pharrc20

Excellent, funnily enough I came across my maps for this line and this ZR line has been mucked around and recoded. The other L8 line from Barking to the Ford Dagenham works has only just been taken down in the past few years as presumably redundant. In fact, the current ZR from West Ham to Barking re-uses the former YYJ that started at Hackney. ZBA and ZR and former YYJ all interlinked one way or the other.

Trying to remember where ZZU line is now and failing miserably as no system map to refer to. It's still on my wall at my parents house I must bring it over sometime so easier to refer to lol.

I suppose you have to think of the major city ring circuits would be 275 like Manchester, Birmingham, even Leeds/Bradford too. Some of London was but a lot has I think been upgraded to 400. Most of the trunk routes running from the Trent and Aire valley power stations going down south were 400 simply to transmit more power and later reinforced by the L6 lines too. So the thinking to build the L2 Supergrid with 380 operation in mind to future proof the grid has to be commended. I don't actually know if any L2 lines operated or were tested at 380 but I would imagine some testing must have taken place. But only to pave the way to 400 once they realised the future L6 based Supergrid had to operate at 400 from the start. It does look odd where you have different length insulators on the same tower. Like YV 47R near where I grew up which still runs 275 on one side with short ins and 400 on the far side with longer ins as per attached photo I took the other week when passing in the car.

Yep quite a few L2 lines that are 275 on one side of the tower and 400 on the other. Pretty much all of them on the main routes would have started on 275 with intention to uprate to 380 as designed but with new insulation and conductors certain key circuits on trunk route uprated to 400 in time to further enhance the Supergrid especially with the introduction of so many new 400 L6 based lines coming on stream in mid to late 60s into the 70s. I guess any L2 lines built new in 70s would have tended to be more local secondary lines like Cellarhead to Crewe, Kearsley to Bury, Kearsley to Atherton capable of 275 but running on 132 only.

Yes they don't often do that sort of reverse tee, but I guess here it was necessary to do to keep the 275kV circuits forming the outer West Midlands ring intact and to allow the 400kV circuit intact. Only other place I can think of this in same area is over near Berkswell where you have the tee off the ZF line also on 275 as the eastern part of same West Mids 275 ring network around Brum.

Iirc there is a gap of one or two towers in the numbering of 4WP I think around the point where it would have crossed and dived under ZL. I haven't got the numbers to hand as need to go on laptop to check lists. Cheers Paul

Yes they seemed to make the L3 into L3c with extended middle crossarms a lot easier than for the L2s

Makes you wonder why they didn't have a D90 in the L3 range or the other types of the DT and DJ towers. There is a nice L3 DJ tower at Stafford and another can be seen alongside the M6 near to Walsall, just to north of Bescot Yard where the L3 crosses over and runs parallel with a tee off. But not many like that. Even rarer are L66 DT towers though I think one might exist still at Harker really need to go check it out

That is one of the cons for the L2 design as it can be subject to conductor galloping and clashing in extreme weather conditions and partly why they tried to develop the L2c Coventry type towers but presumably CEGB asked for a totally new design, which after some Scottish trial lines became the L8 and later L8c versions, with the longer middle crossarms that would prevent the lower and middle clashing and the middle and top phases clashing.

Rotated bundle conductors to reduce wind loading in high wind conditions. Quite a few lines on higher elevations have these now on twin conductors. Part of ZP and ZQ are the same too. Makes them look odd I know. Cheers Paul

Interesting photo, I'd guess that is the ZF line under construction maybe? Would have to have a closer check to see if can match up any towers if still remain. Cheers Paul

Yep, yep they have certainly mucked things around a lot at Willington. Drakelow is the same lots has changed there too over the years. Not sure why that DT45X remained wired up unless it was simply used as an extension of the busbars? Or an outside chance it was isolated and used for tower training?? Cheers Paul

Yes the ZF and ZN lines radiating from Drakelow do have a lot of tees coming off them along the way for sure. I'm up in Cheshire myself but must somehow try and make a visit to Foremark and have a walk around - it looks like there are two good footpaths that go right near and under two of the D40s and very near to the other 3 towers that make up the triangular tee. Not sure if ZA or ZF are slightly longer would have to check. Yep bloomin' motorways and now HS2 tsk whatever next lol 😆 Cheers Paul

Yep, one tower seemed to be a DT45 then a DT45X or whatever the tower code is for that. If you have a look on Flickr for photos of Willington Power Station taken from what I guess was the Buckford Road overbridge just to the east on the mainline to Derby. Have a look on the extreme left side of these images and you can make out the DT45 but the second tower the DT45X is obscured by the PL and L7 132kV towers unfortunately but it gives you an idea though: you can see the DT45X wired up in this view above the train Look above the leading blue 20 of the train on the left Cheers Paul

