Anyway we spent days swapping the pizza box manhole covers for web manhole covers so it would be easier to get into and out of some of the best manhole entrances. We also swapped some of the heavier concrete filled covers for lighter ones.
Looking back I'm not sure if it was a good idea. Oh we took precautions to post a person at the open manhole along with safety equipment so no one would fall down the manhole. I'm just wondering if it was a good idea to make drains easier to get into. Yes, easier to get out of is good, but not so sure about easier to get into. Anyway, that was last century and a decade more and a bit ago. But having a safe exit from a drain was important back in the day. I used to mark such exits in red paint back in the day too. (And some marked as "no exit") Any one got a pick of any of those exit scrawls?
There's few things more annoying than finding the perfect drain manhole only to find it rusted shut!
With a little ingenuity you can make it much easier to open. Use whatever means you have to open the drain (Usually a pick and sheer muscle power will do it. Then use a sanding block and course sandpaper to sand off all the rust from the manhole cover rim and manhole lip. You litrally can not sand off too much rust. Then apply a generous layer of vasaline on the manhole cover metal rim and the manhole lip. You can use grease, but that stains and vasaline is cheap and is clear so does not stain as much. The vasaline will stop water from getting in and forming rust, it also acts as a lubricant so the manhole will slip into and out of the hole better (ohh no double entendre there!).
