Pylons .

[Fat Controller]

I remember a steel-fabricator (Painter?) at Hereford who used to prefabricate pylons; you'd sometimes see erected ones standing on their own by the side of the line that had once led to Brecon. They used to receive steel by rail, but I think the finished product went out by road.

[phil gollin]

.

 

Having spent a summer (a LONG time ago) tangentially involved in coal power station outages  -  there is a serious need for two large, detailed books on ;

 

1:  The development of the power station network.

 

2:  The development of the National Grid

 

.

[russ p]

They book about the MGR story covers both briefly

[Ian Morgan]

The trouble with calling them that is that people could think they get their TV signals from them.

Actually, they probably do. There is a fibre optic cable wrapped around the earth line on top of the major pylon routes, and the BBC use it to send their programmes to the transmitters (or they used to when I did some work for Energis).

Edited June 24, 2018 by Ian Morgan

[Fat Controller]

They book about the MGR story covers both briefly

'Merry-go-round on the rails' by David Monk-Steel, published by HMRS.

[Nearholmer]

I’m pretty sure that the IEE/IET history of technology series has relevant books, although they might be out print. I’ve got one published by CEGB in the 1960s that is good on the history of the grid.

[pharrc20]

Painter Brothers (Bros.) indeed supplied many fabricated PL tower designs and Milliken Bros., Pirelli, Blaw Knox and Watshams were all designers of double circuit D and single circuit S tower designs in the PL series and Blaw Knox designed some of the L series for 275kV and later 400kV L6 towers along with Balfour Beatty and one other plus the C.E.G.B.s own L6 design of L6.

Cheers Paul

I remember a steel-fabricator (Painter?) at Hereford who used to prefabricate pylons; you'd sometimes see erected ones standing on their own by the side of the line that had once led to Brecon. They used to receive steel by rail, but I think the finished product went out by road.

[pharrc20]

Absolutely agree with you Phil a good history book is well overdue on what might be considered one of the other backbones of Britain. There was a reasonable program on BBC4 some years ago called The Secret Life of the National Grid narrated by Philip Glennister. Somewhere I have a copy recorded onto DVD. There was a chap featured in the program who seemed to be very knowledgeable and I suspect had a vast archive of information.

Cheers Paul

.

 

Having spent a summer (a LONG time ago) tangentially involved in coal power station outages - there is a serious need for two large, detailed books on ;

 

1: The development of the power station network.

 

2: The development of the National Grid

 

.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Is there an Ian Allan ABC of pylons?

 

I feel a spotting urge coming on.....

[pharrc20]

Well the good news is I found my Hornby pylon kit conversions. Bad news is the have been damaged... mainly due to the extra plastic I used being broken or going brittle.

 

Serves me right for not buying stronger brass section for the important structural parts and infilling with plastic. Oh well.

 

The background to these was to simply build a few based on ones I had seen up close. So a D60 (D=Double circuit i.e. three crossarms each side top middle bottom each carrying one three phase circuit on each side of the tower. 60= max. angle of deviation in degrees) was modelled on one up on the hillside above the former Gowhole Sidings near New Mills. Whilst a DT terminal tower was based on the one at the substation next to the Hope Valley line just east of New Mills South Jnc. The 5 PL1 towers are used to turn in the single circuit 33kV line to Gowhole substation running down the hillside.

My take on the D60 tower

 

My DT modelled on Gowhole one

 

An as built

 

And finally an incomplete D30 which you can see the extra and modified parts in white styrene

 

I have parts from secondhand Hornby kits to bash into other PL1 towers but never got round to starting them.

 

Cheers Paul

[pharrc20]

Sadly no... but I have often wondered about doing. I did however make my own booklet via an Aldi photo book offer a few years ago one Christmas. And this is what it turned out like....

 

Is there an Ian Allan ABC of pylons?

 

I feel a spotting urge coming on.....

[Fat Controller]

Painter Brothers (Bros.) indeed supplied many fabricated PL tower designs and Milliken Bros., Pirelli, Blaw Knox and Watshams were all designers of double circuit D and single circuit S tower designs in the PL series and Blaw Knox designed some of the L series for 275kV and later 400kV L6 towers along with Balfour Beatty and one other plus the C.E.G.B.s own L6 design of L6.

Cheers Paul

Blaw-Knox? I've always thought of them as builders of heavy construction machinery.

[BernardTPM]

Actually, they probably do. There is a fibre optic cable wrapped around the earth line on top of the major pylon routes, and the BBC use it to send their programmes to the transmitters (or they used to when I did some work for Energis).

Interesting, though the actual signal doesn't transmit from the towers as such. I believe British Rail also provided routes for fibre optic cables in their trackside trunking.