Yes it is the orientation of the D30 tower bases that gives the former junction away even though the south circuit now runs across. Old OS maps further confirm the tee into Castle Donington too. I think they would have used an L2 DJX as the tee was added before the L8s were introduced in mid-60s from what I can tell. But obviously the two D30 towers were built like that from the start. Yes that interesting junction you mention and illustrate in the GE photos is pretty unique not many others like that. Think there is at least one on L6 lines over in Yorkshire. Definitely worthy of a fieldtrip to have a closer look one day I hope. The D40 EWCO is based on the D60 tower body with the long crossarms on each side of the tower but with that D60 type tower peaks. Yes ZL as built went direct to Iver but as with most Z* coded lines has been mucked about and changed a lot over the years. I think going off tower data, the L6 Coventry to Enderby line might have originally ducked under the L2 ZL line... there are two L6 DT towers on either side of the gap, a later L8 DT90 is used to turn the L6 south to rejoin the existing L2 ZL line heading south. The M69 opened in 1977, so maybe the alterations date from around this time? A L2 D40 EWCO is postioned right next to the M69 (north side) and runs over the motorway to a D tower then the L6 DT to head west towards Coventry. Maybe the L2 D tower was reused rather than build a new L8 D tower instead. All part of the mystery lol. Cheers Paul

I kind of fell into the trap of building a layout intended for exhibitions but could not fully put the boards up at home. When I lived in Bolton in theory I could put two halves of the layout up in the spare bedroom as 2ft + 4ft + 4ft then the other 2+4+4 alongside but that made working on both sets of boards rather cumbersome. So, I just put one half up to work on when it came to ballasting the track, then when needed joined board 2 to 3 to continue the ballasting over by some juggling around and balancing of boards on boxes ooo-err! It must have worked as still here to tell the tale. Boards 3, 4 and 4A (2ft) were then put up together. Same problem at my parents house and only some extreme furniture arranging in the back lounge and enclosed extension meant I could put all 20ft / 6 boards up hmm. And now at my partners house in Northwich, I could in theory put 3 boards up, in the back bedroom and insert a new curved board section to swing the tracks around in an arc, then connect the remaining 3 boards up. Oh and just enough room to squeeze my podgy frame out between the board and the door/doorframe double hmm 😒 🤔. So for now I have resigned myself to storing the boards for an even longer length of time until a solution can be found. I could with some major rearranging put up 3 boards / 10ft on tables to enable the scenic work to finally begin. I have given some serious thought about what to do with this layout, keep it and persist, jack it all in and sell it, or look for somewhere I can put the layout up on a long-term basis for weeks or months at a time to enable work to progress. Or look at a small modular board layout using baseboard kits from the likes of SMS or Tim Horn. Cheers Paul

Hi Felix, yes another power station that has changed a little bit. In essence, the substation connections were moved from feeding what I guess was the original 132/275 substation next to the power station buildings to a later 275/400 substation a little further west where it is now. On the ZD line, which is the eastern L2 line, on the approach to Willington it used to split and the south circuit terminated according to maps on what I would imagine was a ST tower to feed underground into the 132/275 sub. The east circuit continued via the D90 (right hand one in first photo) and continued on to terminate on a DT45 as a single circuit (west side). The other L2 line is ZSA and that originally started on the abandoned DT45 you see in the second photo, then a D10/30 then to the D90. Maps suggest that the north/east circuit on ZSA was connected from the D90 tower via two low height towers (running under the ZD D90 tower) and fed to the 132/275 sub. The weird thing is that DT45 you see in the second photo seems to be orientated the wrong way round if two circuits fed into it - you would expect the tower to face the other way with the third arms pointing towards the camera to allow the south/west circuit on ZSA to feed into the substation. Now all this has changed and the two newer L8 DTX towers are linked into what appears to be a newer more compact 275/400 substation as you can see in the Google Earth imagery but the east/north circuit on the ZSA line dives down under the west/south circuit on the ZD line and both connect back upto the DTX towers. According to the National Grid network map there is no circuit from Drakelow to Willington East using the ZS and ZSA lines but all the towers are wired up accordingly. Cheers Paul

