FOR PENINSULA DAILY NEWS
The Peninsula Daily News’ venerable printing press broke down early Wednesday morning, causing delivery delays and throwing a wrench into the newspaper’s carefully constructed printing and delivery schedule until at least this weekend.
Today’s edition was completed early and printed on the presses of King County Journal Newspapers in Kent, then trucked across Puget Sound in time for morning delivery.
The same process is scheduled for Friday’s PDN edition.
Repairs to the PDN press in Port Angeles should be completed by Friday or Saturday, said production director Dean Mangiantini.
Horvitz Newspapers Inc. owns the King County newspaper group and Peninsula Daily News.
A bearing seized up on a main drive shaft around 1:30 a.m., meaning that paper could no longer be fed through the printing press, Mangiantini said.
Early signs
Workers already knew that not all was right with the press.
“We had heard, or felt, a vibration that had started Sunday night,” Mangiantini said.
That turned into a growl Tuesday night, and around 10 p.m. press workers found the source of the problem.
Though the bearing is a significant part — analogous to a crankshaft or a U-joint on a car — a factory technician said via phone that the press probably could finish the run and continue to operate until a replacement part arrived.
With about 5,600 copies to go, however, there was “a loud rumbling, punctuated by loud crashes, or bangs, as the bearing seized,” Mangiantini said.
As the press broke down, the floor vibrated throughout the newspaper’s offices in downtown Port Angeles.
The press run was completed at the Kent printing plant.
The newspaper’s press, a six-unit Goss Community rotary offset model, is at least 35 years old and was the first of its kind installed for newspaper use in the state.
“These presses are known for their reliability,” Mangiantini said.
“We had repairs planned for the near future, and this was not one of them. We were kind of blindsided.”
It was not known Wednesday what caused the bearing to fail.
Made even later
Many deliveries were already going to be late, but those delays were compounded when a truck hauling papers from the Kent plant had to take a detour around a collision on state Highway 16, said circulation director Dave Jacobsen.
When the press broke down, copies off the PDN press for Jefferson County and the West End were already on the road, and delivery had started in Sequim and Port Angeles.
Those who didn’t receive papers Wednesday can get a credit to their account, Jacobsen said.
Anyone who bought an old paper from a vending machine can get a refund or a replacement paper.
Circulation workers made it their first priority to ensure that papers reached subscribers’ homes, but the delay in getting papers set off a ripple effect, Jacobsen said.
Many carriers work other jobs during the day, for example, and couldn’t wait for the papers. Some had to complete their deliveries after finishing their day jobs.
In other cases, heavier traffic during the day stymied delivery — a delay of as little as 45 minutes from the normal start time can turn a three-hour route into a six- or seven-hour one, Jacobsen said, because of increased traffic.
“We’ll have people actually [delivering] throughout the day,” Jacobsen said Wednesday morning.
“I guess, in some parts of Port Angeles, we’ll be the Port Angeles Evening News.”
That was the original name of the newspaper, founded in 1916.