneath Route 15 in Frederick County, connecting four data centers on a schedule compressed from the usual two to three years down to just 10 months. The project, completed in eight months, hit a continuous granite vein along nearly the entire route, slowing progress to as little as 8 to 12 feet per day and forcing multiple reams per bore. Team Fishel doubled its drill count to more than 25 rigs, brought in crews from 15 states, and deployed Ditch Witch AT32 directional drills to handle the rock within narrow rights-of-way squeezed against active highway traffic. Ditch Witch’s ACE support team stationed a technician on-site almost daily and pre-stocked over $1 million in parts to prevent downtime, according to area manager Connor Bass.
What It Means for Subcontractors
- HDD crews bidding congested-corridor, rock-heavy fiber routes should budget for reduced daily footage (8-12 ft/day is what continuous granite produced here) and build reaming passes into schedules and pricing before committing to penalty-laden timelines.
- Contractors facing shoulder-only, no-lane-closure work zones like Route 15 should plan crew and truck logistics early. This job ran 160 workers and 80-plus trucks daily through a live traffic corridor.
- Equipment dealer relationships matter on high-stakes bores. Team Fishel’s outcome hinged on having a dealer partner pre-stock over $1 million in wear parts and staff on-site daily, a model other HDD contractors can request when negotiating equipment support on tight-margin, penalty-driven contracts.