Ok here is what I know about Castle Donington (CD) collated from various sources online. Construction began in 1951, and the station opened in 1958 (from Wikipedia). The northern L2 line is ZD that runs from Staythorpe PS to Willington PS with feeds into Ratcliffe-on-Soar and CD – according to NGC tower data if the years given are correct then Staythorpe to Ratcliffe was commissioned in 1959, whilst Ratcliffe to Willington was commissioned in 1955. A tee was either built in to the line when built or added after, but I would go with the former option. Between towers 158 and159, a triangular tee was used and linked on the south side (leading to power station) by a D40 EWCO tower - maybe tower 158A, then a D tower 158B and terminating on a DT tower 158C. This tee into CD was presumably removed c.1993/94 and the link between towers 158 and 159 on the south side circuit linked together. If you go on Google Earth and look for Back Ln https://goo.gl/maps/g9JDkD82vKzQ9pth7 you can see the two D30 towers with the towers angled inwards indicating where the tee used to exist. Why they just did not use or add in a DJX tee junction tower is not known as this is the usual method of adding a tee. The southern L2 line is a bit more of a mystery in that its origin is tied up with some other L2 lines nearby. At present the ZLA line is shown to start at CD and meets the ZL line at tee near to King's Newton. It then heads south as ZL line originally direct to Iver substation via East Claydon sub and later added subs at Patford Bridge (WCML supply) and Amersham Main. The circuits were altered and diverted near Potters Marston, where ZL used to cross over the M69 motorway but severed by joining to each side of the L6 4WP Coventry to Enderby line. Some alterations have taken place at some point in the past around the L2 lines from Drakelow, Willington and CD and the old OS maps available online show a muddled picture of the changes that without any photographic proof make it hard to say exactly what happened. Cheers Paul

With all these tower diagrams being posted it might be pertinent to suggest that these are just general arrangement diagrams and so they are never going to be as detailed as the original say Blaw Knox in-house drawings for say an L2 D standard tower showing every piece of bracing, nut and bolt. Sure, these BK drawings may well exist somewhere but pretty sure with metric conversions of designs newer drawings will have superceded them. The B.R. wagon general arrangement diagram for one of the I.C.I. bogie limestone hopper wagons (my pet favourite wagons) bears little resemblance to the original Charles Roberts official drawing of the same wagon aside from the obvious outline shape and dimensions. So for everyday usage the CEGB and the companies supplying it with tower designs almost certainly would have had full drawings and general arrangement versions, which is what I believe these scans are. And now these are available I can safely say I received a similar set from National Grid some years ago but not as complete as what Felix has uploaded. Cheers Paul

Hi Felix, yes indeed I got up close to that weird D90 tower on a wet Saturday back in 2011 lol... the things you do!! Ditto my other post I will have a look at my info. It is a shame oldmaps is no more as that was a goldmine for tracing routes old, new and changes to but alas gone now. NLS maps are ok but no where near the same level of coverage. Cheers Paul

I have done some work on Castle Donington as well but not got info to hand at present but will look to see which L2 came first but line codes related and link into those heading to Willington and Drakelow too. Cheers Paul

Not many L2 lines with more than one D90 tower - another localish one is the Kearsley to Whitegate 275kV line VJ I think it is (off top of me head) that has two D90s, first is second tower out after leaving Kearsley and the second is further along line next to M60 orbital motorway near Middleton, Manchester. This YYS Runcorn line runs to what is now the INEOS plant. Not sure if the line has ever been altered aside from the 400kV connection into the Rocksavage power plant and extra L8 ST tower that was inserted. Only part of this line appears on the NGC data iirc. Don't forget that a D90 tower is used to deviate lines from 61 upto the full 90 degrees angle, where the turn has to be more than than a D60 can go. Cheers Paul

From what I saw travelling home on the M5 on Wednesday afternoon, the new towers around the Avonmouth area appeared to be L7c terminal towers where the existing 132kV lines have been chopped and changed around to make way for the new L12 part of the new 400kV line. Further south the 132kV line from Weston-super-Mare was built with L3 towers and originally teed into a PL16 line. That PL16 is going I think and a new line using L7c towers will run to the new 400/132kV substation at Sandford from the existing L3 line. Previous tower replacements on this L3 have also been L7c towers as well in the past given the line has twin conductors fitted still. Cheers Paul

New L7c towers are being used on parts of the Hinkley to Seabanks project to divert, terminate and replace parts of the existing PL1 and PL16 tower lines rather than using L4 towers. Main areas are around Seabanks, Portishead and the new Churchill substation. Cheers Paul

Don't forget the steelwork parts for the transmission towers too, they could be loaded onto flat wagons in lengths or as part-built kit form. There is some evidence of trainloads of steel section and part-built tower sections being moved by rail especially in the mid to late 1960s, when the Supergrid was under construction. There were some interesting photos hosted on Flickr I think it was showing a train of bolster wagons loaded with what is thought to be steelwork for towers that were loaded at Hereford and coming from the Painter Brothers factory there. I suspect the original National Grid i.e. up to 132kV used towers made locally to approved standard designs and it may be only when the 275kV Supergrid came along that rail transport was used to move tower parts. Cheers Paul