[Fat Controller]

Interesting, though the actual signal doesn't transmit from the towers as such. I believe British Rail also provided routes for fibre optic cables in their trackside trunking.

'Project Mercury' was predicated on this; a joint venture between Cable and Wireless and BR's Telecoms Division.

[BernardTPM]

That's the project! I think they Pipe wagons painted pale blue used for this work.

[Dave Searle]

One of our team scratchbuilt a Pylon for our N gauge Hinksey Yard.  See the fourth photo in this post:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/33440-hinksey-yard-c2010/page-9&do=findComment&comment=1633041

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

[pharrc20]

Blaw-Knox? I've always thought of them as builders of heavy construction machinery.

Blaw Knox were responsible for the design of at least 3 of the 132kV P.L. design of towers - the Central Electricity P.L.4; South Western Electricity P.L.16 and the Scottish P.L.16s along with several special design towers.

 

Cheers Paul

[pharrc20]

Not by much no. I'll dig some photos out to show you.

Cheers Paul

A couple of photos showing examples of what I consider to be pre-grid designs mainly now in use on 11 - 66kV lines

 

One of showing a tower not far from where I live in Hazel Grove - this used to be part of a line running from Stockport to Macclesfield originally double-circuit I believe. Now used for local 11kV distribution. The ID plate on the tower still read Norweb back then and stated it was Tower 6 Line 9

 

These next two are near Stalybridge up on the hillside above the Stalybridge to Huddersfield line if they haven't gone. Two different types of D2 towers

 

A pair of towers used to take a pole line up and over the Manchester to Chester railway line not far from where the WCML passes underneath at Hartford Junction. A similar pair can be found south of Winsford crossing over the WCML there as well.Not 100% sure if they are pre-grid or not

 

Another design this time on the outskirts of Weston-super-Mare you can see them as you enter Weston by train from the Bristol direction although the actual line runs south towards Taunton and is or was going to be dismantled soon or at least the part around Weston is. I will see in a few weeks if this has been done yet or not when I am staying in Weston.

 

And lastly what looks like a scaled and slimmed down PL1b single-circuit design that runs from Waterswallows substation near Buxton towards the town itself probably the remains of an original much longer line that used to run all the way from Stalybridge now truncated at New Mills.

 

Just a few of my photos lol

Cheers Paul

[PatB]

I like the wonderfully asymmetrical ones in the last photo. Haven't noticed any like that before.

[SHMD]

The D2 towers, in the second and third photos, are still there as they are at the end of my street!

 

What isn't there any more is the heather on the moors on the other side of the valley as it was all burnt off a few weeks ago.

 

 

Kev.

[pharrc20]

I like the wonderfully asymmetrical ones in the last photo. Haven't noticed any like that before.

You don't tend to get many single circuit pre-grid tower designs. The only other local ones I can think of run from near Hale to Mobberley with gaps around the M56 area where the line has been altered to run on poles instead.

Cheers Paul

[pharrc20]

The D2 towers, in the second and third photos, are still there as they are at the end of my street!

 

What isn't there any more is the heather on the moors on the other side of the valley as it was all burnt off a few weeks ago.

 

 

Kev.

That is good to hear Kev I wasn't just sure if they were still up as not been up that way for a while now. The main reason I went to Stalybridge was to look at the alterations they were making to the L6 line coming in from Woodhead and the L2 line coming in from Macclesfield/Bredbury and the new L2 towers they put in linking the 275 and 400kV substations there.

Cheers Paul

[Ruston]

I remember a steel-fabricator (Painter?) at Hereford who used to prefabricate pylons; you'd sometimes see erected ones standing on their own by the side of the line that had once led to Brecon. They used to receive steel by rail, but I think the finished product went out by road.

Painter Bros. I once visited the works to see the two 2ft. gauge Lister Blackstone locos that worked the internal railway there. Apparently, they made all the steelwork for The Skylon for the Festival of Britain, in 1951. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylon_(Festival_of_Britain)

[SHMD]

Related to Paul's (Pharrc20's) photos above of the two D2 towers near Stalybridge, are these.

 

Paul's two D2s drop down another 100m into the site of the former 64MW coal fired Hartshead power station at Heyrod. (Which was demolished in the 80s.)

On this same site, a tower was replaced recently.

 

 

In an attempt to sort out the confusion, the old "being replaced" tower is just behind the tower being erected on the temporary base in the immediate foreground.

 

 

 

(..effin' auto rotate! Just shows haw smart "smart" stuff is.)

 

 

Kev.

 

[russ p]

I wish someone would write a definitive spotters guide to pylons so I can bore people senseless on car and train journeys

I know a few but need to know more